Modern Mongolian

Modern Mongolian is the principal member of the Mongolian language family, spoken by about seven million people in Mongolia and parts of China. The official language of Mongolia is based on the Khalkha dialect. The traditional Mongolian script, which has Syriac origins and was borrowed from the Uyghurs, is being reintroduced as the official written language in Mongolia. This script is written vertically and has different forms for letters depending on their position in a word. Classical Mongolian, used historically, differs from the modern spoken language but remains durable. In the 1940s, Mongolia replaced its traditional script with a Cyrillic-based alphabet, but the traditional script is being taught again.123