ABSTRACT
Buryat (buryaad xelen) is a Northern Mongolic language presently spoken by c. 363,000 people out of an ethnic population of 421,380 (according to the census of 1989). The Buryat are divided among three administrative units of the Russian Federation: (1) the Buryat Republic or Buryatia, east and south of Lake Baikal, (2) the Aga National District (okrug) of Chita Province (oblast’ ), east of Buryatia, and (3) the Ust’-Orda National District of Irkutsk Province, west of Lake Baikal. Additionally, there are at least 100,000 ethnic Buryat in the northern and eastern provinces of Mongolia as well as in Inner Mongolia, China.
