Archive-name: mongolia-faq
Posting-Frequency: bi-weekly to monthly
Last-modified: September 1996
Version: 2.40
URL: http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~corff/mf.html


<HTML><HEAD>
<TITLE>
		Mongolia FAQ
</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY><CENTER><H1>
		Mongolia FAQ
</H1></CENTER>
		Summary: This posting contains a list of Frequently Asked
		Questions (and their answers) about Mongolia, Mongolians 
		and the areas where Mongolian-speaking people live.
<P>
		Archive-name: mongol-faq Version: 2.40
<P>
		Anyone wishing to contribute to or improve this document 
		should not hesitate to send the edited part(s) to me, 
		i.e. Oliver Corff,
<ADDRESS>
		corff@zedat.fu-berlin.de or infomong@zedat.fu-berlin.de
</ADDRESS>
		Thanks to Christopher Kaplonski, Peter Crandall, Mingan 
		Choct, Ariunaa, Peter Lofting, Ken Beesley, Wolfgang 
		Lipp, Noreen Palazzo, Solongowa Borzigin, Purevdorj, 
		Darima Socktoyeva, Prof. Dr. Yondon, Mykel Board, Dominik
		Troger, David Methuen, Peter G. Campbell, Katherine 
		Petrie and all others who have contributed by submitting 
		facts, corrections or suggestions on what to include.
<P>
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<P>
		soc.culture.mongolian FAQ Version 2.40 (September, 1996)
<P>
		========================================================
<P>
		Table of Contents:
<P/><H2>
<P><A HREF="#Intro">Introductory Notes</A></P>
<P><A HREF="#MongoliaLPL">Mongolia - Land, People and Language</A></P>
<P><A HREF="#MongoliaAdm">Mongolia - Administrative</A></P>
<P><A HREF="#MongoliaTour">Mongolia - Tourism</A></P>
<P><A HREF="#InnerMongoliaTour">Inner Mongolia - Tourism</A></P>
<P><A HREF="#MongoliaComputing">Mongolia - Computing Issues</A></P>
<P><A HREF="#MongoliaReadings">Mongolia - Suggested Readings</A></P>



	<A NAME="Intro">Introductory Notes</A>
</H2><OL><LI>
<A HREF="#HowTo">
<H3>
		How can I get a copy of this Frequently Asked Questions 
		list?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Sources">
<H3>
		Are there any other sources of information on Mongolia in
		the Internet?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Internet">
<H3>
		Is there an Internet or e-mail link to Mongolia?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#IDD">
<H3>
		Is there an IDD (International Direct Dialing) telephone 
		link to Mongolia?
</A></H3></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#ShortWave">
<H3>
		Are there Mongolian radio broadcasts?
</A></H3></LI>
<H2>
<P><A NAME="MongoliaLPL">Mongolia - Land, People and Language</A>
</H2><LI>
<A HREF="#Where">
<H3>
		Where do Mongolians live?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Who">
<H3>
		Who speaks Mongolian?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Language">
<H3>
		What kind of a language is Mongolian?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Easy">
<H3>
		Is Mongolian easy to learn?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Dialect">
<H3>
		Are the Mongolian dialects an obstacle for the foreigner 
		learning Mongolian?
</H3></A></LI>
<H2>
<P><A NAME="MongoliaAdm">Mongolia - Administrative</A>
</H2><LI>
<A HREF="#StudyM">
<H3>
		I want to study in Mongolia. Where do I establish 
		contact?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#WorkM">
<H3>
		I want to work in Mongolia, e.g. teach a foreign 
		language. Where do I establish first contact?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#StudyIM">
<H3>
		I want to study in Inner Mongolia. Where do I establish 
		contact?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#WorkIM">
<H3>
		I want to work in Inner Mongolia, e.g. teach a foreign 
		language. Where do I establish contact?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#TravelM">
<H3>
		I want to travel to Mongolia. What kind of travel 
		documentation do I need?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#TravelIM">
<H3>
		I want to travel to Inner Mongolia. What kind of travel 
		documentation do I need?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#TravelB">
<H3>
		I want to travel to Buryatia. What kind of travel 
		documentation do I need?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#TravelK">
<H3>
		I want to travel to Kalmykia. What kind of travel 
		documentation do I need?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Embassy">
<H3>
		Where is the nearest embassy/consulate of Mongolia?
</H3></A></LI>
<H2>
<P><A NAME="MongoliaTour">Mongolia - Tourism</A>
</H2><LI>
<A HREF="#TravelM">
<H3>
		How to travel to Mongolia?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#LodgeM">
<H3>
		What kind of accommodation is available in Mongolia?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#TransportM">
<H3>
		What kind of transport is available in Mongolia?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#SeasonM">
<H3>
		Which season is recommended for travelling?
</H3></A></LI>
<H2>
<P><A NAME="InnerMongoliaTour">Inner Mongolia - Tourism</A>
</H2><LI>
<A HREF="#TravelIM">
<H3>
		How to travel to Inner Mongolia?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#LodgeIM">
<H3>
		What kind of accommodation is available in Inner 
		Mongolia?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#TransportIM">
<H3>
		What kind of transport is available in Inner Mongolia?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#SeasonIM">
<H3>
		Which season is recommended for travelling?
</H3></A></LI>
<H2>
<P><A NAME="MongoliaComputing">Mongolia - Computing Issues</A>
</H2><LI>
<A HREF="#Encodings">
<H3>
		Is there some kind of "Mongolian ASCII" or commonly 
		acknowledged encoding standard for Mongolian language 
		data processing?
</H3></A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Computer">
<H3>
		Are there computer programs for processing Mongolian 
		language documents?
</H3></A></LI>
<H2><A NAME="MongoliaReadings">Mongolia - Suggested Readings</A>
</H2><LI>
<A HREF="#Books">
<H3>
		Which book do you recommend as a start?
</H3></A></LI>
</OL><H2>
		Introductory Notes
</H2><OL><LI>
<A NAME="HowTo">
<H3>
		How can I get a copy of this Frequently Asked Questions 
		list?
</H3></A>
		You are holding a copy of this document in your working 
		memory! Save it now. A copy of this document is always 
		kept in Infosystem Mongolei (see below) but here again is
		its URL:
<ADDRESS>
		http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~corff/mf.html
</ADDRESS></P></LI>
<LI>
<A NAME="Sources">
<H3>
		Are there any other sources of information on Mongolia 
		in the Internet?
</H3></A>
		Yes and No.
<P>
		First the No. There is a number of miscellaneous 
		documents (mainly U.S. government publications) on 
		Mongolia available on the Internet. These documents (not 
		much more than a handful of files) are partially 
		outdated, difficult to find and frequently available on 
		various mirrored sites increasing the confusion.
<P>
		Now the first Yes. In spring 1994, the USENET newsgroup 
		soc.culture.mongolian came into existence. It enjoys a 
		certain popularity, not only among Mongolia specialists 
		but also among other interested persons. This newsgroup 
		(which is not moderated) offers lively discussions on all
		sorts of topics ranging from food to religion, from 
		history to modern politics. Many frequent contributors 
		supply soc.culture.mongolian also with news about current
		events, exhibitions etc.
<P>
		In order to read the news of soc.culture.mongolian, start
		any of the news readers available on your machine (this 
		may be tin, rn, nn, or any other favourite). Following 
		the instructions, it should not be too difficult to 
		subscribe to soc.culture.mongolian since this is a 
		mainstream USENET newsgroup which should be available at 
		any Internet site featuring USENET services.</P>

		<P>Now the second Yes. The
<A HREF="http://www.bluemarble.net/~mitch/monsoc.html">
		Mongolia Society
</A>
		in Bloomington, Indiana established a WWW home page in 
		Summer 1995. The WWW homepage gives information about the
		Mongolia Society and its activities. The Mongolia Society
		URL is:
<ADDRESS>
		http://www.bluemarble.net/~mitch/monsoc.html
</ADDRESS>
		The author of this site, Mitch Rice, is very active in 
		collecting, bundling and updating Mongolia-related 
		Internet documents, references to other WWW home pages on
		Mongolia and Tuva, gopher servers and single documents on
		Mongolia in the
<A HREF="http://www.bluemarble.net/~mitch/monglinks.html">
		Mongolia WWW Virtual Library
</A>
		, the URL being:
<ADDRESS>
		http://www.bluemarble.net/~mitch/monglinks.html
</ADDRESS>
		In addition, his
<A HREF="http://www.bluemarble.net/~mitch/mongolia.html">
		Mongolia Homepage
</A>
		, the URL being:
<ADDRESS>
		http://www.bluemarble.net/~mitch/mongolia.html
</ADDRESS>
		deserves attention, too.</P>
		<P>
		<P>Now the third Yes. The Mongolian Internet
		provider 
<A HREF="http://www.magic.mn">
		Magicnet
</A>
		, the URL being:
<ADDRESS>
		http://www.magic.mn
</ADDRESS>
		provides news about Mongolia and even as a daily
		download of "Today" articles. "Today", or
		<I>&Ouml;n&ouml;&ouml;d&ouml;r</I> in Mongolian,
		is the most important newspaper in Mongolia. For
		reading the articles, a special font is provided
		which can be loaded into Microsoft Windows
		environments.</P>

		Now the fourth Yes.</P>
		In November 1993, the first gopher server offering 
		dedicated information on Mongolia started working. It was
		located at Free University, Berlin, Germany, and could be
		reached via:
<ADDRESS>
		gopher gopher.fu-berlin.de
</ADDRESS>
		This gopher server used to offer the Infosystem Mongolei 
		featuring a small but growing collection of articles, 
		maps, legal documents and software related to Mongolia. 
		From early 1995 on, this gopher server was supposed to 
		migrate to a WWW site, but, alas! due to a handful of 
		reasons this aim could not be achieved before spring 
		1996.</P>
<P>
		In its present phase, the
<A HREF="http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~corff/">
		Infosystem Mongolei - WWW site
</A>
		is to a certain extent still a mirror of the former gopher 
		site but soon the former gopher site will only be 
		recognizable as its root, not as its substance any more.
<P>
		New technologies are constantly advancing and create new 
		opportunities for publishing documents which seemed to be
		"unpublishable" due to technical constraints. The new WWW
		site supports Chinese characters in its documents 
		eliminating effectively the need for dedicated software 
		on the users' side.
<P>
		The Infosystem Mongolei - WWW URL is:
<ADDRESS>
		http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~corff/
</ADDRESS></P>
		<P>More information on other Asia-related sources which may 
		be important for Mongolia studies can be found at the
<A HREF="http://coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVLPages/AsianPages/AsianE-Journals.html">
		ANU - Register of Asian Studies E-Journals
</A>
		maintained by Dr. Ciolek.</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="Internet">
<H3>
		Is there an Internet or e-mail link to Mongolia?
</H3></A>
		Yes, there is now the first e-mail link to Mongolia. It 
		came into existence in January/February 1995 and is not 
		yet a continuous (i.e. 24 h/day) operation but it seems 
		to work. It is organized by a commercial service 
		provider, Datacom Co., Ltd. Mongolia. The address is:
<address>
		bataa@magicnet.mn
</address>
		and requests to this address will most certainly be 
		answered by Bataa, the system operator. There are various
		types of service charges. First, one has to open an 
		account which is between US$ 20.-- and US$ 100.-- 
		depending on whether one is a private or an institutional
		user. Then there is a monthly charge (starting with US$ 
		5.-- / month), and in addition there is a volume charge 
		for every kB of data which is 30 cents. Despite these 
		various charges, the operation via e-mail is by far the 
		cheapest because fax and DX telephone costs are 
		tremendous.
<P>
		In addition, the Academy of Sciences which used to have its own 
		connection (UUCP) to the Internet via Dubna, Russia, has 
		recently switched to magicnet, too.
		The address is:
<P><ADDRESS>
		informc@magicnet.mn
</ADDRESS>
		for the Computer Centre of the Academy. The other institutes
		which used to have an address at Dubna are migrating too,
		and their new addresses will be provided as soon as possible.

<P>
		There is no public e-mail link to Inner Mongolia at 
		present but the scientists at the Computer Centre of the 
		Inner Mongolia University are working to supply the whole
		university with a backbone which will also have internet 
		access, scheduled to be active by summer 1996 (personal 
		communication to O. Corff in February 1996).
<P>
		By information of February 4, 1996, Buryatia can be 
		reached via e-mail. For first contact, you may 
		communicate to
<ADDRESS>
		root@inov.buriatia.su
</ADDRESS>
		(Communicated by Darima Socktoyeva, February 1996)</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="IDD">
<H3>
		Is there an IDD (International Direct Dialing) telephone 
		link to Mongolia?
</H3></A>
		Yes, there is the possibility to place IDD (International
		Direct Dialing) telephone calls to Mongolia. The country 
		code is ++976.
<P>
		Only a few area codes are known (hopefully this list will
		grow!):
<P><PRE></PRE>

		<P>Ulaanbaatar 01</P>
		<P>Darxan 037</P>

		<P>At present the telephone
		system in Ulaanbaatar is under reconstruction which
		implies that certain numbers are changed. Ulaanbaatar
		used to have 5-digit telephone numbers until 1992. Those
		numbers which then began with a 2 are usually converted
		by placing a 3 in front of the leading digit. Other
		numbers were changed later. Some numbers still retain
		the 5-digit order.</P>
<P>
		Inner Mongolia can be reached via China. The country code
		is 86, the area code for Huhhot is (0)471 (skip the 
		leading 0 when dialing from abroad). In 1995, there was a
		change in the telephone system of Huhhot, and a "9" must 
		now be included after the first digit. So, a number like 
		454433 becomes now 4954433.</P>
<P>
		Buryatia can be reached via Russia. The country code is 
		++7 but there are two city codes for Ulan Ude: 3012 for 
		6-digit telephone numbers, 30122 for 5-digit telephone 
		numbers.</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="ShortWave">
<H3>
		Are there Mongolian radio broadcasts?
</H3></A>
		The question has two possible basic meanings. First of
		all, we can ask whether there are radio broadcasts in
		Mongolia. Then we can ask whether there are Mongolian
		language radio broadcasts. Both questions can be
		answered positively.</P>
<P>
		Mongolia has a domestic radio service, both wireless and 
		wire, as well as television. Besides the domestic radio 
		service, there is also an international shortwave 
		service.</P>
<P>
		The radio in Ulaanbaatar is mainly based on a 
		wire-distributed system with loudspeakers in virtually 
		every urban househould. In some areas there is only one 
		channel available while other areas feature two channels 
		which are propagated with long waves and detected with 
		very simple sets: two channel buttons, volume control, 
		that's it. If one does not want to listen, one pulls the 
		plug.</P>
<P>
		The 'boxes' (<I>xa&iuml;rcag</I>in Mongolian) were available
		in the department store but 
		where ever you go you would inevitably run into the soft 
		background of these ever-present voices, especially at 
		offices, workplaces etc. The movie "Argamshaa" has a 
		scene where an empty apartment is shown with just the 
		radio being switched on.</P>
<P>
		Mongolian television is a complex story: the state-run 
		television can mainly be received in Ulaanbaatar, but in 
		recent years many satellite channels mushroomed. It is 
		now possible to watch MTV. Besides these new stations, 
		Mongolian television has also diversified: There is now 
		Ulaanbaatar City Television which even broadcasts on 
		Monday when the state-run television station habitually 
		has its day off. More details on television schedules 
		and broadcast history can be found in an article by John 
		W. Williams,
<A HREF="http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~corff/im/Landeskunde/john.html">
		Mass Media in Post-Revolution Mongolia
</A>
		.</P>
<P>
		International broadcasts on short wave by Radio 
		Ulaanbaatar can be heard daily in English and Mongolian. 
		The frequencies given here are last winter's schedule 
		but appearantly there are not many changes so these can 
		be tried:
<P><PRE>
Time (UTC) 	Frequencies	 Direction 
0300-0330:	9960, 12000kHz	Asia
0910-0940:	9960, 12000kHz	Asia
1445-1515:	7530,  9950kHz	Asia
1930-2000:	4080,  7530kHz	Europe and Asia
</PRE>
		A more detailed list which is probably not up-to-date 
		gives information on the languages used by Radio Ulaanbaatar:
<PRE>

RADIO ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia

Schedule effective from September 24,1995 to March 26,1996

Language   Target Area    Weekday Time UTC   Frequencies, kHz
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Mongolian  East Asia      Daily   1020-1050  12085,9960,990
           Siberia        Daily   1250-1320  9950,7350,990
English    Australia      Daily   0910-0940  12000,9960
           South Asia     Daily   1445-1515  9950,7530
           Europe         Daily   1930-2000  7530,4080
           North America  Daily   0300-0330  12000,9960
Russian    Far East       12.45.7 0945-1015  12085,9960
           Siberia        .23.567 1410-1440  9950,7530
           Europe         1.32.67 1700-1730  7530,4080
Japanese   East Asia      Daily   1120-1150  12085,9960
                          ......7 1200-1230  12085
Chinese    East Asia      Daily   1050-1120  12085,9960,990
           Asia           Daily   1330-9950,7530,990

Address:   Radio Ulaanbaator, CPO Box 365, Ulaanbaator 13, Mongloia
</PRE>

		The reception is usually fairly weak (as reported
		repeatedly and backed up by own experience).
</LI><H2>
		Mongolia - Land, People and Language
</H2><LI>
<A NAME="Where">
<H3>
		Where do Mongolians live?
</H3></A>
		Mongolians live in:
<P><OL><LI>
		Mongolia proper, the huge, land-locked country between 
		China and the Siberian part of the Russian Federation;
</LI><LI>
		Southern Mongolia, or Inner Mongol Autonomous Region 
		which politically belongs to China;
</LI><LI>
		Buryatia, direct north of Mongolia proper, south and 
		south-east of Lake Baikal;
</LI><LI>
		An important number of Mongols who are known as Kalmyks 
		live in Russia;
</LI><LI>
		A significant number of Mongolians live dispersed in 
		other Chinese provinces. Some of them form their own 
		nationalities, e.g. the Dagurs, the Dongxiang (Sarts), 
		the Bao'an etc.;
</LI><LI>
		Small communities of Mongols named Moghols live in 
		Afghanistan;
</LI><LI>
		There is also a worldwide somewhat scattered community of
		Mongol scholars, students and professionals living in 
		many countries from [A]merica to New [Z]ealand. About 500
		or more Mongols live in Germany. Many of them came to 
		Germany during the existence of the German Democratic 
		Republic which is now united with the Federal Republic of
		Germany.</P>
</LI></OL></LI>
<LI>
<A NAME="Who">
<H3>
		Who speaks Mongolian?
</H3></A>
		Virtually all citizens of Mongolia proper speak 
		Mongolian. Some do not because they are either of Kazakh 
		or other ethnic origin. Not all ethnic Mongols in 
		Southern Mongolia do speak Mongol, many of them have 
		switched to Chinese. Similar phenomena can be observed in
		Buryatia where many inhabitants speak Russian. The minor 
		communities scattered over China (
<A HREF="http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~corff/im/Sprache/Dongxiang.html">
		Dongxiang
</A>
		, Dagur, Eastern Yugur, Tuzu, Bao'an etc.) and 
		Afghanistan (Moghol) speak some very old varieties of 
		Mongolian which have developed into proper languages in 
		their own right. Some of these languages are not well 
		documented. The Kalmyks speak a form of Mongolian known 
		as Kalmyk which even developed its own modified form of 
		writing known as "Tod" or "clear" writing because it 
		identifies vowels and some consonants (k/g, t/d) in an 
		unambiguous manner.</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="Language">
<H3>
		What kind of a language is Mongolian?
</H3></A>
		<H4>Mongolian - Language</H4>
		Mongolian belongs to the Altaic family of languages 
		showing structural (and partially lexical) similarities 
		with languages of the Tungusic group of this family (e.g.
		Manju) and the Turkic group of this family (e.g. 
		Turkish). Mongolian has strong vowel harmony: all vowels 
		within one word and even all grammatical particles must 
		be chosen from one of two vowel sets which are known as 
		male and female or back and front vowels. Mongolian has a
		total of seven short vowels. There are also seven long 
		vowels. The distinction between short and long vowels is 
		essential as it alters the meaning: [tos] is "grease, 
		oil" while [toos] is "dust". Besides simple short and 
		long vowels there are also diphtongs which have duration 
		values similar to long vowels. The stress is usually put 
		on the first syllable if all syllables of a word are 
		short; otherwise the stress is put on the first syllable 
		carrying a long vowel. The set of consonants has many 
		constraints: [r] may not occur at the beginning of a 
		word. [f] only occurs in foreign loans and is frequently 
		converted to [p]. [w] and [b] though phonetically 
		different do not form an opposition on the phonological 
		level. The same holds true for [c] and [q] ([c] as 
		[ts]ar, [q] as [ch]ill) as well as [j] (as in [j]eep) and
		[z] (best described as fairly unvoiced [ds]). Both pairs 
		are expressed by the same symbol in Classical writing and
		the development of different phonetical realisations is 
		mainly due to vowel environment and dialect situation. 
		The consonants [k] and [g] are linked to vowel harmony. 
		In words containing back vowels, [k] changes to [x] and 
		[g] becomes [G] (a voiced velar). Beginners frequently 
		confuse the latter with something like a French [r].</P>

		<H4>Mongolian - Grammar</H4>
		The grammar is fairly simple: all predicates are put at 
		the end of the sentence resulting in a S.O.P. (subject - 
		object - predicate) structure. There are no subordinate 
		clauses in the sense of Indo-European languages. 
		Attributes are placed in front of the denominated entity.
		Indo-European style subordinate clauses (Relativsatz, 
		etc.) are resolved as attribute constructions. Verbs can 
		be collated to form new meanings or expand or intensify 
		the meaning of the main verb. Verbs occur in two distinct
		categories: 1) the "genuine" or finite verb forms finish 
		phrases, serve as predicates and can be compared to 
		ordinary verbs of Indo-European languages; 2) all other 
		verb forms, be they converbs (modifiers of other verbs), 
		verbal nouns (usually translated as verbs but with the 
		complete behaviour of nouns like the ability to form 
		oblique cases) or the equivalents to participles and 
		gerundial forms cannot be used to finish phrases. As a 
		rule of thumb, a Mongolian phrase usually has numerous 
		occurrences of verbs of the second class but only one 
		finite verb at the end of the phrase. As an exception to 
		this rule of thumb, under certain circumstances phrases 
		may also end with a verbal noun as predicate. All 
		grammatical functions and relations are expressed by 
		suffixes which are "glued" to the end of a root be it 
		noun or verb hence the term "agglutinative language". 
		More than one suffix can be attached to a word: e.g.
		<I>t&auml;&auml;sh</I> "bag";
		<I>t&auml;&auml;sh&auml;&auml;s</I> "out of the bag";
		<I>t&auml;&auml;sh&auml;&auml;s&auml;&auml;</I> "out of his/her bag");
		<I>bolgoomj</I> "care";
		<I>bolgoomjto&iuml;</I> "with care" -&gt; careful (as adjective);
		<I>bolgoomjto&iuml;goor</I> "acting with care" -&gt; doing something carefully (as 
		adverb).
<P>
		The repetitive nature of similar endings has strongly 
		influenced traditional lyrics which uses line 
		alliterations and line-internal alliterations as a main 
		element for structuring versed speech. The emphasized 
		beginnings of words thus form a healthy offset to the 
		grammatical suffices.

		<H4>Mongolian - Writing</H4>
		Mongolian writing is a fairly complex topic. In the history
		of the written language, numerous scripts were either accepted
		from other cultures or domestically designed. The most
		important scripts are Uighur, Chinese, Phagsba, Soyombo and
		Cyrillic. Other scripts than these five were also
		employed at given times in history, e.g. Latin which
		had been used during the 1930s but only the first
		five shall be discussed here.

		<H5>Mongolian - Writing: Uighur</H5>
		The traditional Mongolian script is written in vertical lines
		from left to right, very much like an Arab page turned 
		counter-clockwise by 90 degrees. Though this script 
		(called Uighur script because the Uighurs had used it 
		first) has been the main vehicle of written Mongolian, a 
		number of other writing systems have been and are being 
		employed. The earliest documents still existing date back
		to the 13th century.</P>
		
		<P>Despite numerous other attempts to introduce different
		types of writing, this script has proven to be to most 
		stable vehicle of written Mongolian. It was used up to
		the 1930s in Mongolia when it was first replaced with a
		short-lived Latin script (until 1938) and then replaced
		by a modified Cyrillic script in 1940.</P>

		<P>In Southern Mongolia or China's Inner Mongolia (Inner
		Mongol Autonomous Region, or &Ouml;w&ouml;r Mongol
		&Ouml;&ouml;rt&ouml;&ouml; Zasax Oron) Uighur or Classical
		Mongolian writing is still the official writing system.</P>

		<P>Similar to the historical orthography of English, Classical
		Mongolian as it is used today contains a lot of phonological
		archaisms and historical features which make it sometimes not
		perfectly easy to learn but which offer valuable insight for
		linguists and provide enough of dialect neutrality for
		modern-day speakers from the most Mongolian language areas.</P>


		<P>In the beginning of the 
		1990's, Mongolia was considering the return to the 
		Classical script despite the heavy financial and social 
		cost: New schoolbooks had to be compiled and many adults 
		who were born after 1940 must now learn a completely 
		different writing system which does not only look 
		different but which also represents a different 
		historical development stage of the Mongolian language.
		In 1992, A law was passed to the effect that from 1994
		on Mongolian 
		Classical script be the official writing of Mongolia 
		again. Even the new constitution of Mongolia passed in 1992
		was printed in Modern (Cyrillic) and Classical (Uighur)
		Mongolian (see the 
<A HREF="http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~corff/im/Gesetze/constitution.mon.nr">Constitution in Modern Mongolian,
MLS-encoded</A>
and
<A HREF="http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~corff/im/Gesetze/constitution.mon.nct">Constitution in Classical Mongolian,
MLS-encoded</A>)
but one year after this magic date nothing really 
		changed substantially.</P>


		<H5>Mongolian - Writing: Chinese</H5>
		Astonishing as it may sound, Chinese has been the writing
		of choice for important Mongolian documents during the 13th
		and 14th century. Chinese characters (a virtually
		canonical set of some 500 characters) were used
		according to their pronounciation. Some characters
		failed to render the pronounciation and were
		prefixed (or affixed) with modifiers, small Chinese
		characters indicating whether the main consonant (or
		'initial') of the syllable had to be pronounced in a
		velar manner of not. The most important document
		written with Chinese characters is the Secret
		History of the Mongols. It was an achievement of the
		late 19th and the early 20th century to decypher the
		text and restore its original Mongolian shape. The
		problems linked to this work are manyfold: One has
		to understand Early Mandarin (the name of the
		specific form of Chinese used for this script) phonology,
		and one has to understand words which appear only in
		this text but no other source, not even the famous
		Hua Yi Yi Yu or Barbarian Glossaries, Chinese
		dictionaries of the Middle Ages dealing with a
		number of Central and North-East Asian languages.
		The most promiment scholars contributing to the
		understanding of these texts were the Japanese K.
		Shiratori, the German E. Haenisch, the Japanese
		Hattori, to name just a few.</P>

		<P>Using Chinese characters for writing Mongolian
		had the big advantage that a message encoded in this
		system was obscure to a Chinese messenger but
		perfectly transparent to a Mongolian listener.
		Despite this advantage of privacy, the system ceased
		to be used in the early 14th century.</P>

		<H5>Mongolian - Writing: Phagsba</H5>
		The Phagsba or Square Writing was developed in the
		13th century by a famous Tibetan monk and scholar,
		Phagsba. Designed as the Unified Writing of the Yuan
		(emphasis through capitalisation added by OC), it
		combined the features of Tibetan (e.g., rich consonant
		inventory) with the features of Chinese (vertical
		writing direction) and Mongolian (additional vowels
		were provided). Despite its functionality, it could
		not establish itself properly and came largely out of
		use after the fall of the Yuan dynasty.</P>

		<P>The Phagsba or Square Writing is a valuable
		research tool because 14th century dictionaries give
		us a deep insight in the phonetics and phonology of
		Mongolian (and, by the way, Chinese) of those days.</P>

		<H5>Mongolian - Writing: Soyombo</H5>
		Another writing the design of which was politically
		motivated was the Soyombo script designed by the
		monk and scholar Zanabazar in 1686. It is of
		intriguing beauty and complexity yet never really
		succeeded as script for everyday use. The only
		symbol of that script which can be seen literally
		everywhere is the Soyombo symbol. More about the
		Soyombo script and symbol can be found at the 
<A HREF="http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~corff/im/Soyombo/overview.Soyombo.html">
		Soyombo Script</A> page of Infosystem Mongolei.</P>

		<H5>Mongolian - Writing: Cyrillic</H5>
		 In 1940, The then Mongolian People's Republic 
		started using a modified Cyrillic alphabet which was extended
		by two vowel symbols, [&ouml;] and [&uuml;], the female 
		counterparts of [o] and [u]. The orthography of Cyrillic
		Mongolian is based on the Xalx dialect. Despite a few
		orthographic instabilities, the Cyrillic system is the major
		vehicle of written communication today in Mongolia; virtually
		all newspapers, book etc. are printed in Cyrillic letters. 
		Since the system is based on the Xalx dialect, it is not as
		transparent for speakers from other Mongolian areas if compared
		with the Classical script; on the other hand, the clearly
		phonemical notation makes it easy to understand written
		materials read aloud, and it allows easy searching of
		dictionaries. Despite the strong political overtones around
		its inception in the 1940s, the Cyrillic writing has proven
		to be useful and practical.  Due to its structural similarity
		to Latin, the Cyrillic script could be integrated into the
		world of modern information technology (printing equipment,
		data interchange, computing, etc.) which further promoted the
		solid standing of Cyrillic writing in present day's Mongolia.
		</P>


</LI><LI>
<A NAME="Easy">
<H3>
		Is Mongolian easy to learn?
</H3></A>
		From the introduction about the Mongolian language we can
		draw the following conclusions on whether Mongolian is or
		is not easy to learn.</P>
<P>
		Since it is an SOP language its grammar may pose problems
		to speakers of most European languages and Chinese. It 
		should however be much easier for learners with a 
		background in Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Manchu or 
		similar languages.</P>
<P>
		Since the assumptions on word classes ('parts of speech')
		sometimes differs thoroughly from most Indo-European 
		languages, problems may arise in this field (When does an
		"adjective" need declension? Is it really what we call an
		adjective?).</P>
<P>
		The pronounciation does not pose enormous difficulties. 
		Although there are no completely unfamiliar sounds for 
		speakers of most other languages tutoring is strongly 
		recommended during the initial phase of acquiring 
		phonetics and phonology.</P>
<P>
		The Classical writing system should be learned under a 
		teacher's or tutor's guidance - it is sometimes a bit 
		tricky to master it on one's own. The number of language 
		training materials is not overwhelming, dictionaries are 
		only available for a few languages (notably Russian, 
		Chinese and English; but also German and Japanese. See 
		the document by Christopher Kaplonski and Oliver Corff:
<A HREF="http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~corff/im/Buch/SROM-dic.html">
		SROMDIC - Suggested Readings on Mongolia - Dictionaries
</A>
		in Infosystem Mongolei) The final key to success is 
		practice, practice, practice. Expose yourself to as much 
		printed and audio material as possible.</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="Dialect">
<H3>
		Are the Mongolian dialects an obstacle for the foreigner 
		learning Mongolian?
</H3></A>
		The language[s] in Mongolia and Southern Mongolia are 
		virtually the same: Mongolian is spoken in Mongolia and 
		Southern Mongolia, but it is spoken in its Xalx (Khalkha)
		form in Mongolia but spoken in its Chahar (Cahar) dialect
		form in Southern (Inner) Mongolia. Besides Chahar, there 
		are other dialects: Alashan in the western regions of 
		Southern Mongolia, and the forms spoken in Hulunbuir 
		(eastern part of Southern Mongolia). Nonetheless, Chahar 
		is the quasi-standard of Southern Mongolia.</P>
<P>
		Differences can be found in lexicon, pronounciation and 
		grammar. The differences in lexicon differs mostly in the
		realm of foreign loans: Chinese words are more popular in
		Southern Mongolia (e.g. $ biyanji @ for editor) which is 
		# redaktor @ in Russian-influenced Xalx; both try to 
		re-introduce the genuinely Mongolian term # nairuulagq @ 
		. Other words, especially of theoretical and political 
		nature, are often formed after completely different 
		roots.
<P>
		The pronounciation differs in the case that some sounds 
		which were not separated in the Classical Mongolian 
		writing (like [z]) are now pronounced like [z] in 
		Mongolia and [j] in Southern Mongolia. This is a general 
		rule which is influenced by the following vowel, i.e. 
		whether a [i] or something different follows.
<P>
		Grammar is occasionally distinct because elder forms are 
		sometimes preserved in Southern Mongolian speech.
<P>
		In general, it is not too difficult to speak Xalx in 
		Southern Mongolia since Xalx is recognized as the 
		prestigious lingua franca of the International Mongol 
		community. It is however slightly more difficult to 
		understand Chahar if one has only enjoyed Xalx training.
<P>
		The differences are aggravated by the usage of different 
		writing systems. Southern Mongolia keeps using the 
		Classical Mongolian writing (which is very conservative, 
		also for the grammatical endings of verbs etc.) while in 
		Mongolia in the 1940s an extended Cyrillic alphabet was 
		introduced. The extensions were necessary to accomodate 
		the Mongolian vowels [&ouml;] and [&uuml;] which are 
		usually indicated by two dots over o and u in 
		transliterations.
</LI><H2>
		Mongolia - Administrative
</H2><LI>
<A NAME="StudyM">
<H3>
		I want to study in Mongolia. Where do I establish 
		contact?
</H3></A>
		Contact your university. They may already have an 
		exchange program with Mongolia without your knowledge. If
		this fails, contact your national academic exchange 
		service (e.g. the DAAD in Germany or the JFPS in Japan).</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="WorkM">
<H3>
		I want to work in Mongolia, e.g. teach a foreign 
		language. Where do I establish first contact?
</H3></A>
		Here as above it is recommended to contact your 
		university or your national academic exchange service. 
		You are strongly discouraged to go to Mongolia posing as 
		a foreign language teacher if you are not one for 
		purposes other than teaching, e.g. missionary work. While
		in the beginning of the 1990s it was still possible to do
		so, anyone not being sent by an acknowledged academical 
		institution or governmental body must now show 
		certificates proving his/her qualification as a teacher.</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="StudyIM">
<H3>
		I want to study in Inner Mongolia. Where do I establish 
		contact?
</H3></A>
		The answer here is the same as above. Only one difference
		must be observed: Politically being a part of China, all 
		programs dealing with Inner Mongolia are usually in the 
		Chinese section or department.</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="WorkIM">
<H3>
		I want to work in Inner Mongolia, e.g. teach a foreign 
		language. Where do I establish contact?
</H3></A>
		The answer here is the same as above. Only one difference
		must be observed: Politically being a part of China, all 
		programs dealing with Inner Mongolia are usually kept in 
		the Chinese section or department of the exchange 
		organization or university.</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="TravelM">
<H3>
		I want to travel to Mongolia. What kind of travel 
		documentation do I need?
</H3></A>
		You must obtain a visa at a Mongolian embassy or 
		consulate. (See below for a list of embassies / 
		consulates). In order to obtain a visa you must produce 
		an invitation issued by a) a Mongolian private person or 
		b) a Mongolian institution. This may be a university. 
		Once you have entered Mongolia various regulations on 
		registering with police may apply depending on the length
		and nature of your stay. Ask your Mongolian embassy when 
		receiving the visa.</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="travelIM">
<H3>
		I want to travel to Inner Mongolia. What kind of travel 
		documentation do I need?
</H3></A>
		You need a visa issued by the authorities of the People's
		Republic of China. Once in China (and Inner Mongolia) 
		you'll be requested to register at a hotel etc. by using 
		the forms available there. Various other procedures may 
		apply depending on length and nature of your stay.</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="TravelB">
<H3>
		I want to travel to Buryatia. What kind of travel 
		documentation do I need?
</H3></A>
		You need a visa issued by the authorities of the Russian 
		Federation. Contact your local (usually former USSR) 
		embassy.</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="TravelK">
<H3>
		I want to travel to Kalmykia. What kind of travel 
		documentation do I need?
</H3></A>
		You need a visa issued by the authorities of the Russian 
		Federation. See above.</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="Embassy">
<H3>
		Where is the nearest embassy / consulate of Mongolia?
</H3></A>
		There are not so many Mongolian embassies and consulates.
		Most of them are accredited for several countries. The 
		following list is very incomplete and remains to be 
		completed with the readers' help.
<P>
		Since it is helpful to use a travel agency's services 
		when applying for a visa this list contains also some 
		information about travel agents. If you miss your 
		favourite agent here then you can send the address to 
		Infosystem Mongolei. The selection here is purely 
		"global" (whatever is submitted gets published).
<P>
		Please note that the addresses, telephone numbers etc. 
		could not always be verified and counter-checked. They 
		may be subject to change without notice. The editor of 
		this FAQ tries to maintain all information in a state as 
		correct as possible but relies on the contributors' 
		accuracy.
<P><PRE>
Mongolian Embassy in Australia
There is no embassy in Australia. Australia is
covered by the Mongolian Embassy in China, Beijing.


Honorary Consul in Austria
Mr. Johannes Stiedl
Anhofstr. 65-67
A-1130 Wien
Tel.: ++ 43 1 8773353
	  1724
	  5661


Mongolian Embassy in China
No. 2 Xiu Shui Bei Jie
Jian Guo Men Wai District
Beijing
Tel.: ++ 86 10 532 1203
Fax : ++ 86 10 532 5045


Mongolian Embassy in France
5, Av. R. Schuman
Boulogne


Mongolian Embassy in Germany
Siebengebirgsblick 4
53844 Troisdorf
Tel.: 02241-402727


Au&szlig;enstelle der Mongolischen Botschaft in Berlin
Gotlandstr. 12
10439 Berlin
Tel.: 030-4469320
	       21


Honorary Consul in Hong Kong
Mr. Kwok Shiu Ming
4 Sommerset Toad, Kowloon
Hong Kong
Tel.: ++ 852 338 9034
Fax : ++ 852 338 0633


Honorary Consul in Italy
Mr. Aldo Colleoni
viale XX Settembre, 37
34126 Trieste
Tel.:  040-362241
Fax    040-363494
telex  461138 CONMON1.


Mongolian Embassy in Japan
Pine Crest Mansion
21-4, Kamiyamacho
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150
Tel.: 03-3469-2088


Mongolian Embassy in New Zealand
New Zealand Embassy and Ambassador in Beijing are
credited for NZ foreign affairs to Mongolia, while
Mongolian embassies in Tokyo or Beijing handle
matters between Mongolia and NZ. See China.


Mongolian Embassy in the United Kingdom
7 Kensington Court
LONDON
W8 5DL
Tel: (0171) 937 5238
Tel: (0171) 937 0150


Mongolian Embassy in the USA
2833 M Street, NW
Washington, DC
Tel: 202-333-7117


Honorary Consul in Switzerland
Stephan Bischofberger
P.O.Box 173
Limmatstr. 35
8005 Z&uuml;rich
Fax : ++ 1 272 7924
Tel.: ++ 1 272 4005

According to the Swiss electronic telephone directory ETV,
Mr. Bischofberger seems to be in charge of a travel
agency named 'Discovery Tours'.



* Selected Travel Agents *

'Mongolian Tourism Corporation of America'
A joint venture between Zhuulchin
and an American travel agency.
Princeton Corporate Plaza
1 Deer Park Drive, Suite M
Monmouth Junction, NJ 08852
Tel.: ++ 1 908-274-0088


NOMADIC EXPEDITIONS
(This one seems to have contact with Zhuulchin, too)
Princeton Corporate Center
5 Independence Way, Suite 300
Princeton, NJ 08540


BOOJUM Expeditions
14543 Kelly Canyon Road
Bozeman, MT 59715 USA
Tel.: ++ 1 406-587-0125
Fax : ++ 1 406-585-3474
Boojum@delphi.com
boojum@mcn.net

BOOJUM Expeditions now have their own URLs:
http://www.manymedia.com/tibet/Boojum.html   or
http://www.gorp.com/boojum/boojum.htm


NOMADIC JOURNEYS Ltd
P.O. Box 479
Ulaanbaatar 13
Tel/fax:  +976 1 323043
Which can be reached from June to mid September every year.
In the winter period reservations for tour operators and
groups are with Jan Wigsten in Gotland:

Eco Tour Production Ltd
Burge i Hablingbo
620 11 Havdhem
Gotland, SCHWEDEN.
tel 0498 487105
fax +46 498 487115
e-mail: janw.nomadic@gotlandica.se
</PRE>

		* Embassies and Honorary Consuls by country * Beyond the 
		range of the official state travel agency Zhuulchin 
		there are now numerous private agencies operating in 
		Mongolia. Their addresses are occasionally hard to come 
		by but a good source is the World Tourism Handbook.
</LI><H2>
		Mongolia - Tourism
</H2><LI>
<A NAME="TravelM">
<H3>
		How to travel to Mongolia?
</H3></A>
		The principal ways to Mongolia are by train and by air. 
		The capital of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, is connected via 
		the Transmongolian Railway to China and Buryatia. In Ulan
		Ude, capital of Buryatia, the Transsiberian Railway 
		(leading to the Russian Far East, Khabaravosk, Nakhodka 
		etc.) connects to the Transmongolian Railway. Trains from
		Moscow to Beijing run once a week in each direction and 
		take about five days for the whole trip. There are also 
		'local trains' between Irkutsk (&Auml;rx&uuml;&uuml;d) 
		and Ulaanbaatar which take about 24 hours one way. 
		Similar local trains run between Ulaanbaatar and Beijing.
		Since the Transmongolian Railway sports only one track 
		this is a bottleneck for railway traffic which results in
		these one train/week schedules. Prices for train tickets 
		vary between US$ 200 and US$500. It is not possible to 
		state any exact amount because prices fluctuate, the 
		currency exchange rates vary daily and pricing policies 
		create different price tags depending on where the 
		tickets are purchased.
<P>
		The second feasible way to enter Mongolia is by air. Air 
		transport is available between Buyant Uxaa (the 
		international airport of Ulaanbaatar) and Beijing as well
		as Irkutsk, the latter with a weekly connect flight to 
		Moscow (or should I say, it's a weekly flight to Moscow 
		with a stop-over in Irkutsk?). These lines are served 
		throughout the whole year. In summer, there are 
		additional flights to Huhhot (Inner Mongolia) and Japan, 
		the latter being served on a somewhat irregular basis. 
		Past experience has shown that these links were just 
		chartered flights without a genuine "schedule" in the 
		sense of the word. There are about four to six 
		international passenger flights per week connecting 
		Ulaanbaatar and the rest of the world. Links to other 
		Central Asian regions are under consideration or offered 
		on a seasonal basis such as a flight between Almaty / 
		Kazakhstan and Mongolia. A new route has recently been 
		opened between Buyant Uxaa and Seoul, Korea.
<P>
		Only the prices on the Ulaanbaatar / Beijing route are 
		fairly constant: around US$ 200.-- for a one-way ticket. 
		For all other destinations there are wildly varying 
		ticket prices depending on where the ticket is bought and
		whether the client is entitled to special reductions 
		(like being an official student at the Mongolian National
		University).</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="LodgeM">
<H3>
		What kind of accommodation is available in Mongolia?
</H3></A>
		In Ulaanbaatar there are some big hotels. One of them is 
		a monument to Soviet-style luxury and lavishness: The 
		Ulaanbaatar Zoqid Buudal. Located next to the central 
		square, it is ideal for travellers with a not so 
		restricted budget. Price tags start at US$ 60.- (or so) 
		and the two dining rooms are frequently used by external 
		guests when every other supply of food in Ulaanbaatar 
		collapses. The next important hotel (near the Bogd Gegen 
		Palace) is the Bayangol which was thoroughly revamped in 
		1992. Similar standard. The Chinggis Khan Hotel near 
		Sansar (a district name in Ulaanbaatar) has been "due to 
		open soon" since 1991 but did not do so until 1995. It 
		used to be "under construction" and was temporarily 
		managed by the Holiday Inn group, a Korean group (Lotte, 
		I think) until it was finally taken over by a Mongolian 
		enterprise. It offers good Western food and is virtually empty
		so that you can enjoy a very calm meal there. Service is good,
		part of the personnel was trained in Munich, Germany.
<P>
		Small hotels for the traveller with a tight budget 
		include the "Stroitel" (Russian: construction worker) 
		which is north of the Ix Toirog (Great Ring) Road close 
		to the smaller monastery. A Mongolian-Chinese joint 
		venture is the "Manduhai" hotel near the Ix 
		D&auml;lg&uuml;&uuml;r (Department Store). Clean rooms, 
		simple furniture, but nice atmosphere and acceptable 
		price tag. Other private hotels keep opening with the 
		rise of the private sector. These offer similar prices 
		(sometimes starting with US$ 10.-- / day for a complete 
		little flat) but the situations keeps changing so it is 
		difficult to give names and addresses here.
		New hotels open constantly; a nice choice is the Flower Hotel
		which is the former Altai Zoqid Buudal. It is under Japanese
		management now.

<P>
		In the countryside the situation looks different. In the 
		tourist spots there are ger camps with a complete 
		infrastructure (restaurant gers, shower facilities etc.) 
		and they are quite convenient because they ensure a 
		minimum of reliability for the traveller. Some of these
		camps are still operated by Juulqin while new camps are
		operated by private companies. Once leaving 
		the tourist paths the situation again looks different. It
		is possible to ask at people's homes (= gers) but one may
		be turned away (already too many people staying there). 
		Prepare for a long demarche to the "neighbour" (maybe 50 
		or 100 kilometers (30 to 60 miles). Never, never forget 
		to bring a reasonably useful and valuable gift. When 
		staying at somebody's home then stick to the following 
		minimal rules regardless how friendly people may appear 
		to you:
<P><OL><LI>
		Check carefully whether your potential host is capable at
		all of accommodating another guest. In order to find out,
		you can check for the number of family members, the 
		situation of the animals, etc.
</LI><LI>
		Never stay longer than one day.
</LI><LI>
		Never refuse ceremonial offerings of tea even if it is 
		salty, etc.
</LI><LI>
		Roll down the sleeves of your shirt/coat no matter which 
		temperature it is. If it is summer and you (and 
		Mongolians) wear a t-shirt, then pretend to roll down 
		your sleeves symbolically when being offered food and 
		drink.
</LI><LI>
		Never accept any offering of food, drink etc. with your 
		left hand. Both hands is best.
</LI><LI>
		If there is only a well, not a river nearby, never abuse 
		it as a bathtub. Water in general and wells in particular
		are precious in this country.
</LI><LI>
		When bringing your own food or drink never forget to 
		offer it to everybody. Never attempt to munch your 
		biscuits secretely. If you can't resist eating your own 
		biscuits then wait until you are on the road again.
</LI><LI>
		Perhaps last in this list, but not least: Show due 
		respect to the dogs and animals of your host. The dog 
		will only respect you if advised by his master to do so. 
		Mongolian dogs are no pets!</P>
</LI></OL><LI>
<A NAME="TransportM">
<H3>
		What kind of transport is available in Mongolia?
</H3></A>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
		"In UB, you can walk, ride the bus, or flag done a 
		private vehicle and negotiate a price. No taxis. I was 
		fairly insulated from that, as my cousin has a car. But I
		did a lot of walking anyway, because I like to walk and 
		the city is a convenient one to walk in. Most of the 
		hotels are near the center of the city, as are many of 
		the sights. The exception is the big market, which runs 
		on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays - it's a bit of a 
		hike from downtown."
</BLOCKQUOTE>
		- Quoted from Peter Crandall's Mongolia Travelogue.
<P>
		Besides that, Ulaanbaatar sports numerous public bus 
		lines which are usually more than crowded but offer about
		the cheapest rides in the world even though the prices 
		went up by a factor of 100 from 1991 to 1995: In 1990, a 
		bus ticket was 0.50t, while in September 1996 it was 50t.
<P>
		Travelling to the country requires going by MIAT, the 
		national air line carrier, or renting a jeep. MIAT 
		flights are fairly irregular (usually only once a week 
		per direction) and may be cancelled completely for lack 
		of gasoline. It may happen that you take a flight to Uws 
		and cannot return for 8 weeks. Renting a jeep is fairly 
		inexpensive and usually includes a driver who is 
		indispensable because this man usually knows the way in 
		the endless steppe. He also has the technical skill to 
		cross rivers, sand dunes etc. A "Camel Trophy" - 
		commercial-like driving style may ruin vehicle and 
		passengers.
<P>
		In the areas closer to Ulaanbaatar (within a 500-km or 
		300 miles range) there are busses available. Their 
		departure takes place in front of the Museum of Fine Arts
		downtown Ulaanbaatar.</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="SeasonM">
<H3>
		Which season is recommended for travelling?
</H3></A>
		Summer is beautiful but short. Winter is not recommended 
		if you go beyond Ulaanbaatar. Road conditions, living 
		conditions, nutrition and everything becomes too scarce. 
		A good start is in May. It is still cold but the 
		overwhelming beauty of spring, the mild fragrance of 
		blossoms and the fresh smell of water offer experiences 
		which one will never forget.
</LI><H2>
		Inner Mongolia - Tourism
</H2><LI>
<A NAME="TravelIM">
<H3>
		How to travel to Inner Mongolia?
</H3></A>
		Inner Mongolia can be reached by train and by aircraft. 
		The Transmongolian Railway which leads from Beijing via 
		Ulaanbaatar to Ulan Ude crosses the Mongolian-Chinese 
		border at Erenhot (Erlian[haote]) / China and Zamyn 
		&Uuml;&uuml;d / Mongolia. North of Datong it connects to 
		the Chinese Railway, Inner Mongolian branch leading to 
		Baotou and eventually to Ningxia and Gansu which implies 
		that one can also travel to Inner Mongolia when coming 
		from Lanzhou and Yinchuan. It takes about 10 hours to 
		travel from Beijing to Huhhot and the night train which 
		leaves Beijing in the evening is very convenient as one 
		arrives at Huhhot early in the next morning. Trains go on
		a regular basis (usually every day, sometimes every 
		second day depending on the line) and are fairly 
		reliable. Prices are reliable, too, but the foreign 
		traveller is forced to pay about twice as much as the 
		Chinese citizen. Due to frequent depreciation of the 
		Chinese Yuan no fixed number can be given here but a 
		one-way trip (second class sleeper) from Beijing to 
		Huhhot should be around US$ 40.--.
<P>
		Flights between Huhhot and Beijing go several times a 
		week and last less than one hour. The ticket prices are 
		not very much higher than those of the railway 
		(considering prices for foreigners). Other destinations 
		in Inner Mongolia are also served from Beijing. 
		Up-to-date information on schedules should be available 
		at travel agencies dealing China Airlines tickets.</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="LodgeIM">
<H3>
		What kind of accommodation is available in Inner 
		Mongolia?
</H3></A>
		The traveller's situation is governed by more rules here 
		than in Mongolia. Basically, when staying in the cities 
		(like Huhhot etc.) the traveller has no choice but to 
		stay in huge hotels. In the countryside the situation is 
		similar to that in Mongolia but is more difficult to get 
		to the countryside.</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="TransportIM">
<H3>
		What kind of transport is available in Inner Mongolia?
</H3></A>
		In addition to railway (from and to Beijing, Huhhot, 
		Baotou, Hailar etc.) there are flights between regional 
		centres and long-distance busses within the regions. For 
		local excursions you can also rent cars with drivers.</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="SeasonIM">
<H3>
		Which season is recommended for travelling?
</H3></A>
		See the answer about Mongolia above. Generally speaking, 
		travelling is difficult in winter. The grasslands show 
		their beauty only in summer, and in winter there is 
		"nothing to see" in the conventional sense. On the other 
		hand, since there is "nothing to see" in winter, winter 
		is a good time to go there if you want to see temples, 
		monasteries etc., because at that time you most certainly
		do not have to compete with other tourists for resources 
		like accomodation, transport e.a. In addition, the places
		you're interested in will most probably be fairly empty.
</LI><H2>
		Mongolia - Computing Issues
</H2><LI>
<A NAME="Encodings">
<H3>
		Is there some kind of "Mongolian ASCII" or commonly 
		acknowledged encoding standard for Mongolian language 
		data processing?
</H3></A>
		Unlike the American ASCII code, the Chinese GuoBiao code 
		or the Japanese JIS code there is not yet a national code
		system for the encoding of Mongolian writing be it 
		encoded in its Classical or Cyrillic form. As a 
		consequence, no international standard organization (like
		ISO) could accept a national standard and turn it into an
		international one.
<P>
		The problems we find in this field are of a complex 
		nature and frequently have strong mutual dependencies.
<P>
		Let's look at Cyrillic encoding first. It is not 
		far-fetched to suggest using an existing Cyrillic 
		encoding scheme for encoding Mongolian but not even such 
		a simple idea is without its traps. There is more than 
		one Cyrillic encoding, and some encodings are incomplete:
		they do not include the Cyrillic
<I>
		yo
</I>
		or
<I>
		&euml;
</I>
		. In addition, these tables (or code pages) usually have 
		no space to accommodate the additional Mongolian vowel 
		symbols
<I>
		&ouml;
</I>
		and
<I>
		&uuml;
</I>
		which must then be placed somewhere outside the natural 
		order of the alphabet. Several modified code pages of 
		this type exist; implementations available are mentioned 
		below.
<P>
		With Classical writing, the situation is even more 
		complicated. For a long time in history, there has not 
		been one commonly acknowledged Classical Mongolian 
		alphabet (or
<I>
		cagaan tolgo&iuml;
</I>
		); differences can be observed in the number of letters, 
		the sorting order and the treatment of ambiguous letters 
		which have more than one reading for a given shape, like
<I>
		t/d
</I>
		. The situation is further complicated by the fact that 
		one given letter may assume numerous different shapes 
		depending on its position within the word. The designer 
		of an encoding scheme has to decide whether only 
		canonical letters (the ones under which one would try to 
		find a word in a dictionary) are to be included or 
		whether all shape variants should be included as well.
<P>
		The next problem arises when thinking of computer 
		technology. The eight bit (one byte) code space of 
		commonly used systems cannot hold more than 256 
		characters of which 128 have been defined already. If 
		both Cyrillic and Classical writing are to be enclosed in
		one common code space, it is only possible at the cost of
		sharing common letter shapes between Latin and Cyrillic 
		characters. There is no other choice if one wants to 
		avoid the switching of code pages in one document.
<P>
		Another problem intimately related to writing is the 
		field of transcriptions and transliterations. The layout 
		of rules for transliterating Classical or Cyrillic 
		Mongolian has many consequences in the field of data 
		exchange, automatic text processing, the building of 
		library catalogues, etc. Some popular systems (e.g. the 
		so-called Petersburg transliteration) use characters 
		which are not readily available on today's computers, 
		and the ones working with reduced character sets are 
		sometimes not popular.
<P>
		Only in recent years (more or less starting with the 
		UNESCO conference on the Computerization of Mongolian 
		script in Ulaanbaatar in August 1992) there has been a 
		genuine international effort to solve these problems and 
		to come up with an encoding scheme that will be accepted 
		world-wide. The Mongolian National Institute for 
		Standardization and Metrology (MNISM), the Chinese 
		National Standard Bureau, other standard bodies of other 
		countries, ISO and UNICODE all have held regular meetings
		during the last years in order to define a standard.
<P>
		So far, no final agreement exists, and there is no 
		software package which could serve as a demonstrator for 
		this future standard. All available software either 
		defines its own code page or relies on ASCII 
		representations of Mongolian which are then converted 
		into Mongolian writing.</P>
</LI><LI>
<A NAME="Computer">
<H3>
		Are there computer programs for processing Mongolian 
		language documents?
</H3></A>
		Yes, there are.
<P>
		Nota Bene: While the editor is happy to offer this 
		information it must be mentioned as a caveat that in most
		cases the editor could neither verify the sources of 
		these programs nor did he have a chance to review them. 
		In addition, not all of the programs are direct 
		competitors: some of them provide 'pure' front-ends for 
		printing systems, other focus on data models which make 
		them useful for text processing, etc. The available 
		programs can be roughly classified as follows:
<P><UL><LI>
		Layout software for Classical Mongolian produced at Inner
		Mongolia University for MSDOS and UNIX platforms. Maybe 
		this is the most complete package one can dream of since 
		it supports everything from different writing styles 
		(Ulaanbaatar vs. Inner Mongol typeface) to different 
		alphabets (including Oirat, Phags-ba etc.) Availability: 
		Yes, but with a high price tag in the four-digit US$ 
		range.
</LI><LI>
		Windows Software by American and German producers. These 
		are usually only font sets which are sold in combination 
		with some exotic text processing software. Does not offer
		full support for correct conversion of text data, etc.
</LI><LI>
		The "Sudar" package of the National University of 
		Mongolia was written in 1991/2 by M. Erdenechimeg. This 
		package runs on a DOS platform, can do both Classical and
		Modern Mongolian and has import utilities for a number of
		encodings. The author is developing a new package at the 
		moment, the support for improvements of "Sudar" 
		supposedly being discontinued.
</LI><LI>
		"Cyrillic only" products for enhancing MSDOS platforms 
		are available at little or no cost in Mongolia. These 
		include printer drivers, screen fonts and keyboard 
		mappers for the extended Cyrillic alphabet. Around three 
		or four different encodings are known under the following
		program names: NCC, MOSLAST, SUNCHIR and MONKEGA. No 
		commercial code converters available, no support for 
		Classical Mongolian.
</LI><LI>
		Research-type programs for MacIntosh machines, produced 
		by the Universit&eacute; de Nanterre but never made 
		publicly available.
</LI><LI>
		One classical font is offered by Ecological Linguistics 
		for Mac systems.
</LI><LI>
		A commercial font package is available for extended 
		Cyrillic by Linguist's Software for both the Mac and PC 
		worlds.
</LI><LI>
		Daniel Kai's XenoType Technologies' Inner and Outer 
		Mongolian TrueType (and Postscript) fonts for the Mac (as
		well as Soyombo, Phagspa) in the computer systems for 
		Classical Mongolian. This system gets good reviews.
</LI><LI>
		MLS - Mongolian Language Support. Originally developed 
		for IBM compatible PCs, now extended to the Unix world. 
		Availability: free. See the
<A HREF="http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~corff/im/MLS/overview.MLS.html">
		MLS
</A>
		software section of Infosystem Mongolei. MLS is a MSDOS 
		enhancement featuring support for both Classical and 
		Cyrillic Mongolian. It offers conversion modules, a 
		viewer for text with vertical lines and allows the 
		continued use of (text mode) applications like dBASE, 
		spreadsheets and text processing packages. Windows 
		support is currently under development. Besides the MLS 
		package itself there is the above-mentioned Mongolian 
		text viewer (MVIEW) with on-line conversion from 
		transliteration to Mongol script and a converter from 
		Mongol text to graphics (MLS2PCX) which generates 
		graphics files out of Mongolian language texts. The free 
		packages do not yet contain printer support which is 
		overly due and can be expected soon (says the author of 
		MLS).</P>
<P>
		It should be mentioned that the focus of MLS lies in 
		processing Mongolian language data and providing Internet
		support rather than creating beautiful documents.</P>
</LI></UL></LI>
<H2>
		Mongolia - Suggested Readings
</H2><LI>
<A NAME="Books">
<H3>
		Which book do you recommend as a start?
</H3></A>
		A dedicated document by Christopher Kaplonski -
<A HREF="http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~corff/im/Buch/SROM.html">
		SROM - Suggested Readings on Mongolia
</A>
		- is available at "Infosystem Mongolei". This document is
		occasionally updated and gets posted to the USENET 
		newsgroup soc.culture.mongolian. A second document (
<A HREF="http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~corff/im/Buch/SROM-dic.html">
		SROMDIC - Suggested Readings on Mongolia - Dictionaries
</A>
		) by Christopher Kaplonski and Oliver Corff at the same 
		location reveals information about commonly used 
		dictionaries.
</LI></UL>
</BODY></HTML>

--
Dr. Oliver Corff              e-mail:    corff@zedat.fu-berlin.de
c/o Wuertz    Wielandstr. 20  telephone:   ++ 49 - 30 - 852 93 75
12159 Berlin  GERMANY 
