• INTRODUCTION
  • About the project
  • Participating researchers
• ENCYCLOPEDIC SECTION
  • Mongolic languages
  • Khalkha
  • Buryat
  • Kalmyk
  • Useful links
• LINGUISTIC SECTION
  • Adverbial Corpus
  • Concordance
  • Transliteration
  • Grammar Notes
  • Noun
  • Verb
  • Negation
  • Particles
  • Differential object and subject marking
  • Mirativity
  • Bibliography
  • Downloads

Khalkha

Khalkha-Mongolian (халх монгол, xalx mongol) is the main dialect of the Mongolian language and is spoken by an estimated 2.7 million inhabitants of Mongolia (according to the 2010 census) and possibly by some minority groups of Inner Mongolia. The official national language of the Republic of Mongolia based on Khalkha-Mongolian is used both orally and in writing in all kinds of communication, in everyday life, in administration, in books and newspapers, as well as at all levels of education (Svantesson, 2003:154).

The vertical Old Script derived from the Ancient Uighur alphabet goes back 800 years. It was replaced by Cyrillic orthography introduced in the 1940s. With the end of the Soviet period, it was planned to reintroduce the ‘Old Script’ in 1994, but due to practical difficulties which older Khalkha speakers faced, this did not take place. Currently, the traditional alphabet is being taught in schools and used only marginally.