ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Traditional Mongolian alphabet

Okay kiddo, let's talk about the traditional Mongolian alphabet. Imagine you want to write a letter to your friend who speaks Mongolian, but you don't know how to write in their language. That's where the traditional Mongolian alphabet comes in!

The Mongolian alphabet has 35 letters. Each letter has a different shape and sound, just like in the English alphabet where 'a' sounds different from 'b'. But instead of each letter standing for one sound, each letter in the Mongolian alphabet can represent either a vowel sound or a consonant sound.

For example, the letter 'ᠠ' looks like a straight line with a little hat on top. When this letter is used as a vowel, it sounds like the 'a' in cat. When it's used as a consonant, it sounds like the letter 'y'.

Unlike English where we write from left to right, traditional Mongolian is written vertically from top to bottom, and from left to right within each vertical line. So, when you write a word in Mongolian, you write the letters one on top of the other from left to right.

Overall, the traditional Mongolian alphabet is a unique and important way to write and communicate in the Mongolian language.