Introduction

Once the rulers of the largest land empire that has ever existed on earth, the historical Mongols of Chinggis Khan left a linguistic heritage which today survives in the form of more than a dozen different languages, collectively termed Mongolic.

For general linguistic theory, the Mongolic languages offer interesting insights to problems of areal typology and structural change.

An understanding of the Mongolic language family is also a prerequisite for the study of Mongolian and Central Eurasian history and culture.

This volume is the first comprehensive treatment of the Mongolic languages in English, written by an international team of specialists.