Mongolian Cyrillic script

The Cyrillic alphabet was originally created in the 9th century by brothers Cyril (826-869) and Methody (820-885), for use in transcribing the Russian language. A modified version of this script was adopted in 1941 by a resolution of the Council of Ministers and the Leaders of the Central Committee of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party [1]. The Cyrillic script continues to be used as the official alphabet of Mongolia, despite attempts to reintroduce the "classical" UIGARZHIN SCRIPT in the early 1990s; a somewhat different Cyrillic alphabet is employed by the BURYAT Mongols of neighbouring Russia, while the uigarzhin script remains in use in Inner Mongolia and the so-called "clear script" (TOD U'SEG) is used by OIRAD Mongols outside of Mongolia proper.

In terms of its alphabet, the 35-character Mongolian Cyrillic script differs from the contemporary Russian Cyrillic only insofar as it includes two additional characters, ө (o') and ү (u'), used to represent the feminine vowels. The Russian character Щ (shch) is not used, and characters such as Ф (ph/f) and П (p) are generally only found in loan-words from Russian.

Academician Sh. LUVSANVANDAN described the reasons for the selection of the Cyrillic alphabet as opposed to the Latin alphabet as follows:

• The number of Latin characters was too small, and therefore to be adapted for the Mongolian language many additional characters would have been needed; and the Russians, who had the closest cultural, economic and political relations with Mongolia, used not the Latin but the Cyrillic alphabet; moreover many Central Asian and Siberian nations had, for the above reasons, abandoned their Latin scripts in favour of Cyrillic; and our brothers the Buriats and Kalmyks had also made the transition to the Cyrillic alphabet: for all these reasons, we finally decided in Mongolia to replace our Mongol script with the Cyrillic script [2].

The initial orthography for the so-called "new script" was developed by Academician CENDIIN DAMDINSU'REN (1908-1986). In 1970, the Institute of Languages and Literature of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences was awarded the Krupskaya award by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in honour of its eradication of illiteracy in Mongolia.

Notes

[1] Resolution no. 25/27, May 9, 1941.

[2] Ш. Лувсанвандан, "Кирилл үсэг авсны учир" [Sh. Luvsanvanda, "Reasons for the Adoption of the Cyrillic Alphabet"].

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