A New Approach to the Romanization of Written Mongol

Authors

• Michael Balk
• Juha Janhunen

Abstract

This paper has grown from a joint project which the two authors initiated
in late 1997 on the Romanization of the Mongol script. The authors first
met earlier the same year at the Seventh International Congress of
Mongolists in Ulan Bator, where they presented individual papers on
related topics (Balk 1997, Janhunen 1997). Since it turned out that the two
papers reflected an almost identical understanding of the fundamental
issues of the problem, the authors decided to continue the work together
in order to create a unified system of Romanization for Written Mongol
with a potential for wider use in both scholarly and practical contexts.
The final results of this work, as well as the detailed discussions which
preceded them, will appear as separate publications, in which the history
of the question will also be given due consideration. The purpose of the
present paper is to give an introduction to the principal considerations and
motivations underlying the new approach to the Romanization of Written
Mongol. At the same time, the actual solutions proposed by the authors
will also be illustrated.