Mongolian Latin alphabet

The Mongolian Latin script was officially adopted in Mongolia in 1931. In 1941, it was replaced by the Cyrillic script.^[1]

Characters

Using "y" as feminine "u", with additional feminine "o" ("ө") and with additional consonants "ç" for "ch", "ş" for "sh" and "ƶ" for "j", it successfully served in printing books and newspapers. A few of the letters (f, k, p, v) were rarely used, being found only in borrowings, while q, w and x were excluded altogether.

List of characters

A	B	C	Ç	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	Ө	P	R	S	Ş	T	U	V	Y	Z	Ƶ
a	w̜ p	tsʰ	tʃʰ	t	e	ɸ	k q	ɸ	i	j ʲ	h	ɮ	m	n ŋ	o ɵ	ɔ	pʰ	r	s	ʃ	tʰ	ʉ	w̜	ʊ	ts	tʃ

The unaspirated stops are often realized as voiced [b d dz dʒ ɡ/ɢ]. The non-nasal sonorants are often devoiced to [ɸ ɬ]. Since k transcribed [h] in loans, it is unclear how loans in [kʰ] were written.

Orthography

The orthography of the Mongolian Latin is based on the orthography of the Classical Mongolian script. It preserves short final vowels. It does not drop unstressed vowels in the closing syllables when the word is conjugated. The suffixes and inflections without long or i-coupled vowels are made open syllables ending with a vowel, which is harmonized with the stressed vowel. The rule for the vowel harmony for unstressed vowels is similar to that of the Mongolian Cyrillic. It does not use consonant combinations to denote new consonant sounds. Letter "c" is used for the sound [ts] and "k" is used for the sound [h]. Letter "b" is used both in the beginning and in the middle of the word. Because it phonetically assimilates into sound [v], no ambiguity is caused. "j" is used for vowel combinations of the [ja] type.

See also

• Mongolian alphabets
• Mongolian language

Footnotes

1. Lenore A. Grenoble: Language policy in the Soviet Union. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003; S. 49.