Talk:Mongolian script

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Contents 1 Folded script 2 Created by? 3 Scouting in Mongolia 4 ɣ or γ ? 5 final 'k' 6 Writing direction

[edit] Folded script

Moved the start of this discussion from Talk:Mongolian writing systems, where this talk page previously redirected to. --Latebird 01:03, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

There may be only one online reference, but it contains an actual picture of the script from Choijilsüren, D. Mongolin Khuuchin Bichgiin Tsagaan Tolgoi Zov Bichih Dürem. edited by Kh. Luvsanbadlan, G. Nasanbuyan & J. Amgalan. Ulaghanbaghatur Khota, Mongolian People's Republic: Academy of Science Publisher, 1978 (no ISBN) Mlewan 23:33, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't doubt that the Mongolian script has been written in rectangular designs. That was the case with many scripts, and quite typical for seals of the time and area. What I'm not certain about is whether the term "folded script" is established terminology, and whether it's specific to this script. I've found some references for "nine folded script", as a similar design variant of the Phagspa script or even Chinese characters. It's quite possible that "folded" is just an adjective in that context, and not the name of one single script. --Latebird 00:17, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I do not think "Folded script" is a mainstream English expression for a concept that is widely known in English. However, from the references it seems fairly clear that one in Mongolia considers it specific enough to have a word for it. It would have been good to be able to provide a Mongolian term, but failing that, "folded" works for me. Mlewan 06:01, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

The main problem is, we don't have access to the original source (unless you do?), but only a non-scholarly interpretation of it. This is too uncertain for me to keep that paragraph. I should have cross checked more carefully before writing it in the first place. --Latebird 09:57, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Using better search terms I found more sources ([1], [2], [3]) who use "folded" (or to the extreme, "nine folded") as an adjective applicable to any script, and not as a name for just one of them. --Latebird 10:36, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

OK. I googled for 蒙 (Mongol) and 九叠 (jiudie/nine folded) and found no particularly good leads in Chinese. Even if the script term exists in Mongolian, I suspect it is unlikely anyone will miss it, if we leave it out. Mlewan 17:57, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

This writing style is used on Mongolian banknotes, right next to the portraits of Sükhbaatar/Genghis Khan, so I think it would be worth mentioning. But only if we can find out the correct term. Yaan 11:35, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Great example! I think "folded" is the correct term, just that it can be applied to any script and not just this one. Think of it as a font style instead of a seperate script. --Latebird 12:26, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

But maybe 'folded' is just an ad-hoc translation of the Chinese term? 'Nine-folded' sounds somewhat suspicious. In any case, the mongolian term seems to be 'bar bichig', where bar means something like printing plate.Yaan 22:14, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I still think we're hunting a phantom here. At least the online oracle has never heard of "бар бичиг". That's probably what is normally translated as "Seal script style" (seal = stamp ~ printing plate). In either case, it's not a seperate script, but just a style (something like this). Besides 9-folded, other amounts of folding have also been used. babelstone has a nice table with examples for the Phagspa script. --Latebird 22:53, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

google doesn' know everything ;) - but I don't know either. Anyway, I fully agree it's just a writing style and not a separate script, but I still think it's worth mentioning since Phags-pa seems to be also known as seal or square script (mong. dörvöljin bichig). Something like "The rectangular writing style somewhat popular today, found for example on the Tögrög banknotes, is just a variant of the classic script, not of the actual square (Phags-pa) script" Yaan 23:20, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Agree, it's just a writing style. The word "folded" (as adj.) seems to refer to the writing style, rather than to a separate script. It's worth to mention this style because it's widely used on logos, etc,. But not as a separate page but within the page for the classic Mongolian script. (though Choijilsüren, D. Mongolin Khuuchin Bichgiin Tsagaan Tolgoi Zov Bichih Dürem. shows it as a separate script parallelly with Soyombo and Quadratic. That's perhaps layout mistake in the book.)

Gantuya Eng 25 July 2007

[edit] Created by?

Could anyone give a reference on Tatar-Tonga about creating the script? --Dolugen 04:38, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

It's from the Omniglot link (which may or may not be reliable). --Latebird 07:47, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Isn't Tatatunga more usual version of his name?

Gantuya Eng. 25 July 2007

The form "Tatatunga" seems to be strangely popular with sites in Czech language. I see "tatar-tonga" more often in scholarly sources, though. A discussion of some variants is included here (although it's a forum, the text reproduces scientific material). --Latebird 12:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Thak you for te information. Gantuya Eng

[edit] Scouting in Mongolia

Can someone render Belen Bol (Be Prepared), the Scout Motto, into this Mongolian script? Thanks! Chris 03:25, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure it sounds like that in Mongolian? "Belen bol" or "Become prepared" will look like this: бэлэн бол. But it sounds strange. The traditional children's motto was Хэзээд бэлхэн "Hezeed belhen" ("(I am) ready forever") like the Russian children's motto Всегда готов "Vsegda gotov". Gantuya eng 03:44, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

As far as I am aware. Scouts and Pioneers use distinctly different mottoes, though there is a relationship there. Thank you so much for your help! Chris 04:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I have scouted the website of the Mongolian scouts at http://www.owc.org.mn/scout/membermn.htm Their motto is Хэзээд бэлхэн "Hezeed belhen" ("(I am) ready forever"). Gantuya eng 04:36, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you again, this is great and much needed! Chris 08:17, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ɣ or γ ?

Wouldn't it be better to use the latin gamma for that "other g"? All books I have seen use a gamma with loop, and it also looks much less Y-like. Yaan 15:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

It would be better. The scientific convention is <ɣ> or sometimes <ġ>. G Purevdorj 20:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by G Purevdorj (talk • contribs)

[edit] final 'k'

The Mongol bichig schoolbook I have at home (from Outer Mongolia and the 1980s) lists no final 'k'. while this article does. Is this just another case of differing opinions, or did the authors of this schoolbook get it wrong? Yaan (talk) 11:52, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Reconstruction and transcription may be totally different matters. The transcription letter k probably was *kh (aspirated k), the letter g probably *k. However, plosives in Old Mongolian are an extremely complicated and controverse issue that I don't wanna dive into now. But when transcribing, we can simply adhere to an existing convention, and the transcription convention adapted by wikipedia at the time being (that is rather identical to the philological convention) says that there is no word-final letter k and q. If we want to TRANSCRIBE the name of the Mongolian noble where I made the comment from the UIGURO-MONGOLIAN script (which is only one of several scipts used for Mongolian transmitted to us, and not the one with the most precise phonological clues for reconstruction), it would definitely have to stay as it is in the title of the article, with gh in second position.

I've fixed the table somewhat in this respect. But I think I unwisely deleted word-final n and y at a previous occasion. It's the same as with gh: they exist when followed by a detached a or e. Could you deal with that issue? G Purevdorj 12:43, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I will try, maybe tomorrow (or once you tell me what the letters should look like). But I don't seem to be able to find what I have in mind here, so this may be a bit more complicated. Btw. I was also wondering about one of those medial t's. Are they all correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yaan (talk • contribs) 14:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Kind of. The first two t/d's are two forms of one and the same t. You won't find both within one text. These two t/d's are used before vowels. The third one is only d, never t, and it is used before consonants. So is the word-final letter. It would be appropriate to separate the last two fields in the table. However, this simple table won't enable anyone to cope with transcribing Mongolian. If you are interested, have a lool at [[4]]. I would sometimes use somewhat different conventions and even they forgot one issue, but this document is fairly complete. But probably we can't be that precise here. G Purevdorj 14:27, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Writing direction

Most other vertical writing systems are written right to left, but the medieval Uyghur alphabet and its descendants—the Mongolian, the Oirat Clear, the Manchu, and the Buryat alphabets—proceed from left to right. This is because the Uyghurs rotated their script 90 degrees counterclockwise to emulate the Chinese writing system.

Not the clearest of explanations. Does this mean that Uyghur was initially written horizontally from right to left? Geira (talk) 21:27, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not that sure about the explanation, but it is indeed the case that the Sogdian script as the precessor of the Uygur script was written as you say. Look at two examples [[5]], [[6]]. Then a tiny example of turned Sogdian: [[7]]. For the next stage, here some Uygur writing: [[8]]. And at the end, it became good old Middle Mongolian: [[9]]. If you can read this, you'll be able to read many of the letters of the earlier scipts as well! G Purevdorj 23:48, 18 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by G Purevdorj (talk • contribs)

I'm pretty sure it means that the rotation happened when the Sogdian script was adapted by the Uyghurs. But it would indeed be nice to have a good source for that. --Latebird (talk) 06:07, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

What I found most confusing is the comparison with the Chinese script. Twice when I've read it I'm thinking "hold on, this must be wrong since Chinese was written vertically right-left", and it takes some thinking to figure out what is actually meant by "emulating" here. Perhaps it would be better to say they preferred to write vertically like the Chinese did.Geira (talk) 10:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Is that better? kwami (talk) 11:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)