The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
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FEATURES 18 The Linguist Vol/57 No/2 2018 Enkhtuvshin Namsrai explores how the language has developed with each socio-political movement, and what that means for its future S ince Mongolia opened its doors to the West in 1990, images of Mongolian eagle hunters, riders, reindeer herders and wrestlers have become increasingly familiar. In recent years they have been joined by new impressions: talented young opera singers, huge mines, and Mongolian troops in international peace-keeping forces. Foreign tourism, and the use of Mongolia's beautiful natural space for various international sporting events, have increased the country's profile even further. But the local language remains a significant barrier to cultural understanding. Mongolian has evolved over many centuries to bear little resemblance to any other living language. More and more people, drawn by Mongolia's many charms, are trying to learn the language. While undoubtedly challenging, this can also be deeply rewarding. Modern 'standard' Mongolian is spoken by around 3 million people in Mongolia. Various other forms of the language are used by a further 4 million in adjoining parts of China and Russia. Mongolian is classified as an Altaic language, having grammatical features in common with Turkic, Manchurian-Tungusic, Korean and Japanese. However, apart from a small shared vocabulary with modern Turkic-based languages, Mongolian is now quite distinct. In reaching its current state, it has undergone three major waves of linguistic enrichment and change in the last 500 years. Each has been driven by the influence of foreign languages and their interaction with Mongolian writing systems. Written from top to bottom and left to right, the classical Mongolian script, Uigarjin Bichig, dates back to the 13th century, around the time of Chinggis Khaan (Genghis Khan). Like Classical Chinese (wenyan), it was a written language used by the ruling elite and was not used to transcribe spoken Mongolian directly. New religion, new language With the establishment of Buddhism as the dominant Mongolian religion in the late 16th century, local Buddhist clergy used Tibetan and Sanskrit philosophical and religious texts from which new vocabulary was transliterated into classical Mongolian script. From the Tibetan/Sanskrit word lama came the Mongolian word for a Buddhist monk, lam; while the Mongolian word sansar, for 'cosmos' or 'space', came from the Sanskrit word saṃsāra in its sense of 'world'. Terms for the days of the week, personal names and other commonly-used vocabulary entered Mongolian directly from Tibetan. Many plants, minerals and animal products now have Tibetan-based names, originating from the pharmacopeia of the Tibetan monasteries. In this way a vast treasury of new vocabulary moved from the written to the spoken language and is still in use today. This impact on the Mongolian language can be compared to that of Latin on early mediaeval English. Later political history left its linguistic mark as well. When Mongolia came under the control of the Manchu Qing dynasty during the 17th century, both Chinese and Manchu words entered Mongolian through official and commercial exchanges. Examples from Chinese are the Mongolian words taij (from taizi; 'prince'), guanz (from guanzi; 'teahouse') and mujaan (from mujia; 'carpenter'). New politics, new language The second major linguistic wave hit Mongolia in the first half of the 1940s, when under the influence of Soviet communism, the classical Mongolian script was officially replaced by a slightly modified Cyrillic alphabet. As noted above, written and spoken Mongolian had previously been quite distinct, and illiteracy was the norm among ordinary people. Journey across M