Phonological and literary characteristics of some pieces of Khamnigan oral folklore

Abstract

This paper discusses four specimens of Khamnigan folklore—an octetfolksong, a witty saying, and a hunter’s anecdote, collected in 2006 inBinder and Dadal county in northern Khentii province, and an additionalsaying collected in Binder in 2009. An analysis of the phonologicaland literary characteristics of the texts is given, including treatmentof alliteration, assonance, head rhyme, end rhyme, and certain lexicalcharacteristics, as well as explaining their value for the study of Mongoliclinguistics and literature. Among the interesting literary devices used inKhamnigan literature, the witty saying attests the use of final-syllable headrhyme,and the octet folksong attests the use of end-rhyme, a rarely usedliterary device in Mongolic literature, attested also by Antoine Mostaertin an Ordos hunter’s rhyme. Also of note is that in all four texts, guttural alliteration is present, suggesting that this may be a common feature ofKhamnigan oral literature. As Khamnigan Mongol is an endangered language, and MongolianKhamnigan Mongol is a moribund variety of that language with very fewspeakers remaining and is still only minimally studied, it is of the utmosturgency that the language be documented as fully as possible withinthe next few years, in order to preserve the richness of the KhamniganMongol language and Khamnigan folk knowledge for future generationsof Khamnigans and scholars to enjoy and learn from. This brief paper mayserve as a preliminary treatment of Mongolian Khamnigan Mongol folkloreand oral literature, with data on the phonology of the language.