With regard to dialects, the twenty plus different ethnic groups who historically lived within their own territories each developed their own local dialects. The dialect spoken by Halha, Mongolia’s largest ethnic group, is the most widely known. The eastern Mongolian dialects include those spoken by ethnic groups who previously inhabited Inner Mongolia and now live on the far eastern steppe, in Drnod province. Northern dialects are spoken by Buriyat people, who still live in northern Mongolian and the Buriyat republic in southern Siberia. Western dialects include those spoken by the ethnic groups belonging to the Oirad. These groups live in western Mongolia and inhabit Altai mountain range.
Alphabet
Mongolian is written in Cyrillic, but the traditional Mongolian script, which is written from the top downwards and sometimes known as the classical Mongolian script is gradually reappearing, mainly in sings and logos. The oldest example of this script has been preserved is the so-called Chinggis stone, which is still in display at St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum. The script was engraved as early as 1225 and is a eulogy of the fearless archer Esughe, who shot a sigle arrow 600 meters. The classic Mongolian script (also known as old Mongolian alphabet) was a landmark in the in the development of written language in central Asia.
In 1941 the classical script was replaced by the new alphabet based on Russian Cyrillic characters and introduced to Mongolia as the official script of the country. There is no major difference between the spelling and the pronunciation of this script. The modern Mongolian alphabet consists of 35 characters. Below are each of the characters and a basic language guide, including greetings, simple questions and numbers.
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