Poppe Nicholas. Grammar of Written Mongolian

Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006. — 216 p. — (Porta linguarum Orientalium, Neue Serie 1).The first scientific grammar of the Mongolian language, Grammatik der
mongolischen Sprache, was published in St. Petersburg in 1831—more
than one hundred and twenty years ago—by the German scholar Isaac
Jacob Schmidt , a Member of the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences.
Since that time several other grammars have appeared, mainly in Russia,
but there is no satisfactory grammar in any European language except
Russian. I therefore hope that this book will be of use to all persons
interested in the Mongolian language and Altaic studies generally.
This book deals with the Written Mongolian language, the earliest texts
of which date from the first half of the thirteenth century. It is the
written language of all Mongols of Inner and Outer Mongolia and prior
to 1931, Written Mongolian was the only written language known to
the Buriats in the USSR. Although a few years ago the Cyrillic alphabet
was introduced in Outer Mongolia or the so-called Mongolian People’s
Republic, the old Mongolian script also is still used there.
The language written in the Mongolian script is not uniform, but varies
greatly in different periods of history and in different types of literature.
Therefore, I have considered it necessary to discuss the differences in
the language of various periods and also the differences between the
language of the religious and that of the secular literature. I have tried
to make this grammar as complete as the present stage of research
permits, and to give more attention to syntax than have the writers
of the previous grammars.