Mongolian is a Mongolic language and the official language of Mongolian. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. In Mongolia, the Khalkha dialect, written in Cyrillic (and at times in Latin for social networking), is predominant, while in Inner Mongolia, the language is dialectally more diverse and is written in the traditional Mongolian script.

History

The history of the Mongolian language is usually divided into three distinct eras. The first of these, Old, or Ancient, Mongolian, was spoken until around the 12th century CE. This is often equated with the Proto-Mongolian language. It was then followed by the Middle Mongolian period, lasted until the 16th century CE. Modern Mongolian has been dominant since. The first attestation of the Mongolian Script is from around 1225 CE, though it seems to have developed about 30 years earlier. The texts in this script are classified as Middle Mongolian, and are part of a pre-Classical era of Mongolian literature. The conversion of the Mongols to Buddhism (c. 1575) ushered in the Classical period (17th and early 18th centuries) of translation of scriptural texts from Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese, and this period corresponds to the commencement of the Modern period of the spoken language. Not until the 19th century did features of contemporary spoken Mongolian languages begin to appear in Mongolian texts.

The other Mongolian languages started to split off from Old Mongolian following the expansion of the Mongols during the Middle Mongolian period.

Linguistics

As a Mongolic language, Mongolian is related to other languages such as Daur, Oirat, Monguor, Shira Yugur and Moghol. Some linguists theorize it is part of a larger family with the Kitan language.

The data discussed here is from the standard Khalkha variety of Mongolian in Mongolia.

Classification

Mongolian's full classification is as follows:

Mongolic (Proto-Mongolic Language) > Mongolian

Phonology and Phonotactics

There are seven monophthong vowel phonemes in Mongolian. Word-initially, there is a phonemic contrast for length, giving a total of 14 contrastive vowel phonemes (length is only contrastive word initially). These phonemes are /i e ɵ a ɔ ʊ u/ with their corresponding long forms (/oː/ is the long form of /ɵ/, due to a sound change in the non-lenghtened one).

There are 29 consonant phonemes, with an additional four that only appear in loan words. The maximal syllable structure is CVVCCC, and stress is non-phonemic and there is not much scholary consensus on where stress falls in a word.

Mongolian also has two types of vowel harmony. The first, known as Advanced Tongue Root, is a three-way system. The other is based off rounding, and does not affect closed vowels.

Morphology and Syntax

Mongolian is an aggulitinative language, and almost wholly suffixing, with the one exception being reduplication.

Mongolian nouns decline for plurality and case, as well as reflexivization. Plurality is not required, and is never used when the context already indicates the noun is plural. Mongolian declines for eight different cases: nominative, genitive, dative-locative, accusative, ablative, instrumental, comitative and directive.

Mongolian verbs are conjugated by extensive addition of suffixes. These are attached in the following order: voice - aspect - mood.

Mongolian has several different voice suffixes.

The active suffix, is unmarked on the verb and is used when the subject of the sentence is active.
The causative voice suffix is used when the subject (which doesn't have to appear) causes something to happen.
The passive voice suffix, which works similar to the English passive but is rarely used.
The communal voice suffix, which expresses that the action of the subject is associated with the action(s) of other(s). The subject is usually a helper, but the action of 'helping' is not being stressed; rather, it's the fact that someone takes part or is involved in the action that is being stressed.
The adversative voice suffix is used when actions of two or more subjects happen simultaneously; despite its name, it is not inherently negative.

Likewise, there are many aspect suffixes:

quick action suffix, which expresses that the action happens quickly and in a short time. Can sometimes be translated with "a little, a bit".
temporary action, which signifies the action is to continue for a little while, but has a temporary character.
completed action, which expresses an action that has been fully completed; often appears with the perfect aspect, and bears a slight perfect meaning
collective action, which reveals that many people (usually more than two) are involved in the action, and thus the subject is plural
repetitive action, which expresses an action that is repeated again and again
progressive action, which indicates something is happening currently
perfect action, which is an action that continues up to a certain selected point of time in the past/present/future; very similar to the English perfect aspect
progressive-perfect aspect, which combines the previous two.

The following mood suffixes are used in Mongolian:

noun determining suffixes, which link the verb to a succeeding noun. Among these there are ones for past, indefinite present, progressive present, future, and "doer".
adword determining suffixes, which include suffixes for wish, possibility and necessity.
verb determining suffixes: simultaneous, associative, anterior, conditional, concessive, immediately succeeding, logically succeeding, intending, limiting, progressive, succeeding, seizing opportunity and excluding.
person-bound terminating suffixes, which include: intention, decision, command, request, demand, admonition, appeal, permission, hope, blessing
tense-bound terminating suffixes, which include: general past, three other past suffixes, indefinite present, progressive present, present and future.

There are seven personal pronouns used in Mongolian. There are two singular 'you', with one being an honorific and the other being more informal. The honorific is the original form, and it was from this that the plural 'you' is derived. The third person pronouns are considered impolite, as they originally derived from demonstratives. All forms can be seen in the table below:

Meaning	Pronoun
1s	Би
2s informal	Чи
2s formal	Та
3s	Тэр
1pl	Бид
2pl	Та нар
3pl	Тэд

нар, required with the second person plural, can be added to the third and first person plural to stress the plural meaning or to indicate a group of individuals.

Miscellany

Mongolian is now currently written in the Cyrillic alphabet, though the Mongolian Script is used in China.

Samples

Spoken sample:

Wikitongues Recording: https://youtu.be/7l8wsBlSCpQ
Song: https://youtu.be/MG_FhWyUVGU

Written sample:

Cyrillic: Хүн бүр төрж мэндлэхдээ эрх чөлөөтэй, адилхан нэр төртэй, ижил эрхтэй байдаг. Оюун ухаан нандин чанар заяасан хүн гэгч өөр хоорондоо ахан дүүгийн үзэл санаагаар харьцах учиртай.

Mongolian Script Image here

Sources

Wikipedia articles on Mongolian
Mongolian Grammar, Kullmann & Tserenpil

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Тавтай морилогтун - This week's language of the week: Mongolian!