Mongolic Languages - Classification

Classification

Historical Mongolic:

• Middle Mongol (depending on classification spoken from the 13th until the early 15th or late 16th century)
• Classical Mongolian

Contemporary Mongolic:

• Dagur (=Daur) (ca. 100,000 speakers)
• Central Mongolic
  • Khamnigan (ca. 2000 speakers)
  • Buryat (dialects: Bargu, Khori, Aga, Ekhirit, Unga, Nizhne-Udinsk, Barguzin, Tunka, Oka, Alar, Bohaan, Bulagat) (ca. 300,000 speakers)
  • Mongolian proper (including Khalkha basically in Mongolia and Chakhar, Khorchin, Kharchin, Baarin, Shilin gol in Inner Mongolia) (ca. 5–6 mio. speakers)
  • Ordos (ca. 100,000 speakers)
  • Oirat (varieties: Torgut, Dörbet, Olot (Ööld, Elyut, Eleuth), Zakhchin, Mingat, Bayad, Kalmyk, Khoshut (Khoshuud), Alasha) (ca. 300,000 speakers)
• Shirongolic (part of a Gansu–Qinghai Sprachbund)
  • Eastern Yugur (Shira Yugur) (ca. 3000 speakers)
  • Monguor (also known as Tu; dialects: Mongghul (Huzhu), Mangghuer (Minhe)) (ca. 100,000+30,000 speakers)
  • Bonan (ca. 10,000 speakers)
  • Dongxiang (Santa) (ca. 600,000 speakers)
  • Kangjia
• Moghol (=Mogholi) (unclear whether there are speakers left)

The classification and speaker numbers above follow Janhunen except that Mongghul and Mangghuer are treated as a sub-branch and that Kangjia has been added. In another classificational approach, there is a tendency to call Central Mongolian a language consisting of Mongolian proper, Oirat and Buryat, while Ordos (and implicitly also Khamnigan) is seen as a variety of Mongolian proper. Within Mongolian proper, they then draw a distinction between Khalkha on the one hand and Southern Mongolian (containing everything else) on the other hand. A less common subdivision of Central Mongolian is to divide it into a Central dialect (Khalkha, Chakhar, Ordos), an Eastern dialect (Kharchin, Khorchin), a Western dialect (Oirat, Kalmyk), and a Northern dialect (consisting of two Buryat varieties). The broader delimitation of Mongolian may be based on mutual intelligibility, but an analysis based on a tree diagram such as the one above faces other problems due to the close contacts between e.g. Buryat and Khalkha Mongols during history thus creating or preserving a dialect continuum. Another problem lies in the sheer comparability of terminology as Western linguists use language and dialect, while Mongolian linguists use the Grimmian trichotomy language (kele), dialect (nutuγ-un ayalγu) and Mundart (aman ayalγu).