Mongolian script

, with the earliest known inscription in the Mongolian script. Tata-tonga, a 13th-century Uyghur scribe captured by Genghis Khan, was responsible for bringing the Old Uyghur alphabet to the Mongolian Plateau and adapting it to the form of the Mongolian script. From the seventh and eighth to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Mongolian language separated into southern, eastern and western dialects. The principal documents from the period of the Middle Mongol language are: in the eastern dialect, the famous text The Secret History of the Mongols, monuments in the Square script, materials of the Chinese–Mongolian glossary of the fourteenth century and materials of the Mongolian language of the middle period in Chinese transcription, etc.; in the western dialect, materials of the Arab–Mongolian and Persian–Mongolian dictionaries, Mongolian texts in Arabic transcription, etc. Pens were also historically made of wood, bamboo, bone, bronze, or iron. Ink used was black or cinnabar red, and written with on birch bark, paper, cloths made of silk or cotton, and wooden or silver plates. File:Kalam2.jpg|Reed pens File:Pinceaux chinois.jpg|Ink brushes File:Богд хааны бичгийн хэрэглэл.jpg|Writing implements of the Bogd Khan Mongols learned their script as a syllabary, dividing the syllables into twelve different classes, based on the final phonemes of the syllables, all of which ended in vowels. The script remained in continuous use by Mongolian speakers in Inner Mongolia in the People's Republic of China. In the Mongolian People's Republic, it was largely replaced by the Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet, although the vertical script remained in limited use. In March 2020, the Mongolian government announced plans to increase the use of the traditional Mongolian script and to use both Cyrillic and Mongolian script in official documents by 2025. Due to the particularity of the traditional Mongolian script, a large part (40%) of the Sinicized Mongols in China are unable to read or write this script, and in many cases the script is only used symbolically on plaques in many cities. == Names ==

The script is known by a wide variety of names. As it was derived from the Old Uyghur alphabet, the Mongol script is known as the Uighur(-)Mongol script. From 1941 onwards, it became known as the Old Script, in contrast to the New Script, referring to Cyrillic. The Mongolian script is also known as the Hudum or 'not exact' script, in comparison with the Todo 'clear, exact' script, and also as 'vertical script'. == Overview ==

The traditional or classical Mongolian alphabet, sometimes called Hudum 'traditional' in Oirat in contrast to the Clear script (Todo 'exact'), is the original form of the Mongolian script used to write the Mongolian language. It does not distinguish several vowels ('/', '/', final '/') and consonants (syllable-initial '/' and '/', sometimes '/') that were not required for Uyghur, which was the source of the Mongol (or Uyghur-Mongol) script. hard, or yang vowels ', ', and ''''. • The front, female, feminine, Separated final vowels A separated final form of vowels ' or ' ( '''') is common, and can appear at the end of a word stem, or suffix. This form requires a final-shaped preceding letter, and a word-internal gap in between. This gap can be transliterated with a hyphen. The presence or lack of a separated ' or ' can also indicate differences in meaning between different words (compare '''' 'black' with '''' 'to look'). Isolate citation forms Isolate citation forms for syllables containing ', ', ', and ' may in dictionaries appear without a final tail as in '/' or '/', and with a vertical tail as in '/' or '/' (as well as in transcriptions of Chinese syllables). == Flaws ==

In the traditional Mongolian script, certain letters—such as t and d, o and u—were frequently confused, and letter formation varied inconsistently at the beginning, middle, and end of words. The poor legibility between letters and the requirement to memorize each syllable's shape individually increased the learning burden of the script. Additionally, its structural characteristics led to wider line spacing, consuming more space and paper. For example, in Qing Dynasty texts like the Pentaglot Dictionary, the Manchu and Mongolian sections occupy a larger portion of the page. Moreover, vertical text alignment is ill-suited to modern needs. == Letters ==

Sort orders Only in a late form can a definite order of signs be established for the alphabet, but can likely be traced back to an earlier Uyghur model. In 1917, the politician and linguist Bayantömöriin Khaisan published the rime dictionary Mongolian-Han Bilingual Original Sounds of the Five Regions, a bilingual edition of the earlier Original Sounds of the Five Regions, to aid Mongolian speakers in learning Mandarin Chinese. To that end, he included transliterations of Mandarin using the Mongolian script, and repurposed three Galik letters to represent the Mandarin retroflex consonants. These letters remain in use in Inner Mongolia for the purpose of transcribing Chinese. Also Galik alphabet used to create foreign words in Mongolian Script and also Galik Characters were part of Foreign Letters in Mongolian Script. , Lantsa, Tibetan, Mongolian, Chinese and Cyrillic, from 1903 or earlier == Punctuation and numerals ==

Punctuation ', 1604 manuscript When written between words, punctuation marks use space on both sides of them. They can also appear at the very end of a line, regardless of where the preceding word ends. Red (cinnabar) ink is used in many manuscripts, to either symbolize emphasis or respect. Modern punctuation incorporates Western marks: parentheses; quotation, question, and exclamation marks; including precomposed and . Numerals Mongolian numerals are either written from left to right, or from top to bottom. For typographical reasons, they are rotated 90° in modern books to fit on the line. == Components and writing styles ==

Components Listed in the table below are letter components (graphemes) commonly used across the script. Some of these are used with several letters, and others to contrast between them. As their forms and usage may differ between writing styles, however, examples of these can be found under this section below. Writing styles As exemplified in this section, the shapes of glyphs may vary widely between different styles of writing and choice of medium with which to produce them. The development of written Mongolian can be divided into the three periods of pre-classical (beginning – 17th century), classical (16/17th century – 20th century), and modern (20th century onward): Short tail • A pre-modern variant form for final ' appears in the shape of a short final ' , derived from Old Uyghur zayin (). It tended to be replaced by the mouth-shaped form and is no longer used. An early example of it is found in the name of Gengis Khan on the Stele of Yisüngge: '. A zayin-shaped final can also appear as part of final ' and ''''. Taw and lamedh • Initial taw ('/') can, akin to final mem ('), be found written quite explicitly loopy (as in ' 'book' and '''' 'mirror'). The lamedh (' or ') may appear simply as an oval loop or looped shin, or as more angular, with an either closed or open counter (as in '/' or '/'). As in ', a Uyghur style word-medial ' can sometimes be written with the pre-consonantal form otherwise used for ''. Taw'' was applied to both initial ' and ' from the outset of the script's adoption. This was done in imitation of Old Uyghur which, however, had lacked the phoneme '''' in this position. Tsade • Following the late classical Mongolian orthography of the 17th and 18th centuries, a smooth and angular tsade ( and ) has come to represent ' and ' respectively. The tsade before this was used for both these phonemes, regardless of graphical variants, as no '''' had existed in Old Uyghur: Resh • As in ' and '/'', a resh'' (of ', and sometimes of ') can appear as two teeth or crossed shins; adjacent, angled, attached to a shin and/or overlapping. == Example ==

Mongolia Biometric Ordinary Passport 2023.jpg|Decorative 'wrapped/folded' letters on a 2023 passport.|alt=Decorative 'wrapped/folded' letters on a 2023 passport.: 159 : 160 File:Mongolian Calligraphy (2).jpg|Mongolian calligraphy of the 13th century work Оюун Түлхүүр (Key of Intelligence) File:Imperial Seal of Bogd Khan.jpg|Imperial seal of the Bogd Khan, ca 1911. File:Inner Mongolia Museum horse-riding paizi.jpg|Mixed Manchu–Mongolian text on a Paiza. File:Čoyijod Dagini manuscript 01.jpg|Brush-written '''' manuscript, 19th century File:Book of Jeremiah in Mongolian Script, 1840.jpg|Book of Jeremiah, printed 1840 at Khodon in Siberia. == Unicode ==

The Mongolian script was added to the Unicode standard in September 1999 with the release of version 3.0. However, several design issues have been pointed out. • The 1999 Mongolian script Unicode codes are duplicated and not searchable. For example, a 2016 corpus study found that the homographic misspelling "mun̅g̅g1ul" was more common than "Mon̅g̅gol" 'mongolia' since o and u are visually identical but encoded separately. • The 1999 Mongolian script Unicode model has multiple layers of FVS (free variation selectors), MVS, ZWJ, NNBSP, and those variation selections conflict with each other, which create incorrect results. Furthermore, different vendors understood the definition of each FVS differently, and developed multiple applications in different standards. • The characters themselves are typed left to right, flowing in lines from top to bottom, instead of the correct direction of up to down, flowing in lines from left to right; as a result, the characters are sometimes rotated 90° counterclockwise when displayed in horizontal lines. Blocks The Unicode block for Mongolian is U+1800–U+18AF. It includes letters, digits and various punctuation marks for Hudum Mongolian, Todo Mongolian, Xibe (Manchu), Manchu proper, and Ali Gali, as well as extensions for transcribing Sanskrit and Tibetan. The Mongolian Supplement block (U+11660–U+1167F) was added to the Unicode Standard in June 2016 with the release of version 9.0: == Keyboard layout ==

The Windows Mongolian traditional script keyboard layout for personal computers is as follows: Unshifted layout Shifted layout == See also ==