ABSTRACT
Mongghul, or Huzhu Mongghul, is, together with (Minhe) Mangghuer, generally referred to as ‘Monguor’ in the specialist literature. The Chinese nomenclature subsumes the two populations and their languages under the designation Tu or Turen ‘Local People’, and assigns only dialect status to the two varieties. Linguistically it is, however, clearly a question of two separate languages. The traditional name Monguor, which is nothing but a transformed shape of *monggol, is, strictly speaking, not justified for Mongghul, since the syllable-final sound change *l > r characterizes, apart from Mangghuer, only part of the dialects of the Mongghul language, notably the Naringhol (more exactly, Narin ghuor) dialect. The shape Mongghul, on the other hand, is based on the Halchighol (Halqighul) variant, which is territorially more widespread, has more speakers, and is the basis of a newly created literary language.
