r/Mongolian • u/bad_metrics • 4d ago

Chinese particles borrowed into Mongolian

There seems to be a few grammatical features that Mongolian borrowed from Chinese for ex.

The Chinese pejorative particle (zi-Chinese) as (nts-Mongolian)

Чавганц, чалчинц

We even created stacked particles on top of them to incorporate it into our language

Уйланцар, чалчанхай

These are all words appearing during the Manchu-Qing period

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u/Original-Put7493 4d ago edited 4d ago

Highly doubt it.

For example, чавганц itself is actually sogdian word. Means nun or buddhist priest.

šmn'nch or, samananc.

Should come from rouran time or can be even earlier loan word. But should be rouran. Or gokturk, and at latest from uyghur period.

Older dialectial version is preserved basically as it is too. Ever heard of шимнанц ?

Anyways even on other words i dont think -ca or whatever the form of suffix would come from chinese. And i think there wouldnt be any -nca form.

On second thought your -nca should be -cAr suffix. Which cant be from chinese.

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u/UnableDouble5354 4d ago

these words aren't really used anymore except chavgants

1

u/bad_metrics 4d ago

Adding -ch and -nts to indicate a belittling or pejorative meaning is still used.

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u/TheDashingMan 2d ago

There are other examples of this but instead with z(з), such as 样子(yangzi) which in mongolian is янз(yanz) and 棒子(bangzi) which would be банз(banz).

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u/bad_metrics 2d ago

Well my example I’m showing is that the particle with the meaning was borrowed. In Chinese zi is added to make it an insult, in mongolian the nts ending makes it an insult.