Goal: Talk about nomadic peoples.
Course progress: lesson 165 / 200 · tip: use the ← and → keys to change lesson
Now hear it and say it
This written course teaches you to read and write. The LIMBA audio course makes you speak: 24 lessons of 12 to 15 minutes, recorded with a native speaker. You listen, you repeat, you answer — the perfect partner for these pages.
Download the Mongolian audio course24 audio lessons · MP3 · yours to keepVisiting the reindeer people
After a long drive west of the lake and a day on horseback through the taiga, we reach a clearing with three cone-shaped tents. Reindeer graze between the larches, white and grey, their antlers still covered in velvet.
A woman called Bayaraa comes out of a tent, shakes our hands and invites us in for tea. Inside, a small stove crackles in the middle. I have dreamed of this place since I first read about it, years ago, in Canada.
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| цаатан | the Tsaatan, reindeer herders (literally "people with reindeer") |
| цаа буга | reindeer |
| урц | conical tent of the reindeer herders |
| арьс | hide, skin |
| хучих | to cover |
| ачих | to load (ачаа: a load, baggage) |
| тайга | taiga, the northern forest |
| бяслаг | cheese |
| хаг | lichen |
| тува хэл | the Tuvan language |
| ойролцоо | close, similar; near |
| хадгалах | to keep, to preserve |
| цөөрөх | to become fewer, to decrease |
| залуус | young people |
Mongolian builds the names of many groups of people from a noun:
| Suffix | Meaning | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| –тан | the people who have… | цаатан (people with reindeer), оюутан (student, from оюун "mind") |
| –чин / –ч | the person who deals in… | малчин (herder), анчин (hunter), нүүдэлчин (nomad) |
| –чууд | a people as a whole | монголчууд (the Mongols) |
Nomin explains цаатан exactly this way: цаа (reindeer) + –тан, "the people with reindeer". In its genitive the word drops a vowel, like оюутан → оюутны: цаатны урц, "a Tsaatan tent".
To say how people make their living, put the activity in the –ж converb in front of амьдрах:
In the same way: мал маллаж амьдрах (to live by herding livestock), ан хийж амьдрах (to live by hunting).
уламжлал is "tradition". With –т it becomes the adjective уламжлалт, "traditional", which goes in front of a noun. With the genitive and дагуу it gives "according to tradition".
Both words take the comitative for the thing you compare with:
юу has a hidden н: its dative-locative is юунд, "for what, what for". Та цаа бугаа юунд ашигладаг вэ? asks what the reindeer are used for.
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Building new words · The comitative · The reflexive possessive
The Tsaatan, who call themselves Dukha, are a small Turkic-speaking people of a few hundred, living in the taiga of northern Khövsgöl province. Their language is close to Tuvan, spoken across the border in Russia. They ride their reindeer, milk them and use them to carry loads, but rarely kill them for meat, and they move camp several times a year to find fresh lichen. If you visit, go with a local guide, bring useful gifts such as food, and ask before taking photographs.
Choose the right answer, then press Check my answers. Score 70% or more and the lesson is ticked on your course map.
Well done! Lesson 165 is ticked on your course map.
Write your answer on paper or in your head first, then reveal the model answer.
☰ See all 200 lessons · Back to top ↑
Lesson done? Train your ear
This written course teaches you to read and write. The LIMBA audio course makes you speak: 24 lessons of 12 to 15 minutes, recorded with a native speaker. You listen, you repeat, you answer — the perfect partner for these pages.
Download the Mongolian audio course24 audio lessons · MP3 · yours to keep