ABSTRACT
Ordos (more properly Urdus) is spoken in the southernmost part of Inner Mongolia, south of the Yellow River and north of the Great Wall. Its territory borders on the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in the south and Shaanxi province in the southeast. Apart from Chinese, the linguistic neighbours of Ordos include the Urat and Tümet dialects of Mongol proper to the north and northeast, respectively. To the northwest, Ordos is bordered by Alashan Öelet, a subvariety of Oirat. Traditionally, the Ordos territory is divided into seven banners, namely Right Wing: Dalad, Wang, Junggar in the northeast, as well as Left Wing: Kanggin (NW), Otog (SW), Üüsin (SE), and Jasag (E), the first six of which were set up in 1649, following the submission of the Ordos clans to the Manchu state in 1635, and the last one being cut out of Üüsin in 1736 to form the administrative unit known as the Inner Mongolian league of Ike Juu (Yagae Juu).
