Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/133

 unintelligible to the Khalkas, and the pronunciation of the former is softer; thus, k, ts, ch, become respectively kh, ch, and g, e.g. Tsagan (white), becomes Chagan, Kuku-hoto becomes khuhu-khoto, and so on.

Even the construction of the sentence changes, and our interpreter sometimes could not understand expressions used by the Mongols of the South, although he could not explain why they were unintelligible. All he would say was, 'They talk nonsense.'

It appears to me that very few Chinese words have been introduced into the Mongol language, but that in the neighbourhood of Koko-nor a great deal is derived from the Tangutan. In South-Eastern and Southern Mongolia, Chinese influence prevails, and is evidenced in the character of the people as well as in their language, not so much from the number of foreign words introduced into it as by a general change, and a more monotonous and phlegmatic pronunciation than that of the true Khalka Mongols, who talk in loud, energetic accents.

The written characters, like the Chinese, are arranged in vertical columns, but are read from left to right. There are a good many printed books, the Chinese Government having appointed a special commission, at the end of the last century, to