The Khalkhas
Around 90% of Mongolia's citizens are Mongolians from different tribes. The most important of these is the Khalkha, who make up around 80% of the population.
The Khalkha are eastern Mongolians who first appeared in Mongolia in the 15th century, during the reign of Dayan Khan. Their name derives from the Khalkha River, which flows through the eastern part of the country. Gathered under the aegis of Chinggis Khaan, they were ruled by his descendants, the Genghishanids, until the 20th century.
They speak the country's official language, Khalkha Mongol, which is spoken by over 6 million people worldwide. Part of the Altaic language family, which includes Mongolian, Turkic and Tungus, Khalkha is used in administration and education. Certain ethnic groups descended from the Oirats, the western Mongols, speak different Mongolian dialects that are variants of Oirat. Nevertheless, these dialects are close enough to be understood by all, and do not call into question a deep-rooted common identity. The western Mongols share a somewhat conflicting history with the eastern Mongols, but they have sometimes been united under the same ruler.
The other ethnic groups of the country
The rest of the population is made up of other ethnic groups, mostly of Mongolian or Turkish origin, representing around 20% of Mongolia's inhabitants. They are spread throughout the country. In the east, we find the Dariganga. The Buryats live mainly in the north, while the Kazakhs and Oyrats inhabit the far west of Mongolia.
Kazakhs. Although they account for only 6% of the population, 90% of them live in the Bayan-Ölgii province in the Altai region. This aimag also has a special status: it has been a semi-autonomous Kazakh province since 1939. Kazakh, a language of Turkish origin, is spoken here, while Mongolian is only taught as a second language. Hailing from Kazakhstan - only some 40 km away - the Kazakhs are the main non-Mongolian group settled in Mongolia. The majority are Muslims, practicing Sunni Islam. Several mosques can be found in the western provinces. Among their most spectacular traditions is the hunting of the golden eagle, practiced mainly in winter and celebrated each year during the golden eagle festival.
Other Turkic ethnic groups also populate the western provinces, such as the Tuva, present in the Khovd aimag, and the Khoton, who speak a dialect of Oyrat, in the Uvs aimag.
The Oïrats. The descendants of the Western Mongols form a complex ethnic mosaic in the west of the country. They include various tribes such as the Durvud, Bayad, Zaakhtchin, Oolds, Myangad and Torguud.
The Buryats. Around 40,000 Buryats live in northern Mongolia, mainly in the provinces of Khövsgöl, Bulgan and Selenge. The majority also live on the other side of the Russian border, east of Lake Baikal, around the town of Ulan Ude. Once nomadic, they are now semi-sedentary, if not completely sedentary. They speak Buryat, a Mongolian language divided into numerous dialects, and practice shamanism.
Dariganga. A sub-group of the Khalkhas, they account for just 1.4% of the population and live in the east, in the province of Sükhbaatar, one of whose districts bears their name.
The Tsaatan. These reindeer herders live in the Lake Khövsgöl region of northern Mongolia. During the Soviet period, they were forced to settle down, but some of them returned to their former nomadic way of life in the 1990s. Today, there are around 80 families, half of whom live in the taiga.
Languages and alphabets
Paradoxically, more Mongolians live outside national borders. There are 5.8 million in China, mainly in the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia. Around a million live in Russia, between the provinces of Buryatia - where they account for 25% of the population - and Kalmykia. Russian is the second language spoken in Mongolia, and Mongolians have been using the Cyrillic alphabet to transcribe their language since 1946. Imposed by the Soviets, Cyrillic retained its status as the official alphabet, but the traditional alphabet has been used again since the collapse of the USSR in the 1990s.
Traditional alphabet. When Chinggis Khan unified the Mongols in the 13th century, he imposed a common language and writing system, the Mongolian bitchig or tsagaan tolgoi. Derived from the Uyghur alphabet, this is one of the only alphabets in the world to be written vertically and from left to right. The letters change shape according to their position in the word, making this script a complex one. In the early 1990s, only a minority of people were still able to decipher it. Since 1995, it has been compulsorily taught in elementary school.
Cyrillic alphabet. Officially in use since 1941, the Cyrillic alphabet has supplanted the use of traditional writing in Mongolia. Although there had been plans to reform the country's writing system in the early 20th century, including the introduction of the Latin alphabet, the Soviets finally imposed the Cyrillic alphabet. Cyrillic is still widely used today, although the traditional script is undergoing a genuine revitalization.
Safeguarding the language and traditional writing
In September 2020, the Chinese government announced a new policy for Inner Mongolia. Mongolian, which was used in certain schools in this autonomous region of China, will henceforth be replaced by Mandarin in these establishments. To protest against this aggressive policy, solidarity movements have sprung up around the world, and the hashtag #SaveTheMongolianLanguage has spread on social networks. The disappearance of the Mongolian language and alphabet in this region would represent the loss of 60% of Mongolian speakers worldwide. The inhabitants of Inner Mongolia have always retained the use of Mongolian Bitchig, whereas the use of this script has become rarer in Outer Mongolia since the introduction of Cyrillic. In 2013, Unesco included Mongolian Bitchig calligraphy on its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.
To preserve Mongolian Bitchig, the Mongolian government has declared that it will become the country's official alphabet by 2025. The traditional script will be used in administrative documents alongside the Cyrillic alphabet, in order to reintroduce its use more widely. The government is also seeking to digitize this script so that it can be used online.
