This article describes two- and three-letter combinations (so-called digraphs and trigraphs) used for the Mongolian language when written in the Mongolian script.
Vowel and consonant combinations
The intervocalic letters '/', and ' has in some combinations come to help form long vowels, namely:
- Long ' with: ', ', '.
- Long ' with: ', ', '.
- Long ' with: '.
- Long ' with: ', ', '.
- Long ' with: ', ', '.
- Long ' with: ', '.
- Long ' with: ', ', '.
Sometimes intervocalic ' and ' is silent: as in ' (Khalkha: ) 'robe, garment' or ' (Khalkha: ) 'human, person; man'.
Vowel combinations
- The doubled vowels ', ', and ' mark these out as long. Doubled ' is instead both used in a few words to mark the vowel as short, and to distinguish it from '.
- Most of the s of these diphthongs derive from an earlier ', but is no longer recognized as such. The ' origin can for instance be seen in the two long teeth of ' 'good'. These has become a pair of short and long teeth in recent manuscripts. The diphthongs only appears with the single form of ', as in ' 'sea', at the end of words.
Notes
References