Ordos dialect

Not to be confused with Urdu language.

The Ordos (also Urdus (in southern dialects); Mongolian ᠣᠷᠳᠣᠰ; Chinese 鄂尔多斯 È'ěrduōsī) dialect of Mongolian is spoken in the Ordos City region in Inner Mongolia. It is also sometimes classified as a language within the Mongolic language family or as a dialect of the Southern Mongolian standard language.^[1] Due to the research of Antoine Mostaert,^[2] the development of this dialect could be traced back 100 years.

The Ordos vowel phoneme system in word-initial syllables is similar to that of the Chakhar dialect, the most notable difference being that it has [e] and [e:] instead of [ə] and [ə:]^[3]. In contrast to the other dialects of Mongolian proper, it retains this distinction in all following syllables including in open word-final syllables, thus resembling the syllable and phoneme structure of Middle Mongolian more than any other Mongolian variety. E.g. MM /ɑmɑ/ Ordos /ɑmɑ/ Khalkha /ɑm/ ‘mouth’, Ordos /ɑxʊr/ Khalkha /ɑxr/ ([ɑxɑ̯r]) ‘short; short sheep’s wool’^[4]. Accordingly, it could never acquire palatalized consonant phonemes. Due to their persistent existence as short non-initial phonemes, /u/ and /ʊ/ have regressively assimilated *ø and *o, e.g. *otu > /ʊtʊ/ ‘star’, *ɡomutaɮ > /ɡʊmʊdaɮ/ ‘offence’, *tʰøry > /tʰuru/ ‘power’. An analogous change took place for some sequences of *a and *u, e.g. *arasu > /arʊsʊ/.^[5]

Ordos retains a variant of the old comitative case and shares the innovated directive case^[6]. The verb system is not well researched, but employs a notable innovated suffix, <guːn>, that doesn’t seem to adhere to the common division into three Mongolic verb suffix classes^[7].

The lexicon of Ordos is that of a normal Mongolian dialect, with some Tibetan and Chinese loanwords.^[8]

References

1. ^ Georg 2003: 193, Sečenbaγatur et al. 2005: 167–168
2. ^ eg Mostaert 1937, 1941-1944
3. ^ Sečen et al. 2002: 5
4. ^ see Sečen et al. 2002: 19, 38
5. ^ Sečen 2003: 35-36
6. ^ see Sečen et al. 2002: 122
7. ^ Soyultu 1982
8. ^ Georg 2003: 193-194 (implicitly) based on Mostaert 1941-1944, Sonum 2003: 21-26 (together with C. Norǰin)

Bibliography

• Mostaert, Antoine (1937): Textes oraux ordos. Peiping: The Catholic University.
• Mostaert, Antoine (1941–1944): Dictionnaire ordos, vols. 1-3. Peiping: The Catholic University.
• Sečen, Č. (2003): Ordus aman ayalɣun-daki öbürmiče uruɣul-un ǰokičal buyu iǰilsil [ʊ] + [ʊ], [ʉ] + [ʉ]-yin tuqai. In: Mongγul kele udq-a ǰokiyal 2003/5: 33–36.
• Sečen, Č., M. Baγatur, Sengge (2002): Ordus aman ayalγun-u sudulul. Kökeqota: Öbür mongγul-un arad-un keblel-ün qoriy-a.
• Sečenbaγatur, Qasgerel, Tuyaγ-a, B. ǰirannige, U Ying ǰe (2005): Mongγul kelen-ü nutuγ-un ayalγun-u sinǰilel-ün uduridqal. Kökeqota: Öbür mongγul-un arad-un keblel-ün qoriy-a. ISBN 7-204-07621-4.
• Sonum (2003): Ordus aman ayalγun-u üges-ün quriyangγui. Nemen ǰasaγsan debter. Beijing: Ündüsüten-ü keblel-ün qoriy-a.
• Soyultu, I. (1982):Ordus-un aman ayalγun-u ɢɷːn ɡuːn-u daγaburi. Öbür mongγul-un yeke surγaγuli 1982/2: 29–43.
• Georg, Stefan: Ordos. In: J. Janhunen (ed.): The Mongolic Languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 193-209.