Eastern Buryat
[aka Mongolian Buriat, бурят-монгольский язык, buryaad xelen]Classification: Mongolic
·vulnerable
- DATE OF INFO
- 1993
- SPEAKER NUMBER TRENDS
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- TRANSMISSION
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- MORE ON VITALITY
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In many rural areas, children are still learning the language, but not in cities, where Russian is normally spoken even between Buryat-speaking individuals... the Buryat-speaking territory is, nevertheless, continuously shrinking, and there are very few monolingual individuals
- OTHER LANGUAGES USED BY THE COMMUNITY
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Russian
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Mongolian
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Chinese
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Japanese
- LANGUAGE CONTEXT COMMENTS
In rural areas, knowledge of other languages (Russian, Mongolian, Chinese, and Japanese) seems to be better among adult males than females.
- Scripts (Writing system)
- Cyrillic script
- More on Orthography
The language also has a Soviet-period written standard (in Cyrillic script) replacing earlier use of Written Mongolian; the Russian impact is currently being fought back by a purist movement, which aims at reintroducing Written Mongolian as the literary language; Written Mongolian is also going to be reintroduced in Mongolia, and it already serves as the literary language for the Buryat population in China
- PLACES
- Mongolia; China
- LOCATION DESCRIPTION
In Transbaikalia, extending from Lake Baikal in the west to the Onon basin in the east; also in northeastern Mongolia (since the 19th century) and northwestern Manchuria, China (after 1917); on the Russian side the Eastern Buryat population is today concentrated in the regions known as the Buryat Republic (Buryatia) and the Aga Buryat Autonomous District of Chita Oblast; on the Chinese side the speakers of Eastern Buryat live in the region of the river Xinihe (Shinehen), a tributary to the Imin-Hailar-Argun system in southern Hulun Buir, Inner Mongolia.