Article

Name: Some aspects of Mongolian place-names romanization

Authors: Dambuev Igor Aleksandrovich

The Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ulan-Ude, Russian Federation

In the section Linguistics

Abstract: The paper considers the romanization of Mongolian place-names on the basis of topographic maps published over the last six decades. It is established that romanized forms of place-names were subject to the influence of the traditional Mongolian alphabet up to the 1970s in spite of the introduction of Cyrillic in 1946. The influence of the traditional Mongolian alphabet manifests itself in spelling, in vocabulary and in word-formation constructions. Place-names on modern maps do not show this influence because of the introduction of the Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet and the improvement of the cartographic activities. The author identifies the ways of place-names romanization on the maps in comparison with the well known systems of transliterating the Mongolian Cyrillic into the Latin alphabet. On the USA maps Mongolian place-names are transliterated in accordance with the BGN/PCGN romanization system for Mongolian adopted in 1964. The Mongolian map-makers adhere to their own transliteration system.

Keywords: romanization, transliteration, toponymy, mongolia, traditional mongolian alphabet

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