Mongolian · Монгол хэл

About Mongolian

Language family

Mongolic

Where it's spoken

Mongolia and Inner Mongolia (China)

Speakers

roughly 5–6 million speakers

Mongolian is the largest member of the small Mongolic family, related to Buryat and Kalmyk, spoken across the historical territory of the Mongol Empire founded by Genghis Khan in the 13th century. Mongolia itself switched its writing system from the traditional vertical Mongolian script to the Cyrillic alphabet during the Soviet era, while Inner Mongolia in China still uses the traditional script today. Mongolia has since begun reintroducing the traditional script in schools alongside Cyrillic.