How do scholars reconstruct Old Mongolian?

Scholars reconstruct Old Mongolian—the period of the language through the 12th century—primarily through two methods:

• Analysis of borrowings: By examining words borrowed from Mongolian into other languages, linguists can identify and trace archaic linguistic features.1
• Comparative linguistics: By comparing the various recorded Mongolian languages, researchers can identify shared patterns and reconstruct earlier forms of the language.1

These reconstructed forms are often denoted in linguistic literature with an asterisk (e.g., /p/), which signifies that the sound is a hypothetical, reconstructed form rather than a directly attested one.1