Mongolian Writing Systems - Foreign Scripts

Foreign Scripts

Before the 13th century, foreign scripts had to be used to write the Mongolian language. And even during the reign of the Mongol Empire, people in the conquered areas often wrote it in their local systems. Most often it was transcribed phonetically using Chinese characters, as is the case with the only surviving copies of The Secret History of the Mongols. Subjects from the Middle East hired into administrative functions would also often use Persian or Arabic scripts to write their Mongolian language documents.