Choghtu Khong Tayiji

Tsoghtu Khong Tayiji, born Tümengken (Classical Mongolian: Tümengken čoγtu qong tayiǰi; modern Mongolian: Цогт хунтайж, Tsogt Khun Taij; 1581–1637), was a noble in Northern Khalkha. He expanded into Amdo (present-day Qinghai) to help the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism but was overthrown by Güshi Khan, who supported the rival Geluk sect.

He established a base on the Tuul river. Known as an intellectual he embraced the Karma sect and built monasteries and castles.

He submitted himself to Ligdan Khan, last grand khan of the Mongols. He took part in Ligdan's campaign to Tibet to help the Karma sect although Ligdan Khan died in 1634 before they joined together. But he pursued the campaign. In the same year he conquered the Tümed around Kokonor (Qinghai Lake) and moved his base there. By request from Shamar Rabjampa he sent an army under his son Arslan to central Tibet in 1635. However, Arslan attacked his ally Tsang army. He met the fifth Dalai Lama and paid homage to Gelukpa monasteries instead of destroying them. Arslan was eventually assassinated by Tsoghtu's order.

The Geluk sect asked for help Törü Bayikhu (Güshi Khan), the leader of the Khoshuud tribe of the Oirat confederation. In 1636 Törö Bayikhu led the Khoshuud and the Dzungars to Tibet. In the next year a decisive war between Tsoghtu Khong Tayiji and Törü Bayikhu ended in the latter's victory and Tsoght was killed.

Descendants of Sutai Yeldeng, Tsoghtu's grandson, succeeded the jasagh of a banner in Sain Noyon Khan Aimag.

He has traditionally been portrayed as evil by the Geluk sect. On the other hand, the Mongolian movie "Tsogt taij" (1945) treated him as a national hero. It reflected the communist regime's attitude toward Tibetan Buddhism.

Mongolian language

The Mongolian language (in Mongolian script: Monggol kele.svg,[4] Mongγol kele; in Mongolian Cyrillic: Монгол хэл, Mongol khel) is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region of China.[1] In Mongolia, the Khalkha dialect, written in Cyrillic, is predominant, while in Inner Mongolia, the language is more dialectally diverse and is written in the traditional Mongolian script. In the discussion of grammar to follow, the variety of Mongolian treated is Standard Khalkha Mongolian (i.e., the standard written language as formalized in the writing conventions and in the school grammar), but much of what is to be said is also valid for vernacular (spoken) Khalkha and other Mongolian dialects, especially Chakhar.

Mongolian has vowel harmony and a complex syllabic structure for a Mongolic language that allows clusters of up to three consonants syllable-finally. It is a typical agglutinative language that relies on suffix chains in the verbal and nominal domains. While there is a basic word order, subject–object–predicate, ordering among noun phrases is relatively free, so grammatical roles are indicated by a system of about eight grammatical cases. There are five voices. Verbs are marked for voice, aspect, tense, and epistemic modality/evidentiality. In sentence linking, a special role is played by converbs.

Modern Mongolian evolved from "Middle Mongol", the language spoken in the Mongol Empire of the 13th and 14th centuries. In the transition, a major shift in the vowel harmony paradigm occurred, long vowels developed, the case system was slightly reformed, and the verbal system was restructured.

The Secret History of the Mongols

"The Secret History of the Mongols" is the first literary monument concerning the Mongols. It is believed to have been written in the year 1240 A.D. The author of it still remains unknown. This is the only immediate source of information about medieval mongolian life and self-consideration and also it is the invaluable treasure for historians, linguists, ethnographs and ethnologist engaged in the field of oriental studies.
The copy of The Secret History which has survived to our days were transcribed with Chinese characters from some original manuscript in one of the mongolian scripts. Some scholars believe it to be the Uighur script, others proposed h`Pags-pa script (Quadratschrift) only few think that it was originally recorded by Chinese characters. This copy was written about 14th century and contained Mongolian text (in Chinese fonetic transcription ) and the Chinese translation. The transcription of Mongolian text was performed in order to compile the textbook for Chinese students studying Mongolian.
First man from Europe who discovered this manuscript was Russian monk archimandrite Palladij. He was a member of the Russian Orthodox Mission in China. He was an outstanding sinologist not mention his missionarial abilities. In 1866 he translated Chinese part of The Secret History into Russian with a considerable contractions. The name of this work in russian translation was "Старинное монгольское сказание о Чингис-хане" ("An old mongolian tale about Genghis Khan"). After that, the full text of the "Secret History" was published by S.A.Kozin in Leningrad (1941), E.Haenisch in Berlin (1948), P.Pelliot in Paris (1949). Very important works were the dictionary of the language of the Secret History of the Mongols (Haenisch E. 1962) and the index to the manuscript compiled by Igor de Rachewiltz (1972).