Mongolian Non-Verbal Communication and Etiquette

The part of the language that has no words

Everything else in this guide is grammar. This page is not, and it is here because a learner with three hundred words and good manners is welcomed further into a Mongolian household than a learner with three thousand words and bad ones. Gestures, posture and the way an object changes hands carry a large part of what gets communicated, and a visitor who gets them wrong is not heard as foreign but as rude — which is a different and more expensive mistake.

The awkward thing about these rules is that an English speaker breaks most of them without any sense of having done something. Handing over a card with the left hand, knocking at a door, stretching your legs out while you sit, picking up a hat to admire it, whistling while you wait, crossing your knees so that a sole points at the person opposite: in London or Chicago every one of those is neutral. In a ger, each is a small statement, and not the statement you intended.

Keep the movements small

The first rule has no single gesture attached to it, which is why it is the one most often missed. Quick, large, abrupt movement reads badly. Calm is a virtue in a culture shaped by the steppe and by living at close quarters, and a person who gesticulates, slaps backs and moves suddenly is read as agitated rather than as friendly.

This matters most inside, because a ger is a single round room in which everyone can see everyone. There is no neutral space to be loud in. Slow your hands down, let pauses sit, and do not fill silence with movement. If you are the sort of talker who uses both arms, this will feel like being switched off for the first hour; it stops feeling that way quickly, and it is noticed.

The right hand, and the hand under the elbow

This is the single most useful thing on the page, because it comes up within a minute of arriving anywhere.

Objects are given and received with the right hand. The polite form adds the left hand underneath, supporting your own right elbow — баруун (right), гар (hand), тохой (elbow). Both hands together is also correct and reads as particularly respectful. The left hand alone is what you avoid, and it is avoided for everything: a bowl of tea, a photograph, a gift, a phone, a document, a pinch of anything handed round.

Two practical points follow. The first is that you will almost certainly be handed a bowl of milk tea as soon as you sit down, which means the gesture is the first thing anyone sees you do; take the bowl in the right hand, with the left touching the right forearm or elbow, and say Баярлалаа (thank you). The second is that left-handed visitors are not exempt. The rule is not about dexterity, and nobody will mind if your right hand is clumsy.

Because the same gesture serves for giving and for receiving, it is also how you offer. If you are handing back a bowl, passing a photograph round or giving a small present, the right hand goes out and the left supports the elbow. Practise it twice before you travel and it will be automatic when it matters.

The vertical axis: hats at the top, feet at the bottom

Several of the rules below look unrelated and are in fact one idea. The body has a high end and a low end, and respect follows that axis. What belongs to the head is treated with care; what belongs to the feet is kept low, quiet and out of other people's way.

So, first, the hat. Малгай (hat) is not an item of clothing in the sense an English speaker means. The soul is said to reside in it. You never put on someone else's hat, never try one on as a joke, never toss one, never set one on the floor and never step over one. A hat on a seat or a chest is where its owner put it, and it stays there. Admiring a hat is fine; picking it up is not.

And then the feet. Хөл (foot, leg) is the low end, and the sole is the lowest part of the lowest end. Keep your feet flat and down. Do not cross your legs so that a sole points at a person or at the hearth, do not stretch your legs across the floor of a ger, and do not step over anyone who is sitting or lying down — walk round. Sitting cross-legged on the floor is normal; sitting with one ankle over the opposite knee, which is the ordinary relaxed posture of an English-speaking man, points a sole at whoever is opposite.

These two rules together explain a third. If your foot knocks against someone's foot, you do not simply say sorry and move on: you reach out and touch their hand. The contact repairs the accident on the spot, and it is done immediately and without ceremony. Уучлаарай (excuse me) does no harm alongside it, but the gesture is the thing that counts, and leaving it out is what gets noticed.

The door you do not knock on, and the sill you do not touch

A ger has a wooden door, хаалга (door), and you do not knock on it. Knocking implies that you suspect something of the household or that you expect to be turned away, and a Mongolian household does not work on either assumption. A guest announces themselves and comes in. If you are approaching a stranger's ger out in the countryside, you call out as you arrive, and the usual courtesy is to ask whether you may look inside rather than to walk in on a family you do not know. The method's sentence for that is Бид танай гэрт орж үзэж болох уу? (may we come in and see your ger?), whose form is taken apart on forty everyday phrases.

The sill is a separate rule and a stricter one. The threshold of a ger is raised, and you step over it, never on it. Catching your foot on it or treading on it is held to disturb spirits of ill intent, and even visitors who are not superstitious discover that the household takes it seriously. The practical consequence is that you look down as you go in, which you would want to do anyway: the doorway is lower than you are.

One more thing about the door, and this one comes from reference descriptions of the ger rather than from the course. The entrance faces south, which puts the back of the round room opposite it, and that back part is the honoured one: it holds the family altar and it is where elders and guests of honour sit. A visitor coming in moves round clockwise, which takes you to the west side, and waits to be shown a place rather than choosing one.

Things you do not do indoors

Whistling — исгэрэх (to whistle) — is not done inside a ger, and more broadly not inside a building. An English speaker whistles idly while waiting, which here is an active thing to do rather than a neutral one, and a visitor who whistles in someone's home will be asked to stop.

The feet rule has one extension worth naming on its own, because the thing concerned sits in the middle of the room. Stretching your legs towards the hearth, or throwing anything into it, is read as an insult rather than as carelessness.

The gesture that reports drinking

One gesture is worth knowing because it is used about other people, and a visitor who misses it misses a warning. The ring finger drawn to the throat says that somebody is drunk or has been drinking — согтуу (drunk), архи (spirits, alcohol).

The point of making it a gesture rather than a sentence is that it can be done silently, across a room, about a person who is present. If someone makes it at you with a slight nod towards a third party, you have been told something useful and discreetly, and the correct response is to register it and not to comment.

Offering, accepting, refusing

Hospitality in a ger is not optional and it is not a formality: tea, dairy and food arrive, and they arrive whether or not the household was expecting anyone. What you do with your hands when they arrive is the whole of the etiquette.

Accept with the right hand, as above. Accepting a bowl does not oblige you to empty it; it obliges you to take it properly, touch it to your lips, and put it down with the right hand. Outright refusal is what is avoided, not a half-empty bowl. If you genuinely cannot take what is offered, the refusal is carried by the words, softly, and never by waving the bowl away with the back of the hand. The permission to go ahead, when you have asked for something, comes back as Болно оо (you may, that is fine), and the welcome that often accompanies it is Тавтай морилно уу (welcome).

On leaving, the thanks that covers the whole visit rather than a single cup is Биднийг гэртээ хүлээн авсанд маш их баярлалаа (thank you very much for receiving us in your home). It is a long sentence built out of pieces explained on complex sentences; learn it whole and say it at the door.

The words that go with the gestures

The five things you are likely to say or hear during a visit are set phrases, and each is decomposed on the page that owns its form. Nothing about their grammar is explained here.

Whom you say them to, and in which form, is a question of address rather than of gesture: the choice between та and чи, and the respectful word гуай, are on politeness and address, and how a Mongolian name is put together is on Mongolian names.

The words for the parts of this

In the order you will need them

1. Approaching: call out rather than knock, and ask before looking inside a stranger's ger.
2. Going in: step over the sill, not on it, and look down as you go.
3. Sitting: move round clockwise, wait to be placed, and leave the back of the ger to elders.
4. Posture: feet flat and down, no sole pointing at anyone, legs not stretched out.
5. The bowl: right hand, left hand under the right elbow, and Баярлалаа.
6. Hats: look, do not touch, and never put one on.
7. Indoors: no whistling, and no legs stretched towards the hearth.
8. Accidents: if your foot touches someone's, touch their hand at once.
9. Leaving: thank the household for receiving you, not just for the tea.

Learn that list and you will be a good guest with very little Mongolian. It also works the other way round: once you can see these rules being followed, a room that looked merely quiet turns out to have been full of information all along, and the grammar in the rest of this guide stops being the only thing you can read.