Derivatives of the Mongolian Script

There are four main scripts which have been derived from Mongolian. These are Galik, Todo (or “clear script”), Manchu and Sibe. The Galik script is often not distinguished from the Mongolian script in the literature, although some scholars prefer to treat it separately as it contains a number of extra characters for transcribing Tibetan and Sanskrit terms in religious texts, which are not otherwise used when writing in the Mongolian script.

The word Todo means “clear” in Mongolian; the name of this derived script reflects that it was designed to more closely reflect pronunciation and eliminate some of the ambiguities associated with the original Mongolian script. A number of new symbols and diacritics were added to the script to this end. The Todo script was used by the Kalmyk people of Russia until 1924, when it was replaced by Cyrillic, but it is still used in Xinjiang, China, by the Oirat people, and in easter Turkestan.

The Manchu script is a modified Mongolian script used for writing the Manchu language, which is now almost extinct.

The Sibe (also spelled Sibo, Xibe, or Xibo) language is closely related to Manchu is often classified as a dialect of it. The Sibe script is based on the Manchu script, with some modifications.

This article formerly appeared on ScriptSource.