The
Mongolian language (in
Mongolian script: , ; in
Mongolian Cyrillic: , ) is the official language of
Mongolia and largest-known member of the
Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 10 million, including the vast majority of the residents of
Mongolia and many of the
Mongolian residents of the
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. In Mongolia, the
Khalkha dialect, written in
Cyrillic (and at times in
Latin for
social networking), is predominant, while in Inner Mongolia, the language is
dialectally more 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.