Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Central Asia/Mongolia work group/Archive 1

List of Mongolia-related topics
This list is not really encyclopedic content, but an editor's work tool. In a previous deletion debate about many similar lists, the most prevailing recommendation was to projectify them. That has been done only with very few of them so far, but I still suggest that we relocate ours as a subpage of this project. Any opinions? --Latebird (talk) 05:49, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No objection. Yaan (talk) 09:46, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Mongolian script wishlist
This is a list of articles that could do with some Mongolian script in them. Feel free to add more, I will try and, bit by bit, put .svg images of Mongolian script into the articles.

Actually, you can do this yourself, you just need a Computer that properly displays Mongolian script - computers equipped with Microsoft's Windows Vista can do that, for example - and a program to convert the script into vector images. I use Inkcape, which is free.

If you add an item, it would be helpful if you could attach a proper transliteration or, even better, (a link to) an image of what the Mongolian script should look like. I don't have a dictionary for Mongolian script, and so figuring out how a name is spelled is sometimes difficult. There is a dictionary for Mongolian script at www.linguamonglia.co.uk, but it seems of no big help when trying to determine orthography of proper names. But adding a transliteration or picture is no prerequisite, it might just help speeding up things. Yaan (talk) 10:32, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Places in Inner Mongolia
Tongliao, Helan Shan (=alaša aγula) yeke kingγan aγula, Greater Khingan G Purevdorj 22:02, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Wuhai, Chifeng, Hinggan, Ulanhot (solved)

 * (it should be: Mongolian: Ulaγan qota) - One word or two? in cyrillic it is sometimes just one word. Yaan (talk)
 * I think Chifeng should also be something like Ulaγan qada, but again I don't know if it is one word or two. Yaan (talk) 19:19, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * My mistake in the first case. My map is clear in that both placenames are written in one word. (There'd be a slight difference between Ulaγan qota and Ulaγanqota: the first would indicate that a town is called Ulaγan. For example, to a Mongolian I would tell that I went to Bielefeld qota. In Ulaγanqota, the word qota has been integrated into the name. Ulaγanqada is even easier, as qada is no generic term for towns. :-) Of course, an older writing convention deviates from this.) G Purevdorj 20:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by G Purevdorj (talk • contribs)
 * Both Ulanhot and Ulanhad currently look a bit strange - to many shüds in a row. For that reason I have now uploaded two versions for each town, with one (Ulaganqota.svg, Ulaganqada.svg) and two words (Ulagan qota.svg, Ulagan qada.svg), respectively, and only added the two-word versions into the articles for now. I guess the problem could be overcome with longer strokes somewhere between the a's, n's and q's, but I am not sure where to place them, if at all. Yaan (talk) 21:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It's perfectly normal to have four teeth in a row and doesn't look strange at all (cp. or even ). If you know what you are reading, you don't even have to count them. No, that's just what this scipt is like. Cyrillic does mean a sort of progress, or ease. Thus, better establish the other two versions that fit contemporary custom. G Purevdorj 22:29, 31 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by G Purevdorj (talk • contribs)
 * OK then. Btw. what's up with the 'k' and 'a' in 'Kingɣan'? Yaan (talk) 22:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * When Middle Mongolian turned into Classical Mongolian, the sequence  was replaced by the sequence . While the phonological relevance of this is subject to ferocous dispute, the change in orthography is a plain fact. Thus,  in Modern or Classical Mongolian texts is almost absent.  before <-i> and  behind  do not indicate anything about vowel harmony. G Purevdorj 23:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by G Purevdorj (talk • contribs)
 * Does Üqai usually/always come with qota (as in Kökeqota), or does it also appear on its own (as Eriyen seems to do most of the time) ? The page name is just Wuhai, so I think that just writing Üqai might be more appropriate, if Üqai can apear without the qota. Yaan (talk) 00:03, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * My map clearly writes it without qota. G Purevdorj 11:51, 1 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by G Purevdorj (talk • contribs)
 * OK. But now it is going to take some days. Yaan (talk) 22:02, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Wuhai - like this: ? Yes G Purevdorj 12:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I have added some more pics - place names, people, literary works - at commons, but don't have the time right now to add them to the relevant articles. They are


 * Image:Erdeni-yin tobci.svg‎ OK
 * Image:Qubilai qaghan.svg‎ OK
 * Image:Qobdo.svg‎ OK
 * Image:Qatan baghatur magsurjab.svg‎
 * Image:Ogedei qaghan.svg‎ OK
 * Image:Mongke qaghan.svg‎ OK
 * Image:Mongghol-un nighuca tobciyan.svg‎ OK
 * Image:Manglai baghatur damdinsurung.svg‎ OK
 * Image:Guyug qaghan.svg‎ OK [a lot of scientific texts on the net write "Güyüg" next to other precise transcriptions, and your retranscription itself is correct.]
 * Image:Cighulghan.svg‎ OK
 * Image:Ayimagh.svg‎ OK
 * Image:Arad-un qatan baghatur maghsurjab.svg‎
 * Image:Altan tobci.svg‎ OK
 * Image:Koke naghur.svg‎ OK
 * Image:Cighulaltu qaghalgha.svg‎ wrong - and now? Yaan (talk) 15:49, 5 March 2008 (UTC) OK
 * Image:Alasa aghula.svg‎ OK

I am not entirely sure if they are all correct (particularly unsure about Güyüg), so comments and corrections are welcome. Yaan (talk) 18:28, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

About these I'm pretty sure. G Purevdorj 20:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Ögedei does appear in a book I have at home, so it is probably not wrong - that is, the first 'e' does look a bit strange to me now. The question is also if Ögödei could be correct, too. čiγulaltu qaγalγa appears as transliteration in another book, and chuulalt haalga (in cyrillic) has hits on google, including some from China Radio International, so if my retransliteration is correct, then it should be correct, too (although one can also find other forms like chuulgany haalga, haalga hot etc.). For Magsarjav and Damdinsuren I checked the components of their names and titles (Manlai, Damdin, Suren, Hatan, Magsar, Jav) in some cyrillic-traditional script dictionary of Mongolian names (small booklet from the early 1990s), but am not entirely sure about whether the titles consist of two words or just one. Maybe I'll also check the 'ng' in Manglai once more. Yaan (talk) 12:05, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I have asked from an Inner Mongolian friend and he sent me a pdf with the correct written Mongolian forms. He also wrote that if it is a title as is the case here, Manglai baghatur etc. must be written in two words, else they would be written in one word. It is always Ögedei. You can write Magsarjab OR Magsurjab. Thus it is impossible to learn from mere component checking whether this very Magarjav was written in one or the other way. You made an obvious mistake with qaghalgh-a: the last "a" must be written separarely. But apart from this, it is correct. G Purevdorj 14:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I request a Written Mongolian form for Qaracin. G Purevdorj (talk) 15:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Workgroups vs. projects
Someone who apparently doesn't even edit in the related topics has decided to turn all the workgroups of the WikiProject Central Asia into projects of their own. As far as I can tell, none of the involved editors have been consulted first. I've started a discussion about it on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Central Asia to figure out what everybody thinks about such a procedure. --Latebird (talk) 21:11, 2 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Hallo Latebird! Ich verstehe leider die Mechanismen nicht gut, die jetzt in Gang gesetzt worden sind, darum kann ich mich nicht gut weiter in den Streit einschalten. Auch wenn mir das Vorgehen von Herrn Carter Richtung größenwahnsinnig und seine Wortwahl in der Argumentation mehr daneben als die deine erscheint, da du wütend klingst, er aber extrem hochmütig ist und uns an der Basis offenbar denkbar gering schätzt, sodass sich ein Fragen, was wir von der ganzen Sache halten, für ihn offenbar erübrigt. Für mich war bisher nicht ersichtlich, wie sich der Großteil der Leute von den aktiven Projekten ihm gegenüber verhalten hat. Wäre nett, wenn du, sobald sich bestimmte Dinge fest abzeichnen oder doch dringender Bedarf an Unterstützung bestehst, hier dazu noch etwas schreiben würdest. G Purevdorj 23:14, 3 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by G Purevdorj (talk • contribs)


 * Ha! It's a Work group again. Can we go on with creating content now? Yaan (talk) 17:41, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, the name was changed because the person who actually created the page, whether Latebird wants to acknowledge that or not, me, determined in the interim that his opinion, based on his own opinions which were and still are completely irrelevant to the name change, took priority. Like I have said elsewhere, I try to avoid the overly dramatic editors, like, well, someone here. On that basis, despite the fact that I late last week obtained a printout of a textbook relating to Mongolia which I intended to use to improve the main article and the article on Ulan Bator, which had a particular chapter devoted to it, as well as various governmental publications I printed out at the same time, I think, based on my experiences with that person, that I will absent myself from this content completely, as that party appears to think that this page which I created now belongs to him. Bye, all. John Carter (talk) 18:40, 4 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Come on, no need to sulk. I think we now have a setting for relaxing a bit and think over again whether a project or a work group is preferable. I do not really care much about having a project or not (though I still do not see the point in having one), I just thought the whole discussion was way overblown. I actually second Purevdorj in that both Latebird and you were not really hitting the right tone.
 * If you think you have something to contribute to the articles, please do. I always thought WP gets better through content, that guidelines, policies, projects etc. are mere tools to achieve good content. Yaan (talk) 18:59, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. However, in all honesty, I am facing an editor, Latebird, who basically decided that he was going to propose for deletion several pages he had presumably known about for months because he didn't want to have to do additional work which was never going to have to be done anyway. He expressed reservations that he didn't want to create templates as the reason for opposing the groups. He was basically told that there were no templates to be created. Thereafter, he objected to the existence of groups he had apparently known about for some time because he was, basically, annoyed. His conduct, on that basis, is I believe demonstrably completely inappropriate. Can you give me any reason why I should want to put myself into a situation where I would have to subject myself to having to deal with such a person? There are any number of other countries whose main articles are in similar shape, if not worse, than this one, and, well, Latebird doesn't deal with them. :) John Carter (talk) 20:28, 4 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, as you like. Are you going to proceed with having the Central Asia project deleted? Yaan (talk) 10:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * He's made his point. No need to troll him any further. --Latebird (talk) 06:10, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I had actually hoped we could all somehow get along. I somewhat like the idea of reconciliation, even after rather bitter arguments. Especially when the argument is not in real life. But now I guess I will not see you two reconciling anytime soon. Yaan (talk) 00:21, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I was invited by Latebird, but honestly, I'm not interested in the above unproductive debate.

I'm working on history stuff that often crosses modern borders and sometimes focuses on how these borders have been formed. So I hope this project/workgroup will not be a stronghold of sectionalism. --Nanshu (talk) 10:46, 11 February 2008 (UTC), modified 22:14, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I oppose the restriction of the scope to the territory of the independent state of Mongolia. In this sense, the flag of Mongolia is politically sensitive for this project/workgroup.
 * For those who use "Centra Asia" as a near-synonym of "Turkestan," Mongolia would be marginal. What is worse is that my interest lies mainly in its relationship with Manchuria and the Okhotsk culture, which are certainly out of the scope of WikiProject Central Asia. I'm afraid the current project-workgroup hierarchy might adversely affect my work.


 * I agree with most of that, not specifically because of the flag, but for general reasons. Let's start a seperate discussion defining the best scope of the work group, as it is really a different topic than this one here. --Latebird (talk) 12:09, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Portal: Mongolia
I just discovered that User:Dagvadorj had created Portal:Mongolia last November. Unfortunately, he seems to have stopped editing in December, and the portal still looks unfinished. But I think it could be made into something useful. Any takers? --Latebird (talk) 06:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Just go ahead.
 * Yesterday, after some clicking around, I came to the conclusion that what I actually wanted was a Regional notice board. But of course it makes no sense to create even more parallel structures at the moment, so I will abandon that idea for now. Yaan (talk) 00:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

scope, logo, etc.
I agree with Nanshu's comments above that this place should not be limited to the Mongolian state (Mongol Uls), but also cover nearby areas like Inner Mongolia and, ideally, Tuva and Buryatia. I also agree that we should find a different logo, i.e. one that does not come with an associated political boundary. Possible solutions could be a small Chinggis Khan pic, a Mongol banner (the thing depicted on the 20,000 tugrik note), a ger, maybe a lucky knot, a shou-sign, or the word "Monggol" in the traditional script. I personally would prefer a ger, as CK seems now a bit stereotypical, and the shou and the lucky knot are a bit unspecific, but I won't argue over it. And no, I don't have a nice ger picture at hand.

I am OK with having the work group located within the Central Asia Project, but if there is a strong dislike of this location, the group could always be changed into an independent Regional Notice Board, as mentioned above. Of course, if enough people prefer an own (maybe independent) project, we could change this place into one as well. I personally prefer to concentrate on content, so project or not does not really seem that important to me. Yaan (talk) 17:54, 11 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Thus not the Mongolian flag. While Chinggis is indeed frequently misrepresented, he would be okay, but there is no usable pic of him, as the one in question only bears witness of foreign (here Chinese) cultural influence. This holds for the unspecific religious symbols as well. The word "mongol" would be okay, but I wouldn't like to have it in Mongolian script, as it was abandoned by too many Mongolian subcultures. Yet, we don't know if to reconstruct "*mongol" or "*mongal", thus there would be no alternative, and thus I wouldn't like to choose this option. The tug would be okay, but for me it is very awe-inspiring a symbol to choose for our activities. The ger would be alright; it is common and specific to the Mongols and gives a hint at some of the cultural plight of South Mongolia; it even frequently appears in UB. Thus, I agree with Yaan. G Purevdorj 20:10, 11 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by G Purevdorj (talk • contribs)


 * For the logo, we could crop the right side ger out of Image:Mongolia_Ger.jpg.
 * For the scope of the work group, I agree that it should be more general. "We handle everything below Category:Mongolia" doesn't really reflect how people work around here. Can anyone think of a good "mission statement" to put on the work group page? --Latebird (talk) 19:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Gerlogo.gif]] Does this look right? Yaan (talk) 18:11, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I enhanced the contrast a bit, and now it does! ;) --Latebird (talk) 18:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * So, what about "This group was formed to better organize articles on Mongolia, and also articles on neighbouring areas like Inner Mongolia, Buryatia, or Tuva, or on Mongolian language, culture, and history, in a spirit of cooperation." ? It's not very creative, I just tried to be a bit more inclusive. Actually, it also doesn't read too well. Yaan (talk) 12:03, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * "neighboring" is not a good idea, think of Afghanistan. And I'm not sure if it's about place at all instead of eg a historical and cultural continuum related in one or the other way to the more or less distinct clan federation that was refounded by Chinggis Qagan and was first established sometime in the 12th century. This is how I'd perceive the scope of Mongolian studies. G Purevdorj 15:51, 14 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by G Purevdorj (talk • contribs)


 * The "Mongolian studies" criteria sounds like an interesting approach. Maybe we could focus on that one instead of territories, tribes and the like. Right now, there's no article about Mongolian studies though (only a a German version), which is kind of a pity. --Latebird (talk) 17:11, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, it’s difficult to delimit “Mongolian studies”. There is the linguistic and the historical focus point, and both of these necessitate a broad focus such as pointed out above. You can probably conceive of it as of a light cone with the reunification of several tribes by Chinggis qagan as point A and everything in possible connection to it as object of Mongolian studies. In other areas of research, the factual focus is less broad, tending to exclude parts of the periphery or even adhering to state boundaries. While language and folklore studies in the periphery still seem feasible, something like economic studies is more likely limited either to Mongolians with a traditional form of economy or to Mongolians within the borders of Outer or Inner Mongolia. It is likely that a study on social conditions in Kalmykia would make use of another framework, maybe Russian studies or sociology itself. Thus, the scope of Mongolian studies really depends on your scientific interest. Now I shall try to suggest a definition of scope myself:

This group includes within its scope all articles related to Greater Mongolia, its cities, geography, transportation, culture, history, language and so on. As all this is intrinsically related to the clan federation (re)created by Genghis Khan at the beginning of the 13th century, it also includes into its scope everything that forms the basis for this confederation and came into being as a consequence of it, be it related to Kalmykia or Mongolian minorities, culture etc. from Herat to Gansu/Qinghai to emigrants in Western nations, Mongolian loanwords in Korean or Turkic cultural influence on “Mongolian” culture or vice versa. G Purevdorj 13:52, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Personally I want this to be a project rather than a work group. But I don't stick to my opinion if it involves a bitter struggle. --Nanshu (talk) 22:14, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Inner and ... Mongolia
Is there a universally acceptable designation of the area covered by the state of Mongolia as opposed to Inner Mongolia? I always used to write something like "both in Inner and Outer Mongolia", but latebird seems to (strongly) prefer something à la "both in Inner Mongolia and Mongolia". My impression is that this (latebird's) kind of phrasing might be more confusing to non-experts.

The issue at hand is a sentence in the intro to Culture of Mongolia, which now reads "In the 20th century, Russian and, via Russia, European culture have had a strong effect on Mongolia", though I would prefer "In the 20th century, Russian and, via Russia, European culture have had a strong effect on Outer Mongolia". The issue seems to have some significance beyond the "Culture of Mongolia" article, that's why I would like to discuss it here. Yaan (talk) 18:17, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The sentence is clear enough. Russia had influence on all of Mongolia. Either you assume Mongolia to be identical to the Mongolian state and thus forget about Inner Mongolia, or you think of Mongolia as a cultural space and include Inner Mongolia. The introductory sentence almost forces you to do either, and you have to be more that cautious and rather knowledgable to get its intended meaning. Independent of the outcome here, I daresay, it needs to be changed.
 * I personally try not to refer to the Mongolian state with a word like "Mongolia" that discriminates against any Mongols outside of that state (and it is not rare at all to come upon zaluu citizens from that state who hold the belief that they are in fact the only genuine Mongolian people left on earth). While I use it most often, the (not necessarily historical) term "Outer Mongolia" has the disadvantage of refering to the Mongolian state from the vantage point of Beijing. Not too desirable. Some people try to solve this problem by applying terms like "Northern/Central" or "Southern Mongolia". To most specialists, "Southern Mongolia" is pretty obvious, but does Northern Mongolia refer to the state or Buryatia or does Central Mongolia refer to the state or to both Inner and Outer Mongolia? Non-experts might even interpret "Soutern Mongolia" as "the South of the Mongolian state". So the points of the compass won't do any good. Therefore I'd suggest to use the terms "Inner Mongolia" and "Mongolian state". (And by the way, I would vastly prefer to change Mongolia to Mongolia (state) and have the term Mongolia redirect to Mongolia (disambiguation). Or a more modest alternative: rename Mongolia to Mongolia (state), but redirect from Mongolia to Mongolia (state) instead of vice versa.) G Purevdorj 19:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * There are certainly precedents for this, like Ireland or Macedonia, but I actually do think that modern english usage of the word Mongolia usually refers to the country, not the region. At least my usage of "Mongolei" does, even if there are many exceptions. I did think of using "Mongolian state" in the sentence above, but then I thought it read strange. One could use "Russian ... culture ... left a strong impression on the [population of ? ] the Mongolian People's Republic", but IMO this sounds more historical than it should. Yaan (talk) 10:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I don’t think that there will be a way to address this problem that sounds unmarked to Europeans and such to speakers of European languages. In order to abandon an incorrect notion, the usage of language might have to be changed (either as a prerequisite or as a consequence) (cp. what the markedness of a gendered phrase like “women and men” tells us about our society). New or precise vocabulary, on the other hand, often sounds awkward in the beginning. Thus, if we just were to search for the most conventional vocabulary to put it into use here, we might just have to follow Latebird’s suggestion and rephrase the sentence in question with something like “in Mongolia, but not in the Mongolian part of China”. In my opinion, such a phrasing would be an endorsement of nationalist ideology inasfar as it pushes the reader to take as most prototypical those Mongolians living in the Mongolian state only by merit of the existence of such a state. Let's deviate from this norm! G Purevdorj 11:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by G Purevdorj (talk • contribs)


 * Yaan's suggestion of "people of the Mongolian People's Republic" looks like the correct solution. We should be careful just to describe reality, and not to preemptively succumb to what we perceive to be political correctness in front of any given audience. The principle of NPOV demands that we don't make judgement about what might or might not be an "incorrect notion", unless we can cite sources making such a statement. The vocabulary we use should be precise, but never "new" (neologism). A convoluted expression like "in Mongolia, but not in the Mongolian part of China" serves no purpose but to confuse. --Latebird (talk) 13:14, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * If we talk about Mongolian culture, limiting one's scope to Mongolia IS an "incorrect notion" which could readily (while not without some effort) be shown. So while the question in general is political, a generalization such as "Mongolian" can only pertain to a given object of research, and even then to different degrees. I would doubt, for example, that the differences in shamanic culture differ more between adjacent Mongolic and Turkic people than between adjacent Mongolic people. Therefore, in most contexts "Mongolian" is not a scientific, but a historical or a policital term, and the way we use it WILL reflect our political conceptions, independent of how carefully we try to deal with its application in particular contexts.
 * The lengthy term for the Mongolian state instead of "Mongolian state" has the disadvantage of not pointing out by itself that there is considerable Mongolian culture besides it. G Purevdorj 14:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The question wasn't about which areas are affected by "Mongolian culture" in general (that would be most simply be summarized as Greater Mongolia). The dispute that lead to this question related to Russian influence in the 20th century. I wouldn't object to using "Mongolia" there, but of course "People's Republic of Mongolia" is more accurate. "Mongolian state" looks ok as well, as long as it is unambiguous which time of history it refers to.
 * Generally speaking, my position is that in each situation, we need to be as precise as reasonably possible, and prefer the official names. If reality is confusing, then we need to explain it. But we shouldn't perpetuate the confusion by using a term from the 17th-19th centuries when talking about events of the 20th century. And of course you are right: When using "Mongolian" as an adjective, then we should be very careful to specify what we really mean. Fortunately, the English language distinguishes clearly between Mongolians and Mongols (and similarly between the adjectives "Mongolian" and "Mongol"), which makes this task considerably easier than it would be eg. in German. --Latebird (talk) 03:54, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Your position seems reasonable. Would you agree with a guideline that one should refer to the contemporary Mongolian state 1. using "People's Republic of Mongolia" in general 2. using "Mongolian state" or the former term in historical unambiguous contexts 3. using "Mongolia" or the former terms when addressing a subject that has been disambiguated as only refering to the contemporary Mongolian state?
 * As for "Mongolian" and "Mongol": are you sure that the distinction is reasonably clear-cut? I mean, "Secret history of the MONGOLS" and "The people living in UB are MONGOLIANS" is agreed upon. But what about authors of Classical Mongolian texts or contemporary Buryat and Ordos MONGOLIANS as opposed to the MONGOL(IC) peoples of Gansu-Qinghai? Isn't it more about something one could call a "perceived Mongolicity"? G Purevdorj 13:27, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

The Mongolian people's republic is defunct since 1992, the state is now only called Mongol uls in Mongolian. Re. Mongols or Mongolians, I do not think this is very clear-cut. I seem to remember Liu's Reins of Liberation always uses "mongol" when referring to people, and "mongolian" when referring to institutions. this is just an example, I am not trying to say this book is especially relevant, I just remember it because the author states this in his intro. I could of course try and look up some of the books I have at home. Yaan (talk) 12:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Mongolian and Mongol
C.R. Bawden in his Modern History of Mongolia seems use both words rather sinonymously. So does Urgunge Onon in his Mongolian Heroes of the Twentieth Century (despite the title), and I am inclined to believe that Robert R. Rupen's "Mongols of the Twentieth Century", which I have not looked into yet, does the same. I guess this is notable and academic enough to warrant inclusion as demonym. You can also find a number of relevant results (plus a number of irrelevant ones) from queries like ""Mongol" party" etc. at google scholar.

Or are you against "Mongol" because this excludes Kazakhs and Tuvans? In this case, I think it might be useful to at least provide a footnote. Yaan (talk) 10:22, 27 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, the minorities that are included in "Mongolians" but not in "Mongols" are a good reason not to mix up the two terms. There's obviously a big overlap between the meaning, and when talking about the Mongolian state, they mean almost the same. I'm not sure if the minorities are relevant to those historical works, so it may be justified (or at least excusable for reasons of stylistic variation) to use them as synonyms there. But in an article specificly about the national entity explicitly including the minorities, I don't think we should create any unnecessary confusion. --Latebird (talk) 17:58, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
 * In multinational countries (most of the countries are multinational) exists naming problem for citizens and tytle nation inhabitants. Sometimes it is possible create kazakhstanese (kazakhstanians?) for all citizens of Kazakhstan instead of kazakhs (etnicity, who can be in Russia, Mongolia, Uzbekistan and China).Bogomolov.PL (talk) 18:33, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Classical Mongolian script: vertical or horizontal?
Italicised comments copied from Talk:Outer Mongolia:

''I actually prefer [Classical Mongolian script in English Wikipedia articles] to appear horizontally like that rather than vertically -- that's how it's usually done in many of the non-Classical Script environments I've seen. —  AjaxSmack   02:42, 11 March 2008 (UTC)''


 * Writing it horizontally of course creates less mess-up in texts, but it also requires you to turn your head all the time. This is no big problem with books, which can easily be turned into the best reading position, but try that with an old 17" monitor! :-) I guess you could discuss this at the Mongolia work group, but at the moment, I do prefer writing it vertically. Yaan (talk) 11:57, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Good point. I think that with the current situation (images rather than Unicode text and few uses), vertical is fine.  But remember that in English environments it does break the flow of articles and is useless to all but a few readers.  Ideally, instances of more than one or two uses per article should be relegated to a "Names" section or at least a non-introductory section.  (For example, I think that the Classical name in Ulan  Bator should be moved from the forst sentence to the "Names" section.)


 * As more users are able to read Classical in Unicode, I see Wikipedia moving toward that and I imagine it would be much harder to show vertical text. Even Users to whom the Classical is relevant can copy and past the word to another program to read more clearly and, for others, a footnote can be inserted mentioning that the text should appear vertically. —  AjaxSmack   18:00, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I don’t know if this contributes anything but when writing on computer myself I rarely feel the need to use anything but transcription. Only when copying longer texts in handwriting within a greater text do I use it, and if I then opt for horizontal script as I usually do, I get the funny result that it becomes a Chinese-style text: right-to-left. Second point, shop-signs in Kökeqota are quite frequently western-style Chinese-language texts, and there, it’s exclusively vertical Mongolian script. G Purevdorj 19:51, 11 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by G Purevdorj (talk • contribs)


 * Thanks. Good point about the shop-signs.  I was thinking more of books and more of English, though.  It seems that dictionaries, &c. often use all horizontal just to save paper if anything.  (That old 3-volume brown one comes to mind).  I seem to recall most were R-to-L like you describe rather than L-to-R like the crude pre-Vista Unicode is.  (Mongolian with Chinese is a whole other story because Chinese is easily written vertically too.)  I am interested if there are any ways in Wikitext to mix vertical with horizontal. —   AjaxSmack   05:50, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

What about something like this infobox? It doesn't look really good right now and the order of the horizontal entries could be changed, but what about the general idea? Yaan (talk) 14:20, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Hey, that looks good. Maybe make the image a slight bit smaller. Also, the infobox uses the term "traditional script" but "transliteration from classical script."  Maybe to harmonise and to avoid confusion with traditional Chinese characters it shoud read "classical Mongolian script" and "transliteration from classical script."  I know it's "Infobox Mongol name" but it doesn't state that anywhere in the box when it's used and the average reader might not know which languages are involved.  No? —   AjaxSmack   18:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


 * You know that you're using transcriptions all the way? I you wanna know how to transliterate Mongolian, have a look into Janhunen, Juha (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. But that isn't suitable for Wikipedia. Thus replace "transliteration" by "transcription". G Purevdorj 22:09, 12 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by G Purevdorj (talk • contribs)


 * Using traditional script in onfoboxes only looks like a good idea. It just breaks the normal running text apart too much, and can be shown there at a too small size anyway. It could be a little bit smaller in the example above, but the principle (or just any other normal inforbox) is nice. If possible, having a transcription in the article intro would be great, though. I haven't followed that topic over on WP:MON and here very closely, do we already have an agreed on transcription system for traditional Mongolian? --Latebird (talk) 06:02, 13 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I have now replaced both "transliteration" with "transscription", although I'd think that the cyrillic one actually is a transliteration. If I am right, please correct this at Template:Mongol. Also if you think the box needs some more tweaks (colons? visible lines between the fields?) just try it out - the template can always be reverted to some older stage if necessary. The size of the image is not determined by the infobox itself, but by the user who places the infobox in the article.


 * Actually, I think it might be even better to create a small cluster of templates: This template is OK for Places in Outer Mongolia, but for Inner Mongolia it might generally be better to show the cyrillic script further to the end of the box, and then there are places where the Mongolian name is definitely less common than the Chinese one (Chifeng), or that don't even have a really Mongolian name (Wuhai, Tongliao), where Chinese should come first. Yaan (talk) 18:19, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not a transliteration for Cyrillic either. Cp. сайн sain vs. sajn, йод ‘iodine’ yod or iod, both misleading, vs. jod, явъя yavya vs. jav’’ja. It stops very short of being one. G Purevdorj 19:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by G Purevdorj (talk • contribs)

I have now created Template:Mongolian Settlement. You can see the effect at Ulaanbaatar. The lower columns are not yet perfect, I was a bit too lazy to put that colspan="2" everywhere. The background colour for the lower part of the table doesn't look right yet. Apartfrom that, any opinions? Yaan (talk) 23:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Aimags, Provinces, Districts, or ... ?
Is there a strong reason to keep all the aimags at xxx Province? My impression is that English usage is rather ambigous, and anyway Wikipedia does not use "xxx Province" for many other countries, even in more ambigous cases like Washington or Brandenburg. Mongolian usage in most cases does not seem to require the "aimag" so why should we need the translation of the term? Most ambiguities can easily be overcome with redirects etc, the only real problems I see are the Orkhon, Sükhbaatar and Töv aimags. Orkhon is a problem because Orkhon should really be a redirect to the river, Sükhbaatar is also the name of a rather well-known city in Selenge aimag, and Töv is not really a toponymic (rather a designation) and I am bit doubtful that it can come without the aimag in Mongolian. But then we can really make a case that the usage of "Province" vs. "Aimag" is not clear-cut at all, that aimag does not really mean province (in China, it's just a second-level subdivision, in Mongolia, aimags are more like artificial districts than provinces with some kind of distinct identity), etc. My proposal therefore is: Any thoughts? Yaan (talk) 13:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Rename Töv Province, Sükhbaatar Province and Orkhon Province to Töv Aimag, Sükhbaatar Aimag and Orkhon Aimag (or Töv Aimag, Sükhbaatar (aimag) and Orkhon (aimag)), respectively
 * Rename Selenge Province, Khövsgöl Province, Uvs Province, Dornogovi Province, etc. to Selenge, Khövsgöl, Uvs, Dornogovi, etc.
 * Not only Töv (Central), but Dornod (Eastern) too...
 * It is normal for Wiki when an article about a province (sorry, aimag) has word "aimag". Because we have be prapared for articles families (Selenge aimag, Selenge river, Selenge sum, Selenge bag, Selenge folk band, Selenge wool factory, Selenge arkhi etc.)
 * For Arab countries not "muhafaza" but governorate (English translation) is in use. For Russia "oblast" and "kray" without translation. For Poland instead of Polish "województwo" is in use voivodship (Polish root in English transliteration + English suffix).
 * You had noted, dear Yaan, that "aimag" term has different meanings in different countries. In Buryatia aimag is a district with territory size close to the Mongolian sum. Bogomolov.PL (talk) 15:46, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * With very few exceptions, aimag names are inherently ambiguous (based on a river, lake, mountain, person, etc.), so we clearly do need a qualifier. Everyday use in both Mongolian and English doesn't technically require a qualifier, as long as the context makes it clear what is meant, which isn't the case in page titles. As further background: Those page titles have had a long renaming odyssey behind them (using "aymag", "Prefecture", and "Province" among others), until it was decided to give preference to WP:UE. Somehow I doubt that "English usage is rather ambigous" makes a good enough case to get a different decision now. Other than that, the relevant active guidelines are Naming conventions (places) and Naming conventions (geographic names), both of which make a strong point in favour of WP:UE. Btw: You forgot to check the aimag spellings with y... --Latebird (talk) 05:04, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * But how do we know "province" is the most correct translation of aimag ;-)? Vietze translates аймаг to Aimag (something like that, anyway) and Provinz to муж (or мүж, not at home now). It's of course no English dictionary, but anyway ... Actually, I was just a bit fed up to always type Khövsgöl Province|Khövsgöl etc. But if I find a (monolingual) English dictionary or encyclopedia that has aimag, can we change the articles then? Yaan (talk) 16:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * E-M dictionaries (Chinbat, Altangerel, Oxford) don’t list аймаг under the headword „province“, but M-E (Ganhuyag, Bawden) give “province” and "aimag (province of ... Mongolia)" for аймаг. However, the crucial point to me would be that “With very few exceptions, aimag names are inherently ambiguous”, thus we shouldn’t drop the classifier. And then, I don’t see any obvious advantage in “aimag” over “province”. I dimly remember that I held a position differing from both of these during the last discussion, but it’s not worth the effort to dive into this again. G Purevdorj 16:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by G Purevdorj (talk • contribs)
 * I think aimag term has its own history and usage in different situations (and counrties) can be different from English term "province". But if we will not try translate this word, but analyze mongolian aimag role (function) we will find, that it is used like province (in Mongolian administrative division). Even in Inner Mongolia - it is divided into aimags. Buryatia - too. But status of Mongolia is higher, so principally aimag can be interpreted as 1-st level division unit (province). I like this term because Mongolian President and Government have (as you know) plan of 4 regions creating each consisting of several aimags (2-nd level divisions in this case). Term  province  is correct translation of administrative division term I guess. Many nations dont expand lokal, native terms to foreign countries (Poles don't call  aimags  as wojewodztwo,  what means literally territory ruled by the military leader), but use international terms (Region, province) but not state and county. I think province is correct international term. Bogomolov.PL (talk) 17:51, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I always understood these four new regions would then be called aimag and the current aimags would be abolished. Is this scheme still in consideration? Yaan (talk) 19:15, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * No need to worry about that before it happens (if ever). --Latebird (talk) 02:51, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Template
I've created a template for Mongolian and Chinese names (Mongolian-Chinese-box), following the model of a similar template for Tibetan and Chinese (Tibetan-Chinese-box). You can see what it looks like in the article about Chifeng. Please discuss and/or correct. --Gregor Kneussel (talk) 03:21, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the biggest disadvantage is that the Mongolian script is invisible for (probably) most people. I just reverted this, but am going to re-revert and add the pic. Also I think I personally would prefer a vertical row for the Mongolian script. Yaan (talk) 17:37, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

City and town disambiguators
Any reason that many of the cities and towns in Mongolia have disambiguators when there is no ambiguity in most cases? I can't find anything in the Mongolian naming conventions that would prescribe this. —  AjaxSmack   02:34, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The background may be that Mongolian place names are in fact rarely unique. So whoever created the articles in question may have just gone for the easy way, preferring to stay on the safe side instead of checking each one individually. --Latebird (talk) 05:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Preemptive disambiguation is normally frowned upon especially in cases such as some of these where there is really only one notable place of that name. Is there any objection to moving the unambiguous cases to the name without disambiguator?  Also, shouldn't the correct format for those needed disambiguation be XXX Place (XXX Province) rather than XXX Place, XXX Province? —   AjaxSmack   02:41, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I have no real objection, but please be careful when checking whether a place name is unique or not. Some of the apparently unique names are so run-of-the-mill that it might be better to keep them disambiguated, even if articles on the other places with the same names are still missing (Ikh Uul, Javkhlant, Sharga etc.). And if they don't exist in Outer Mongolia, there still might be well-known places in Inner Mongolia of the same name (Ereen, for example)
 * I personally would also prefer to at least get information on the names of all the sum centers that Mongolia has, because this really adds a big deal of ambiguity. Sharga for example is also the name of the center of either Tsetserleg or Tsagaan-Uul sum in Khövsgöl aimag, etc. These sum center names are actually almost never used by Mongolians, but they are often the names printed on western maps, so probably worth mentioning and creating disambiguations for.
 * I am a bit unsure what would be the best way to deal with sum names like Ikh-Uul, Altai, or Selenge. Such articles should probably named Xxx sum (Yyy) rather than Xxx (Yyy).
 * One last question would be whether sums should be really categorized under "cities and towns" or whether they should have their own category (or categories). They don't seem to be counted as "urban" by the Mongolian statistical office. In fact, all these disambiguated pages seem to be sums - this just relocates the problem, though. -- Yaan (talk) 09:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * While your points about preventing premature disambiguation and using parenthesis are probably correct in most cases, WP:Naming conventions (places) and WP:Naming conventions (settlements) seem to paint a slightly more nuanced picture. In practise, I think the Mongolian places are fairly consistent about using parenthesis to disambiguate the type of a place, and commas to disambiguate between parent administrative divisions. We've also found that determining whether a particular instance was disambiguated preemptively or not may not always be trivial (we had to revert oversimplified renames a few times already). Unfortunately, none of the people who insisted that we should have mini-stubs about all sums went through to really create all of them. There are still gaps that will eventually get filled, which may cause yet another wave of renames for many articles containing hardly a full sentence of information. Personally, I don't consider the issue important enough to invest a lot of time into it, except for articles with significant amounts of useful text. --Latebird (talk) 09:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * A quick look to Mongolian Wikipedia gives the impression that they use "Xxx sum (Yyy)" for sums, which looks reasonable. But moving all these 329 or so sum articles seems like a terrible lot of work. Yaan (talk) 14:05, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * "X sum" might be a good pattern to follow, if it happens to be standard in the source language. (Strangely however, they use eg. "Sükhbaatar" instead of "Sückbaatar Aimag", which they'll probably have to change rather sooner than later). The parens vs. comma question is project specific, though. I'm not sure if it's formalized anywhere, but mnwiki seems to never use commas at all. --Latebird (talk) 18:18, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * It is a bit of work but solving the original problem (which I didn't mention but is what got me here in the first place), that there are no redirects from Xxx to Xxx, Yyy (e.g., there is no Dulaankhaan redirecting to Dulaankhaan, Selenge), also requires a good bit of work.  I was about to start creating redirects when I discovered the scope of the problem and thought I'd try to get it right rather than plaster over the issue with redirects.  I'm not running a bot and would naturally check for multiple locations with the same name.


 * After reading the comments above, I think using sum as part of the title is an excellent idea and would solve some of the name ambiguity issues. (And, as pointed out, it follows the pattern of Mongolian WP too.)  If done this way, would Xxx sum and Xxx sum (Yyy) or Xxx (sum), Yyy or something else be preferred?  I assumed the comma format was derived from American practice but it isn't supported by usage in much of the world.


 * My own preference now based on comments above would be Xxx sum and Xxx sum (Yyy) For example an ambiguous case:


 * Ikh-Uul (a disambiguation page) — now nonexistent
 * Ikh-Uul sum (Zavkhan) — now at Ikh-Uul, Zavkhan
 * Ikh-Uul sum (Khövsgöl) — now at Ikh-Uul, Khövsgöl


 * Or an unambiguous case:


 * Sharga sum — now at Sharga, Govi-Altai
 * Sharga (a redirect to Sharga sum that can later be made into disambiguation page) — now nonexistent


 * This would allow for future articles about the sum centers or at least dab pages mentioning them and would allow the sum articles to remain in the same place. (Notice all the redlinks: the impetus for  all this.)  —   AjaxSmack   18:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * O.K. Yaan (talk) 09:09, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * If I'm not overinterpreting WP:Naming conventions (places) and WP:Naming conventions (settlements), then "Xxx Sum, Yyy" would be the preferred form. Following mnwiki, the "Sum" should really be part of the proper name (and probably uppercase). The comma seems to be preferred for "part of a larger entity Yyy" disambiguations, while the parens are used to say "of type Yyy" (eg. Sükhbaatar (city)). --Latebird (talk) 10:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

does the grammar etc. at Sharga look OK? I just got a bit unsure of whether Xxx sum can come with an article or not. Yaan (talk) 09:18, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Comments on suggestions above:


 * ""Xxx Sum, Yyy" would be the preferred form."
 * The guidelines ask "Is the place name mostly used as a full named link in other articles?" or "Is the place name mostly used as a short name reference in other articles?" For example, places in the United States are often or usually referred to in text with their state name included (Augusta, Georgia) whereas others might not be.  Usage at English Wikipedia is currently tending toward using commas rather than brackets but Mongolian Wikipedia uses brackets (e.g., mn:Бугат сум (Баян-Өлгий)).  I'll go with either.


 * "Following mnwiki, the "Sum" should really be part of the proper name (and probably uppercase)."
 * Naming conventions say: "When the place has an official English form that includes a lowercase "term", or the native language usually appends a descriptor that is lowercase, then that form of the term should be used in articles." Mongolian Wikipedia uses the lowercase (e.g., mn:Бугат сум (Баян-Өлгий)) so we should too (even though I personally oppose it).


 * The Sharga DAB page looks OK except that DAB pages shouldn't use pipelinks and should only Wikilink the target term if that article exists. Generally, that's what I had in mind too. —   AjaxSmack   03:36, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The target articles exist, just under a slightly different name (been lazy). What are pipelinks? Yaan (talk) 11:21, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I didn't mean to suggest that "Xxx Sum, Yyy" would be preferrable to "Xxx Sum" if the latter happens to be unique. It was rather meant in contrast to "Xxx Sum (Yyy)". Fortunately, since there's a finite set of sums, their uniqueness is easily determined.
 * There's apparently some logic behind the rules for using uppercase or lowercase. I have been surprised by English capitalization rules before, so I don't have a strong opinion other than whatever we do should be done consistently. --Latebird (talk) 04:23, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

New location map for Mongolia


Any opinion? Bogomolov.PL (talk) 17:34, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The main problem I see right now is that the standard red pin is barely visible on it. Btw: I assume you used a suitable projection so that the positioning will work correctly? --Latebird (talk) 22:04, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * May be I will make it not so dark? And it is OK with projection - the former map had large distorsion (magnified in E-W direction) Bogomolov.PL (talk) 05:04, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * It probably needs to be even brighter, or we need to give the pin a different color. The one for Choibalsan (city) is clearly visible now, but with Altai (city) or Alag-Erdene, Khövsgöl it's still difficult to see. --Latebird (talk) 19:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the pin is not bad now, but at Alag-Erdene it shows 100 - 150 km south of the correct location - and the coordinates seem to be correct. Yaan (talk) 23:41, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Fixed!Bogomolov.PL (talk) 04:56, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


 * As an experiment, I've changed the pin color to green, because the map doesn't seem to use any of that. Not sure if the result is really better, though. Would a black pin be too harsh? There's also a "background" option that would make the label easier to see. --Latebird (talk) 09:00, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Where is the Background option?Bogomolov.PL (talk) 10:26, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Mmm its a little difficult to see on the new one. How about the one on the right? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦       $1,000,000? 21:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The reasons why I wanted to change location map were two:
 * Former (white) map and your, Blofeld, too are squeezed from North (or stretched at W-E direction), Mongolia has wrong proportions
 * Blanked space brings us no information at all, but topographyc content tells us where (mountaineous or plane part of Mongolia, larger lakes etc) this spot is. If Mongolia (wrong) shape is surrounded with blank (or filled with constant color) space we never get any information about the neighbouring territories.

And you, Blofeld, filled with constant color even Yellow see. May be it would be better fill it with blue color. Bogomolov.PL (talk) 05:05, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Note also that if the writing shows up on the green and isn't clear you can manipulate the label position below, left, right, above, top etc so it always shows clearly on the white  ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦       $1,000,000? 22:04, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

E.g like Alag-Erdene, Khövsgöl. Well... I think its an improvement anyway. For sure an infobox and map should be added to all of the articles which I'll do when I have a spare moment  ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦       $1,000,000? 22:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I've added pushpin_mapsize=300 for uniformity Bogomolov.PL (talk) 08:02, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Believe it or not but I actually prefer maps which have some form of geogrpahical feature too but are clear at the same time. e.g Template:Location map Bangladesh etc. I much prefer your latest map in that places will now show up clearly. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦      $1,000,000? 10:04, 27 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The latest version looks very nice and also keeps both pin and label clearly recognizable. I'll switch the pin color back to the default red, as this makes it more obvious again now and to match the red border lines. --Latebird (talk) 13:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Category:Cities, towns and villages in Mongolia
Category:Cities, towns and villages in Mongolia now seems largely redundant to Category:Districts of Mongolia and its subcategories. IMO we could simply make "Districts of Mongolia" a subcategory of "Cities, towns and villages in Mongolia", maybe also add a new category named "Aimag centers" or something similar, and in this way make the "Cities ..." category less crowded. Btw. I also don't really see the point of having a super-category named "Settlements in Mongolia" with no entry and "Cities..." as the only subcategory. Yaan (talk) 13:49, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * btw. IIRC "village" is a not-so-infrequent translation of "tosgon", see for example google (I guess Vietze would say roughly the same) Yaan (talk) 13:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

That it the standard naming across wikipedia. Settlements by country are all categorized in the sub category  ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦       $1,000,000? 20:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


 * For me, not English-speaker, a village is a rural settlement. The tosgon idea was adopted from the former Soviet Union, where exists Urban-type settlement and tosgon was translated into Russian as an urban-type settlement. Tosgon officially is an urban settlement but not the city. Tosgon has be 1500 population and more. In Mongolian sources now usually is village in use. Bogomolov.PL (talk) 06:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * So if a "standard" doesn't match reality, which side will have to adapt? --Latebird (talk) 09:39, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Mongolia is a country with short official cities list (national capital, aimag capitals and Bor-Öndör, Berkh, Khötöl and Züünkharaa). What with the towns? If we will be correct - are the sum centers towns? Or it will be better call them sum centers? Only small number of settlements are out of cities, sum centers and tosgons - mostly mines, resorts, customs stations, tourist bases (жуулчин бааз). Potentially is possible to note bags, but bag settlements (half or more) are abandoned or virtual. So for Mongolia are possible:
 * cities
 * tosgons
 * sum centers
 * mines, resorts, touristic bases, railway stations, border crossings etc.
 * bags
 * How we will define them towns or villages? May be real type would be better?
 * Bogomolov.PL (talk) 10:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Do we want articles on sum centers at all? Most of them seem to be very similar: post office, kindergarten, school, usually a petrol station, hopefully a clinic or a small hospital, most common name is either Sumyn Töv or the name of the sum they are the center of, etc. I guess they are notable in some way, but OTOH if they don't even have a real name (or none that is in widespread usage), why should they get a separate article, and which name should it use?
 * My proposal would be something like this (under "Category:Settlements in Mongolia"):
 * Ulaanbaatar, Erdenet, Darkhan ("Category:Cities in Mongolia", even if this does not matter official usage)
 * Aimag centers
 * Sums (not sum centers)
 * Tosgons and other sum-level settlements
 * other settlements (mines, resorts, roadside settlements etc., maybe also some more notable sum centers)
 * Lists of bags should be mentioned in the respective sum articles, if we can find data. IMO the same applies to most data on sum centers. Yaan (talk) 15:28, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * But why Choibalsan is not a city? It looks like personal, not official, definition: these cities are the real cities, other - no, the aimag centers only. For the encyclopedia more correct would be official definition, because it has relevant sources, but not expert opinion only. And what will be with 4 cities-sum centers?
 * Yes, it is very difficult task to separate sum center and sum. It has sense use common article for sum and sum center (if this sum center is not a larger settlement with its own article)
 * Tosgon can be sum-level unit but can be (more frequently) a larger sum part. If tosgon is sum-level see sum definition, if no - special topic: larger settlement (not center) in sum. These settlements have own articles.
 * Most part of bags will not have own articles and have been listed in sum articles.Bogomolov.PL (talk) 08:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * One could justify this Erdenet and Darkhan thing with their status under socialism, i.e. historically. Also they are centers of rather small aimags (Choir is too, but is also quite small itself). But it was just an idea, I won't die for it. I just think that "cities etc." category is a bit crowded now. Your idea looks nice, too. Yaan (talk) 08:35, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Aimag lead sections
Some lead sections of the aimag articles currently start with "Zavkhan Aimag (Завхан аймаг) is one of the 21 aimags (provinces) of Mongolia, located in the west of the country.", where the first "aimag" (=second word in the sentence) seems somewhat redundant and duplicate with the "aimags" after "21". Any objections against changing things like this to "Zavkhan (Завхан) is one of the 21 aimags (provinces) of Mongolia, located in the west of the country." ? Yaan (talk) 11:12, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * While I wouldn't mind the redundancy very much, the Mongolian article begins with "Завхан нь Монгол улсын аймаг юм.", providing an example of the use you suggested. Thus, no objections. G Purevdorj (talk) 08:38, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, I will change this now. Yaan (talk) 22:13, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

List of lakes in Mongolia
This list content can confuse with the information in existing articles (Uvs average depth etc), but main statistics for massive lakes related articles can be used. Any opinions? Bogomolov.PL (talk) 16:13, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Good work & well done. What is the source? Yaan (talk) 17:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * P.S. maybe indicate salinity, and if lakes have strong fluctuations in surface area etc. ? I think Ulaan nuur is such a case (?), there may be more. Yaan (talk) 17:25, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Source was named in references, but it was not a COPY - I've changed names, corrected elevations (and with elevations I'l continue), recalculated average depths, aimag locations corrected also etc. You can compare the source and my table.
 * Salinity... I have topo maps 1:500 000 for all Mongolia and 1:200 000 for appr 40% of its terrritory (Soviet time issue). On these maps are 3 possible salinities: sweet, saline (NaCl), bitter (KCl). But real life is more complex: there are semi-saline lakes, you can feel the saline (bitter) taste, but it is possible to drink (as "Bon Aqua"). What to do with this?
 * Naming... You know a lot of Mongolian toponims consists of two (or more) words, which can be found in written form as two words (Ikh-Tamir you can find in two words Их тамир or in one Ихтамир). What to do with this? We need make a decision - or some source we claim relevant (Авто Замын Атлас) and use it, or we use aimag website as relevant source. In NSO Livestock Annual Census tables (most recent availiable is 2005, do you need it?) we get more possible name versions.Bogomolov.PL (talk) 05:57, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

In Üüreg Nuur article I've added location map. May be it has sense add it in every lake article?Bogomolov.PL (talk) 07:44, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * A good idea! Actually, it would be nice if the infobox included this as a feature, so I went and asked about it there. --Latebird (talk) 10:50, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

picture requests?
I will be heading into Mongolia in less than two weeks. The plan is to go from UB to Hövsgöl and back via Harhorin, with some days in Mörön and in the countryside, and probably some touristy stuff (Terelj, Hövsgöl nuur, etc.). Is there anything that would need a picture, beyond the obvious geographic features (and real UB traffic)? I myself thought of heregsüürs, hainags, and some other stuff, but if anybody is missing a picture for some special topic, please let me know. Yaan (talk) 12:43, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Soon I will be in Mongolia (21 of July - 20 of August). Expedition route will be UB - Darkhan - Shaamar - Khushaat - Sant (I'm sure in this portion) next (possible changes in some points) Tseel - Lün - Bayannuur - Bayan-Önjüül -UB. Do somebody needs pictures from this trip be posted in Wiki? Bogomolov.PL (talk) 13:45, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I think a picture of Darkhan would be nice. And Erdenet, if it's on the way. Plus something useful for the Economy of Mongolia infobox. And I think Lun has some artifacts of Tsogt Taij? Yaan (talk) 14:37, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles containing Mongolian language text
I just discovered that a hidden Category:Articles containing Mongolian language text has been created, along with similar cattegories for many other languages. It is fed by the use of the Lang and Lang-mn templates. There are currently 716 articles which contain correctly formatted Mongolian text, which should approximatly mirror the number of articles on Mongolia related topics. Who wants to venture a guess about when we'll hit the thousand? --Latebird (talk) 22:38, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Nikudari
I've completely replaced the completely distorting content of the article on Nikudari and done one revert, but have been reverted two times myself now. I've laid down my argument on the talk page, but my reverter who is the creator of the deleted content doesn't deign to refute any of them. So it would probably be best if some of you go to this entry, take a look at the arguments and, if they are valid, do another revert. G Purevdorj (talk) 23:04, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * If nobody from here chips in, a general way to approach such a dispute would be Third opinion. One problem specific to this article is that both versions are unsourced (in the article). It would probably help if you could outline the underlying scholarly dispute with sources in the article as well, and not only explain it on the talk page. Consider something like "The Nikudari were considered by X[1] to speak their own language, but Y[2] has shown that to be the same as the Moghol language" (probably more elaborate than that). This would make it much harder to justify more reverts. --Latebird (talk) 09:17, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The funny thing is that the scholarly dispute does only pertain to the history of the Nikudari, but that no one besides Scythian (the other editor) claims that Nikudari is actually a language. And the history stuff pertains to other articles as well which I have no intention to correct. G Purevdorj (talk) 10:41, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, now the article itself has the sources as well. Let's see if Scythian1 will revert this as well. G Purevdorj (talk) 11:14, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Native speakers needed
Dear work group members who are native speakers of Mongolian! I have included a grammaticality judgement on the sentence "Bi tuuniig tanijee" in footnote 8 in Mongolian language. Usually my own language knowledge is sufficient for doing such stuff, but here it isn't. Of course "Bi yavjee" would sound strange in most contexts, but "Bi tuuniig tanijee" might be a different thing. As I must consider it irresponsible to have such a statement in the article much longer without independent confirmation, I would ask you to answer the following questions:

1. Can you say "Bi tuuniig tanijee."?

2. If so, in what kind of context? Are such contexts common?

3. If not, can you briefly describe why you think it is unacceptable?

Thanks for you help. G Purevdorj (talk) 11:53, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

2007 statistical yearbook
..available here. Yaan (talk) 14:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Genghis Khan Wall
Hi, over at the German Wikipedia there seems to be a small problem with the so-called Genghis Khan Wall, which is are remains of a border fortification that span from Hulunbuir to the Khentii mountains and even touch what today is Russia. The question is, who built this wall, and when. I have been able to find a source that claimed the wall was built by the Jin (Jurchen) at the end of the 12th and early 13th century (Julia Lovell, The Great Wall), but this reference des not go into any detail, and there seems to be a very big problem with the events told in the Secret History of the Mongols. Are there any Mongolian sources on this "wall", and if yes, what do they say?

Regards, Yaan (talk) 12:48, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Exists an opinion (it is present a map of the Eastern walls), that two walls (Northern, partially in Russia, and Southern - in Gobi - partially in Mongolia and China) were built by Jin Dynasty (1115–1234), but this opinion is not Mongolian one.
 * Here this wall has to be Khitan's wall. But not Genghis Khan again. But it is Russian Transbaikal Encyclopedia Bogomolov.PL (talk) 15:29, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I also think that the wall has nothing to do with Genghis Khan, in fact my personal opinion is that it is more likely from the Khitan than from the Jurchen. But unfortunateky I have been unable to find any more detailed sources. Yaan (talk) 16:13, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Satellite images of Mongolia
Here is a satellite image of West Mongolia. May be it will be useful (in fragments also)? Bogomolov.PL (talk) 12:46, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Sengiin Erdene
Does anyone know if he is alive? He is a well-known (in Mongolia, anyway) author, and the father of Erdeniin Bat-Üül. Yaan (talk) 15:00, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I've googled him and have found nothing to the contrary: (2006), Mongolian wikipedia  (October 2008) and one tiny other internet source from October 2008 don't state that he's dead. G Purevdorj (talk) 15:25, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * But what does that "baiv" in "Сэнгийн Эрдэнэ нь Монголын зохиолч байв." mean? That japanese source, btw. also does not note that Academician Damdinsürüng passed away in 1986. Yaan (talk) 15:35, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The "baiv" means that he is no Mongolian writer any longer, ie that he for some reason (or for some notable period of time) didn't write/publish literature. The reason might well be that he's dead, but not necessarily. It was the Japanese source that I thought might be interesting, but you're right, the fact that its other information isn't accurate does completely devalue it. Thus, the only real information that remains is that googling <сэнгийн-эрдэнэ> doesn't lead to the information you're searching for. Good luck then. G Purevdorj (talk) 17:49, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Presently my interest is mainly a "father was" vs "is" in the Bat-Üül article. But maybe the current version ("was") is OK in either case. Yaan (talk) 22:02, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * "was" if he's still alive? Not really, but it has the advantage that you don't have to change it in the case of his pending decease. "as a child of" might work as well if you are willing to accept that some ignorant people don't recognize good ol' Erdene as male. G Purevdorj (talk) 22:42, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I changed it to "is". "as a child of" merits questions about the mother, or siblings, so maybe this variant suits better. Yaan (talk) 22:57, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Qing dynasty
I notice that the Qing dynasty is included in the WikiProject China. Given that Mongolia and the Mongols were an important part of the Manchu realm, surely that article should also be included in WikiProject Central Asia/Mongolia

123.121.195.29 (talk) 11:56, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Tibet Mongolia Treaty image
The document in the image at right obviously must be rotated by 90 degrees. At first sight, I think the left end should be up. Can anyone with a better grasp of the script confirm this? I'd hate to replace it with a rotated copy on the Commons, only to find later that I put it on its head... --Latebird (talk) 02:48, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you have reason to assume that this is the Mongolian version? Unfortunately, the reproduced image is too small for me to say anything definite, but even the worst Mongolian writing uses single words, and most Mongolian words have only two or three syllables. The words here are far too long for this. There is no Mongolian interpunction, and many letters I cannot recognize. Worse, no letters or words that I recognize. Then, while all of the Duktus is strange, there is one word among the signatures that has familiar Duktus (while I'm unable to identify it). Then, compare cursive Tibetan . G Purevdorj (talk) 10:41, 2 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I must admit that I've never had a really close look at handwritten Tibetan before. The article also mentions that the Mongolian text has recently been published, so I may have been too quick to jump to conclusions... But your arguments and the other text for comparison do indeed make it more likely that it is Tibetan. Interesting that the two scripts leave such a smilar impression overall, just by rotating them, and although the printed forms have very little in common. The author having a backwards slant in his handwriting serves to confuse matters even more. --Latebird (talk) 23:27, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Official sum center names
I have latest administrative divisions map (2008) where nominal sum names are present. In what form it would be correct add these mostly useless names in respective articles? Bogomolov.PL (talk) 20:11, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I have used officially in the articles about sums in Hovsgol. Not really sure it is the best synonym for useless, though. Yaan (talk) 16:08, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * In this purpose I've spent 8,000 tugruks in Ikh Delguur. So I can act in Khovsgol style. And do we need add any informations about bags? Bags number for instance? We have those numbers for Khovsgol aimag and a number of other aimags. Bogomolov.PL (talk) 17:25, 1 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Can't let that investment go to waste, can we? ;) I think that mentioning them in the way as done for the Khövsgöl sums is very appropriate. Where we know the number of bags, of course those should be mentioned as well. Since most sum articles are still stubs only saying "it exists", such information is a valuable addition. --Latebird (talk) 00:43, 2 December 2008 (UTC)


 * It is a problem with sum centres naming.Here sum center bag names are listed (Khovd aimag), but these names mostly are different than names from my adm.divisions map.

Any opinions?

Bogomolov.PL (talk) 18:13, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

After some investigations I can note: Bogomolov.PL (talk) 21:44, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Алтай sum has Бодонч bag (846 pop., 58 livestock/person) and Тахилт bag (747 pop., 19 livestock/person), but official sum centre pop. value is 747, so Тахилт is possible better candidate.
 * Булган sum centre consists of Бүрэнхайрхан bag (1,687 pop.) + Далт bag (1,484 pop.)
 * Дарви sum has Булган bag(579 pop., 21 livestock/person) and Булаг (445 pop., 67 livestock/person), but official sum centre pop. value is 579, so Булган is possible better candidate (Булаг and Булган too similair names?).
 * Дуут sum centre is Босго(502 pop., 20 livestock/person) as official sum centre pop. value is 502 and livestock/person value is 3 times less than the rest of the sum.
 * Дөргөн sum centre is not Сээр(752 pop., 30 livestock/person) but Өгөөмөр(659 pop., 14 livestock/person) as official sum centre pop. value is 659


 * Are those bags at the same location as the sum centers on your map? Yaan (talk) 18:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'l check this tomorrow, my Mongolia maps are in the office. Look, the relative (per person) livestock number is a sign of non-rural activities of the local population. Usually a sum centre (or tosgon if present) population has relatively 3-4 times less livestock. Bogomolov.PL (talk) 18:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Алтай sum centre is not Бодонч definitely. My map shows Бодонч on its place as sum centre, but it is not any sum centre, as real centre is 32 km to S. (using Google Earth sat. imagery). At Бодонч place is an empty space - it has a virtual nature without permanent settlement.
 * Дөргөн sum centre is not Сээр definitely as it is 25 km N from real sum centre, Сээрийн нуруу divide them.Bogomolov.PL (talk) 13:47, 16 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Another possibility might be that your map and those official names refer to different points in time? Say, might some bags have been split up/joined/moved? Yaan (talk) 19:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It is possible, but we are talking about a sum centre, isn't it? I have maps 1972 issue, satellite image 2003 issue and every mentioned sum centre is on the same place at both. Yes, some sum centres moved (may be we can find a dozen of this kind of in Mongolia), Altai sum centre never moved, Дөргөн was advanceded from Бөрөг bag(as a new sum was created, but future sum centre existed as a permanent settlement at this place).Bogomolov.PL (talk) 13:20, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Here are zip codes for every bag of Mongolia. I've checked bag names for Khovd aimag - there were 3 spelling differences (Bulan -> Bulag, Bilcher->Belchir, Bayangol->Böyangol) with the statistic report table. As total bag number is 91 it is appr. 3% error level (it happens in manual input process). Bogomolov.PL (talk) 10:36, 26 December 2008 (UTC)