Kalmyk People - Writing System

Writing System

In the 17th century, Zaya Pandita, a Lamist monk belonging to the Khoshut tribe, devised a script called Todo Bichig (clear script). The script, which is based on the classical vertical Mongol script, phonetically captured the Oirat language. In the later part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries, to do bichig fell into disuse until the Kalmyks abandoned it in 1923 and introduced the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. But soon afterwards, around 1930, Kalmyk language scholars introduced a modified Latin alphabet, which did not last long.