Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet

The word 'Mongolia' ('Mongol') in Cyrillic script

The Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet (Mongolian: Монгол Кирилл үсэг, Mongol kirill üseg or Mongolian: Кирилл цагаан толгой, Kirill tsagaan tolgoi) is the writing system used for the standard dialect of the Mongolian language in the modern state of Mongolia. It has a largely phonemic orthography, meaning that there is a fair degree of consistency in the representation of individual sounds. Cyrillic has not been adopted as the writing system in the Inner Mongolia region of China, which continues to use the Traditional Mongolian script.

History

Mongolian Cyrillic is the most recent of the many writing systems that have been used for Mongolian. It is a Cyrillic alphabet (equivalent to the Bulgarian and Russian alphabets, but with two additional characters Өө ⟨ö⟩ and Үү ⟨ü⟩).

It was introduced in the 1940s in the Mongolian People's Republic under Soviet influence, after a brief period where Latin was used as the official script. After the Mongolian democratic revolution in 1990, the traditional script was briefly considered to replace Cyrillic, but it has not come to fruition. Nevertheless, Mongolian script has become a compulsory subject in primary and secondary school and is slowly gaining popularity.^[1] The Mongolian script is a highly unusual vertical script, and unlike for example Chinese script, cannot easily be adapted for horizontal use, which puts it at a disadvantage vis-a-vis Cyrillic for many modern uses. Thus, the Cyrillic script continues to be used in everyday life and on the Internet.

Description

The Cyrillic alphabet used for Mongolian is as follows (with borrowed sounds in parentheses):

Үү and Өө are sometimes also written as Її (or Vv) and Єє respectively,^[5] when using Russian software or keyboards that don't support them.

Initial long vowels and non-initial full vowels are written with double vowel letters, while initial short vowels and non-initial epenthetic vowels are written with single vowel letters. Conversely, every vowel letter except у and ү can also represent schwa and zero in non-first syllables. Palatalization is indicated by и (i), the soft sign ь (') or е (ye), ё (yo), я (ya) and ю (yu) after the palatalized consonant. These latter letters are pronounced without [j] in that position. Щ is never used in Mongolian and only used in Russian words containing the letter.^[6] Its actual pronunciation in loans by monolingual Mongolians is unknown. The difference between [e~i] might be dialectal,^[7] while the difference between ө~o is positional.^[8]

/ɡ/ and /ɢ/ are both indicated by the letter г ⟨g⟩, but the phonetic value of that letter is mostly predictable. In words with "front" (+ATR) vowels (see Mongolian phonology for details), it always means /ɡ/, because only /ɡ/ occurs in such words. In words with "back" (−ATR) vowels, it always means /ɢ/, except syllable-finally, where it means /ɡ/; to acquire the value of /ɢ/, it is written as followed by a single mute syllable-final vowel letter. Similarly, a mute vowel is added to final н ⟨n⟩ to make it denote /n/ and not /ŋ/. ф (f) and к (k) are loan consonants and will often be adapted into the Mongolian sound system as [pʰ] and [x].^[9]

References

1. ↑ "Монгол бичиг XXI зуунд хэлэлцүүлгээс уриалга гаргалаа" [Announcements from the "Mongolian script in the 21st century" debate]. 13 May 2011 (in Mongolian). GoGo.mn. Retrieved 20 February 2012. 
2. ↑ Svantesson, Jan-Olof, Anna Tsendina, Anastasia Karlsson, Vivan Franzén. 2005. The Phonology of Mongolian. New York: Oxford University Press: 30-40.
3. ↑ "Монгол кирил үсгийн латин хөрвүүлгийн шинэ стандарт батлагдлаа" [New latinization standard for Mongolian cyrillic script approved]. 18 February 2012 (in Mongolian). GoGo.mn. Retrieved 20 February 2012. 
4. ↑ www.Omniglot.com. Note that this evidence is based on a pronunciation of the alphabet, not of a word in context.
5. ↑ Sühbaatar, B. "Mongol helnij kirill üsgijg latin üsgeer galiglah tuhaj". InfoCon. Retrieved 2009-01-03. 
6. ↑ Svantesson et al. 2005: 30-40.
7. ↑ Svantesson et al. 2005 who proclaim a merger. Luvsanjav, J. (1975): Mongol avianii duudlaga. Ulaanbaatar: MUIS: 14-15 claims that word-initial e-s are articulated towards i, while others are not. But LaCross, Amy (2012): Non-adjacent Phonological Dependency Effects on Khalkha Mongolian Speech Perception. Proceedings of the 29th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, ed. Jaehoon Choi et al., 143-151. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, 143-151 keeps them distinct
8. ↑ Svantesson et al. 2005: 1-10.
9. ↑ Svantesson et al. 2005: 30-40