Mongolian Alphabet!

Learn the Traditional Mongolian Alphabet!

This app can help you get to know the Mongolian alphabet. Scroll through the letters and study their shapes and sounds. Practice tracing each one until you're familiar-- then quiz yourself on the letters!

Note it is written up to down! This makes it challenging to render correctly on some devices. See the about pages on each menu item for more information.

In February 1941 the Mongolian government abolished the traditional Mongolian script and from 1st February to 25 Match 1941 Mongolian was written with a version of the Latin alphabet. Then the Cyrillic alphabet was adopted as the official writing system in Mongolia. The official reasons for abandoning the Latin alphabet were the the spelling system used did not represent the sounds of Mongolian very well, however books and newspapers were published in the Latin alphabet, and the decision to switch to the Cyrillic alphabet might have been political.

Since 1994 there have been efforts to reintroduce the traditional Mongolian script and it is now taught to some extent in schools, though is mainly used for decorative purposes by artists, designers, calligraphers and poets. Until recently, the average person in Mongolia knew little about the traditional script, though there is high literacy in Cyrillic.