Origin of Mongolian Language
Mongolian is an Altaic language spoken by about 5 million people in Mongolia, China, Afghanistan and Russia. There are many different types of Mongolian spoken: Khalkha or Halha, the national language of Mongolia, and Oirat, Chahar and Ordos, which are spoken mainly in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of China. The alphabet created by Tatar-Tonga,a Uyghur scribe who was catpured by Turkic tribes when the Mongolians defeated the Naimans, is now known as the Uighur/Uyghur Script, the classical or traditional Mongol Script, the Old Script, or Mongol Bichig in Mongolian. The traditional Mongolian script was not really ideal for writing in the traditional language. In the 13th century, the ruler of the time asked a Tibetan monk called Drogön Chögyal Phagpa to rewrite the Mongolian script. This was known as 'Phags-pa script or Mongolian new script. In the late 17th century a Mongolian monk and scholar called Bogdo Zanabazar created a new script for Mongolian called Soyombo. Bogdo Zanabazar also created another script for Mongolian known as the Mongolian Square Script or Mongolian Horizontal Square Script, which was rediscovered in 1801. It was based on the Tibetan script, but what it was used for is uncertain. In 1567 the translator and scholar Ayuush Güüsh added extra letters to the traditional Mongol Script to make it possible to write loanwords from Tibetan, Sanskrit and Chinese in Mongolian texts. This version of the script is known as the Galik script. In February 1941 the Mongolian government abolished the traditional Mongolian script and from 1st February to 25 Match 1941 Mongolian was written with a version of the Latin alphabet. Then the Cyrillic alphabet was adopted as the official writing system in Mongolia. The official reasons for abandoning the Latin alphabet were the the spelling system used did not correctly represent the sounds of Mongolian very well, but books and newspapers were published in the Latin alphabet, and the decision to switch to the Cyrillic alphabet might have been political.
How to: Write Mongolian Script
("Mongolian (монгол)")