Mongolian Script


Introduction

The Mongolian script was added to the Unicode Standard in Unicode version 3.0 (September 1999). Unfortunately, the encoding model designed by experts from China and Mongolia is deeply flawed, so twenty years later there are still many unresolved issues with the implementation and display of Unicode Mongolian text. For an overview of the Unicode Mongolian encoding model, see the Mongolian block description in the Unicode Standard v. 5.0 (this version of the block description was written by me). For all Unicode Mongolian documents, including recent proposals to revise, improve or replace the current encoding model, see Topical Document List: Mongolian. For Mongolian Working Group documents see here.

The Mongolian block of Unicode (U+1800 through U+18AF) covers the characters needed to write the following related scripts:

The Todo and Manchu scripts are derived directly from the Mongolian script, whilst Sibe (which is a language closely related to Manchu) is a modification of the Manchu script. These three derative scripts share some common letters with Mongolian, but each have a number of modified letter forms or new letters, which are encoded separately.

Table 1 shows which Unicode characters in the Mongolian block are used to represent which script.


Table 1: Script Coverage of Mongolian Block
Code Point Character Character Name Mong. Todo Sibe Manchu
1800 MONGOLIAN BIRGA
1801 MONGOLIAN ELLIPSIS
1802 MONGOLIAN COMMA
1803 MONGOLIAN FULL STOP
1804 MONGOLIAN COLON
1805 MONGOLIAN FOUR DOTS
1806 MONGOLIAN TODO SOFT HYPHEN
1807 MONGOLIAN SIBE SYLLABLE BOUNDARY MARKER
1808 MONGOLIAN MANCHU COMMA
1809 MONGOLIAN MANCHU FULL STOP
180A MONGOLIAN NIRUGU
180B MONGOLIAN FREE VARIATION SELECTOR ONE
180C MONGOLIAN FREE VARIATION SELECTOR TWO
180D MONGOLIAN FREE VARIATION SELECTOR THREE
180E MONGOLIAN VOWEL SEPARATOR
1810 MONGOLIAN DIGIT ZERO
1811 MONGOLIAN DIGIT ONE
1812 MONGOLIAN DIGIT TWO
1813 MONGOLIAN DIGIT THREE
1814 MONGOLIAN DIGIT FOUR
1815 MONGOLIAN DIGIT FIVE
1816 MONGOLIAN DIGIT SIX
1817 MONGOLIAN DIGIT SEVEN
1818 MONGOLIAN DIGIT EIGHT
1819 MONGOLIAN DIGIT NINE
1820 MONGOLIAN LETTER A
1821 MONGOLIAN LETTER E
1822 MONGOLIAN LETTER I
1823 MONGOLIAN LETTER O
1824 MONGOLIAN LETTER U
1825 MONGOLIAN LETTER OE
1826 MONGOLIAN LETTER UE
1827 MONGOLIAN LETTER EE
1828 MONGOLIAN LETTER NA
1829 MONGOLIAN LETTER ANG
182A MONGOLIAN LETTER BA
182B MONGOLIAN LETTER PA
182C MONGOLIAN LETTER QA
182D MONGOLIAN LETTER GA
182E MONGOLIAN LETTER MA
182F MONGOLIAN LETTER LA
1830 MONGOLIAN LETTER SA
1831 MONGOLIAN LETTER SHA
1832 MONGOLIAN LETTER TA
1833 MONGOLIAN LETTER DA
1834 MONGOLIAN LETTER CHA
1835 MONGOLIAN LETTER JA
1836 MONGOLIAN LETTER YA
1837 MONGOLIAN LETTER RA
1838 MONGOLIAN LETTER WA
1839 MONGOLIAN LETTER FA
183A MONGOLIAN LETTER KA
183B MONGOLIAN LETTER KHA
183C MONGOLIAN LETTER TSA
183D MONGOLIAN LETTER ZA
183E MONGOLIAN LETTER HAA
183F MONGOLIAN LETTER ZRA
1840 MONGOLIAN LETTER LHA
1841 MONGOLIAN LETTER ZHI
1842 MONGOLIAN LETTER CHI
1843 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO LONG VOWEL SIGN
1844 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO E
1845 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO I
1846 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO O
1847 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO U
1848 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO OE
1849 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO UE
184A MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO ANG
184B MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO BA
184C MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO PA
184D MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO QA
184E MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO GA
184F MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO MA
1850 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO TA
1851 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO DA
1852 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO CHA
1853 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO JA
1854 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO TSA
1855 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO YA
1856 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO WA
1857 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO KA
1858 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO GAA
1859 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO HAA
185A MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO JIA
185B MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO NIA
185C MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO DZA
185D MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE E
185E MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE I
185F MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE IY
1860 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE UE
1861 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE U
1862 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE ANG
1863 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE KA
1864 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE GA
1865 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE HA
1866 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE PA
1867 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE SHA
1868 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE TA
1869 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE DA
186A MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE JA
186B MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE FA
186C MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE GAA
186D MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE HAA
186E MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE TSA
186F MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE ZA
1870 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE RAA
1871 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE CHA
1872 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE ZHA
1873 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU I
1874 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU KA
1875 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU RA
1876 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU FA
1877 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ZHA
1878* MONGOLIAN LETTER CHA WITH TWO DOTS
1880 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI ANUSVARA ONE
1881 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI VISARGA ONE
1882 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI DAMARU
1883 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI UBADAMA
1884 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI INVERTED UBADAMA
1885 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI BALUDA
1886 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI THREE BALUDA
1887 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI A
1888 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI I
1889 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI KA
188A MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI NGA
188B MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI CA
188C MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI TTA
188D MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI TTHA
188E MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI DDA
188F MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI NNA
1890 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI TA
1891 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI DA
1892 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI PA
1893 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI PHA
1894 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI SSA
1895 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI ZHA
1896 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI ZA
1897 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI AH
1898 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO ALI GALI TA
1899 MONGOLIAN LETTER TODO ALI GALI ZHA
189A MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ALI GALI GHA
189B MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ALI GALI NGA
189C MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ALI GALI CA
189D MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ALI GALI JHA
189E MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ALI GALI TTA
189F MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ALI GALI DDHA
18A0 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ALI GALI TA
18A1 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ALI GALI DHA
18A2 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ALI GALI SSA
18A3 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ALI GALI CYA
18A4 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ALI GALI ZHA
18A5 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ALI GALI ZA
18A6 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI HALF U
18A7 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI HALF YA
18A8 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ALI GALI BHA
18A9 MONGOLIAN LETTER ALI GALI DAGALGA
18AA* MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ALI GALI LHA

Notes



Mongolian Script

The Mongolian script was derived from the Uighur script around the beginning of the thirteenth century. The Uighur script, which was in use from about the eighth to the fifteenth centuries, was itself derived from Sogdian Aramaic, a Semitic script which was written in horizontal Right-To-Left lines. Probably under the influence of the Chinese script, the Uighur script became rotated 90 degrees anticlockwise so that the lines of text read vertically from left to right. The Mongolian script inherited this directionality from the Uighur script.

According to Mongolian tradition the Uighur script was adapted for use in writing the Mongolian langauge during the early years of the rule of Chinggis Qagan [Genghis Khan] (1162-1227), when the Uighur tutor of a defeated leader of the Turkic Naiman tribe was captured. The earliest extant Mongolian document is a stone inscription dateable to circa 1225, during the reign of Ghengkis Khan .

Despite being almost replaced by the Tibetan-inspired 'Phags-pa script during the reign of Kublai Khan (r.1260-1294), the Uighur-based Mongolian script continued in use throughout the period of Mongolian rule of China as the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). Unlike the Khitan and Jurchen scripts, which gradually fell into disuse after the fall of the Liao (907-1125) and Jin (1115-1234) dynasties respectively, the Mongolian script has continued in use right up to the present day.

The Mongolian script was replaced by a Cyrillic-based alphabet in the Mongolian Peoples Republic (Outer Mongolia) during the 1940s, but continued in use amongst the Mongolians of Inner Mongolia in China. The use of the Mongolian script is now being revived to an extent in Outer Mongolia.

The Uighur script, being derived from a Semitic alphabet, could not even represent the sounds of the Uighur language in full. When it was adapted to Mongolian, it inherited the same limitations, in as much as some letters could represent two different sounds, and the correct pronunciation could only be known from context. Although there were some reforms to the script over its centuries of use, the modern Mongolian script still possesses many of its original ambiguities. For example the letters for the vowel pairs "o/u" and "ö/ü"are not normally distinguished, whilst "o/u" are only normally distinguished from "ö/ü" in the first syllable of a word. Likewise the letters "t" and "d" are often indistinguishable. Thus the words urtu ᠤᠷᠲᠤ "long" and ordu ᠣᠷᠳᠤ "palace, camp, horde" are written identically (but encoded differently in Unicode, so that the nominal glyphs for the letters "o" and "u", "t" and "d" are different).

See my Mongolian Test Page for an example of a short piece of classical Mongolian.



Todo Script

The Todo script is a modified and improved version of the Mongolian script, devised in 1648 for use of the Oirat Mongolians in the western parts of the Qing empire. It is still in use by the Kalmyk Mongolians of Kalmykia (in Russia, west of the Volga, on the Northern shores of the Caspian Sea), as well as by speakers of the Kalmyk dialect in Xingjiang and Qinghai in China.

The name of the script "todo" ᡐᡆᡑᡆ, means "clear and distinct" in Mongolian, and refers to the attempt to remove some of the ambiguities inherent in the original Mongolian script.



Manchu Script

The Manchu people (manju ᠮᠠᠨᠵᡠ in Manchu) are descended from the Jurchen people, who ruled Northern China as the Jin ("Golden") dynasty from 1115 to 1234. Four hundred years later, in 1644, the Manchu tribes overthrew the Ming dynasty, and ruled China as the Qing dynasty until 1911.

Although the Jurchen had their own ideographic writing system inspired by the Chinese script, which in places continued in use until the early fifteenth-century, the Jurchen script had gone out of use long before the Manchu tribes united under Nurhachi (1559-1626) in the late sixteenth-century. Therefore, in 1599 the Manchu leader Nurhachi ordered Erdeni and Gagai to devise a new writing system to represent the Manchu language. As the Manchu homeland borders on Mongolia, and as Manchu belongs to the same Altaic family as Mongolian, it was natural to look towards the Mongolian script rather than the Chinese script for inspiration. In fact the script devised by Erdeni and Gagai was more or less a direct adaption of the unmodified Mongolian script for use in writing the Manchu language. This earliest form of the Manchu script is known in Manchu as tongki fuka akū hergen ᡨᠣᠩᡴᡳ ᡶᡠᡴᠠ ᠠᡴᡡ ᡥᡝᡵᡤᡝᠨ "writing without dots and circles", as it lacks the diacritical dots and circles used in the later script to distinguish certain letters. Few examples of this form of the Manchu script now survive.

In 1632, the great Manchu scholar Dahai (1595-1632) reformed the script by adding circles and dots to certain letters in order to distinguish their different sounds, and devising new letters to represent the sounds of the Chinese language. This reformed script is known in Manchu as tongki fuka sindaha hergen ᡨᠣᠩᡴᡳ ᡶᡠᡴᠠ ᠰᡳᠨᡩᠠᡥᠠ ᡥᡝᡵᡤᡝᠨ "writing with dots and circles", and has been used ever since.

Its importance as the mother tongue of the ruling dynasty meant that Manchu was an important written language during the Qing dynasty, and many books were printed in Manchu, especially translations of Chinese texts (see my Manchu Test Page for an example of an early Manchu translation of a Chinese novel).

However, due to the Sinification of the Manchu people over the last three hundred and fifty years, Manchu is now on the brink of extinction as a living language. There are still a few very old people in the Manchu homeland provices of Liaoning and Jilin that can still speak some Manchu, and some Manchu words are preserved in the Chinese speech of Manchu communities on the outskirts of Beijing and elsewhere, but the only places where Manchu is still spoken on a day-to-day basis is in some isolated Manchu communities located along the Amur and Nen rivers in the province of Heilongjiang in the far north-east of China. These communities are descended from Manchu border guards sent to the area from 1683 onwards to guard against Russian incursions. Up until the 1960s the population of these isolated communities was almost exclusively Manchu, and Manchu was used as the day-to-day language of young and old alike. However, over the past thirty years there has been a large influx of Chinese speakers into these areas, and the Manchu language is now only spoken by the older generation, understood but not spoken by the middle generation, and neither spoken nor understood by the younger generation.

The Unicode characters corresponding to the basic Manchu alphabet (i.e. omitting the Ali Gali letters used for transcribing Tibetan and Sanskrit) are presented in Table 2.


Table 2: Encoding of Manchu Alphabet
Manchu Letter Code Point Character Character Name Usage
A 1820 MONGOLIAN LETTER A
E 185D MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE E
I 1873 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU I
Y 185F MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE IY Only used after the letters SA and ČA to transcribe Chinese si and ci
O 1823 MONGOLIAN LETTER O
U 1860 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE UE
Ū 1861 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE U
NA 1828 MONGOLIAN LETTER NA
ANG 1829 MONGOLIAN LETTER ANG Only found in medial and final positions
KA 1874 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU KA
GA 1864 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE GA
HA 1865 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE HA
BA 182A MONGOLIAN LETTER BA
PA 1866 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE PA
SA 1830 MONGOLIAN LETTER SA
ŠA 1867 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE SHA
TA 1868 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE TA
DA 1869 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE DA Not used before the letter Ū
LA 182F MONGOLIAN LETTER LA
MA 182E MONGOLIAN LETTER MA
CA 1834 MONGOLIAN LETTER CHA
JA 1835 MONGOLIAN LETTER JA
RA 1875 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU RA
YA 1836 MONGOLIAN LETTER YA Not used before the letter I
WA 1838 MONGOLIAN LETTER WA Only used before the letters A and E
FA 1876 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU FA Not used before the letter Ū (N.B. the form of the letter FA before the vowels I, O and U is identical to the form of the letter WA before the vowels A and E)
ČA (TSA) 186E MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE TSA Used before the letters A, E, Y, O and U to transcribe Chinese ca etc.
ZA (DZA) 186F MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE ZA Used before the letters A, E, I, O and U to transcribe Chinese za etc.
ŘA (ŽA) 1870 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE RAA Used before the letters A, E, I, O and U to transcribe Chinese ra etc.
CHI (C'Y) 1871 MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE CHA Only used before the letter I to transcribe Chinese chi
ZHI (JY) 1877 MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ZHA Only used before the letter I to transcribe Chinese zhi
K'A 183A MONGOLIAN LETTER KA Only used before the letters A and O to transcribe Chinese ka and ke
G'A 186C MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE GAA Only used before the letters A and O to transcribe Chinese ga and ge
H'A 186D MONGOLIAN LETTER SIBE HAA Only used before the letters A and O to transcribe Chinese ha and he


Sibe Script

The Sibe (also transliterated as Sibo or Xibo) people are closely related to the Manchus, and their language is often classified as a dialect of Manchu. However, as the Sibe people regard themselves as ethnically distinct from the Manchu people, their dialect of Manchu may perhaps best be considered to be a separate language.

There are about 84,000 members of the Sibe nationality, widely dispersed across Xinjiang, Lianning and Jilin due to deliberate programmes of ethnic dispersal during the Qing dynasty. The vast majority have become assimilited into the local population, and no longer speak the Sibe language. However, a population of about 18,000 members of the Sibe nationality who live in the Sibe Autonomous County in the Ili River valley in Western Xinjiang, the decendants of border guards posted to Xinjiang in 1764, still speak and write the Sibe language.

The Sibe script is based on the reformed Manchu script, with a few modified letters.



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