Mongolian

Mongolian (Монгол хэл; ISO 639-3 macrolanguage code: mon) is a Mongolic language spoken chiefly in Mongolia and China’s Inner Mongolia, with additional communities elsewhere. Khalkha forms the basis of the national standard in Mongolia, while Inner Mongolian speech includes major varieties such as Chakhar and Khorchin; these should not all be treated as identical. Mongolian is agglutinative, generally has subject–object–verb order, employs postpositions and case suffixes, and shows vowel harmony. Cyrillic has been Mongolia’s dominant everyday script since the 1940s, whereas the traditional vertical Mongolian script remains central in Inner Mongolia and preserves many historical spellings. Under Mongolia’s language law, state and local public offices began phased use of Cyrillic and traditional script together on January 1, 2025; this dual-script policy supplements rather than simply replaces Cyrillic.