Mongolian. Is the ancient Mongolian language similar to the modern one? Which language group does the Mongolian language belong to?

Hello, dear readers – seekers of knowledge and truth!

Interestingly, the Mongolian, Chinese, Afghan and Russian populations have something in common. And, oddly enough, it’s language. After all, Mongolian is spoken not only in Mongolia - there is a whole language group that has spread far beyond its borders.

We want to tell you what the Mongolian group of languages ​​is. From the article you will learn what families and groups of languages ​​there are, what place Mongolian occupies among them. Their geography, types, features, history - we will talk about all this below.

Language families

Each language acquires connections with other, related ones. Historically, they are due to the proximity of peoples and origin from the same proto-language. Related to this is the concept of genealogical linguistic classification.

There are more than seven thousand languages ​​in the world.

Of course, it is difficult to list them all in a group. Therefore, we will provide only a list of the main language families, each of which is divided geographically into groups, and then into individual languages ​​and dialects.

Language families are distinguished:

• India, Europe - the Indo-European family is considered the largest;
• Caucasus;
• Africa, Asia;
• China, Tibet;
• Ural;
• Altai.

The Mongolian group is included in the Altai family according to the Altai theory, which is considered the main one. This also includes the Chinese-Tibetan, Turkic, and Far Eastern groups.

Geography of the Mongolian language

The Mongolian peoples settled mainly in Asian and European territories: in the steppes, forests, mountains, and near the seas. For the most part, these are the lands of the Republic of Mongolia, Afghanistan, northeast China, especially Inner Mongolia, as well as some Volga and Baikal republics in Russia - Buryatia, Kalmykia, Tuva.

In a Mongolian yurt

However, many representatives of the Mongolian people live far from these territories, while maintaining their own traditions, including their language.

The Mongolian group includes several languages ​​that are very similar in vocabulary, grammar, and sound. This state of affairs is not surprising - until the 5th century they were united and only later split into several branches.

They are closely intertwined with Turkic, Tungusic, Manchu, Tibetan, Korean, and Slavic languages, because their speakers live next door. Linguists note especially many borrowings from Turkic. Even now there are people here who speak two languages ​​at once - the so-called bilinguals, for example, Uyghurs and Khotons.

Classic Mongolian was used by all literate Tuvans until the 40s of the last century.

The number of speakers of Mongolian languages ​​in the world exceeds six million. They are divided into dialects of the west, center, and east. Their differences relate mostly to phonetics and pronunciation.

Tyva

Mongolian is recognized as the official language in Mongolia. It began to take shape in this capacity after the internal revolution of 1921. The Khalkha dialect of the Central Mongolian subgroup was taken as a basis - laws are passed in it, books are written, and educational programs are built.

Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of China, does not have a distinct dialect, so its residents use the classic old script.

Kinds

Defining a clear classification of languages ​​seems difficult. Conventionally, they are divided into two large groups – northern and southern.

Northern group includes:

• Old written

Connected with the history of the 13-17th centuries, it incorporates the Middle Mongolian, Buryat version, today’s literary language of Inner Mongolia.

• Central subgroup

This includes modern Mongolian: the state language of Mongolia is Khalkha, dialects of the center, east, south, which belong to the Mongol-Chinese territories, as well as the Ordos branch. In addition, Buryat and Khamnigan, known in the Russian Transbaikalia, are included in the central cluster.

• Western cluster

Covers Kalmyk, Oirat and their dialects.

Kalmyk camel

The southern group includes the following languages:

• Shira-Yugur - spoken by the Yugu people in China;
• Mongolian – covers the Chinese provinces of Qinghai and Gansu;
• Bao'an - has about 12 thousand Chinese speakers, whose main feature is the Muslim faith;
• Dongxiang - also common in several Chinese provinces, covers more than 350 thousand people;
• Kangjia.

In addition, there are other major languages:

• Mughal - common in Afghanistan;
• Khitan - common among the Khitai tribe who lived on Chinese territory in the 10th century; It is believed that thanks to this name, “China” sounds exactly like this in Russian;
• Dagur - native to the Dagur people of the People's Republic of China;
• Xianbi - refers to the ancient Xianbi tribe, which lived in the 2nd-4th centuries in what is now Inner Mongolia.

Yurts in Inner Mongolia

All these languages, common among certain nationalities, in certain countries, regions, provinces, have their own dialects. Due to their similarity and common origin, representatives of the Mongolian peoples can communicate without problems, especially if they live in adjacent territories.

At the same time, some of them have such different features of vocabulary, pronunciation, formation of gerunds, and cases that their representatives are unlikely to understand their “relatives.”

One of the problems of modern Mongolian languages ​​is the threat of extinction of some of them.OngoingGlobalization with the Internet, television, world trade, mass communications puts Khalkha in first place - it is used by 8 out of 10 speakers. At the same time, the languages ​​of small nations are gradually forgotten.

Features of the language

Mongolian languages ​​are considered quite complex. Many of them have common features:

• agglutinativeness - prefixes and suffixes are “built on top” of one another, which changes the meaning of the word;
• inflectivity – play a big role word endings. For example, they completely replace personal pronouns;
• strict word order - first comes the dependent word, containing, for example, a description of place or time, and at the end - the main word;
• ergativity is a case indicating the subject and object of an action, the Russian equivalent to it is the passive voice of participles;
• a small number of parts of speech - there is only a verb (can be conjugated), a name (can be inflected), unchangeable parts of speech. A noun differs from an adjective only syntactically;
• presence of singular and plural;
• 7-9 cases – the number depends on the specific language;
• participle, participle as special forms of the verb;
• verb tenses - the past tense can be expressed by several forms of the verb at once, while the present and future can be the same;
• cautionary mood - it exists along with the motivating and indicative, expressed in phrases like “I’m afraid that...”.

Buryat holiday

Alphabet

Initially, they wanted to make the alphabet based on the Latin alphabet. However, as a result, the Cyrillic alphabet was taken as a basis - in 1943 the alphabet was officially adopted.

It contains 35 letters. In addition to the letters familiar to Russian people, two more vowels are added here - ө, phonetically reminiscent of the German ö, and ү, pronounced like the German ü.

The remaining letters sound the same as in Russian. The only exceptions are the complex names of some of them:

• y – khagas i;
• ъ – khatuugin temdeg;
• y – er ugiyn y;
• ь – golden temdeg.

This alphabet is still used today.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to say that Mongolian languages ​​are unique and amazing. They are spoken by about 6 million people - not so many on the scale of a planet of seven billion.

The general group is divided into many dialects, each of which has its own characteristics. Of course, we would like all of them to be preserved despite globalization, and for our descendants to also be able to learn about the culture and depth of the soul of these peoples through the study of linguistics.

Thank you very much for your attention, dear readers! We hope you found our article useful and you were able to get a little closer to understanding the features of the Mongolian world. If you liked the information, share it with your friends by providing links to the article on social networks.

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Mongolian is one of the Altaic languages ​​spoken by approximately 5 million people in Mongolia, China, Afghanistan and Russia. The Mongolian language is divided into a number of closely related dialects: Khalkha(official language of Mongolia), Oirat, Chaharian And Ordos dialects spoken primarily in Inner Mongolia (an autonomous region in China).

Other languages ​​that are part of the Mongolian language family but are separate from the Mongolian language include the Buryat and Kalmyk languages, which are found in Russia, and the Mughal language, which is used in Afghanistan.

Mongolian writing

In 1206, Genghis Khan defeated the Naiman and captured the Uyghur scribe Tatatunga, who probably adapted the ancient Uyghur alphabet to write in the Mongolian language. The alphabet created by Tatatunga is today known as Uyghur script, Classical Mongolian script, Old Mongolian script, or in Mongolian - Mongol bichig.

During the XIII-XV centuries. Chinese characters, the Arabic alphabet and the Tibetan script of the Pagba Lama were also used to write in the Mongolian language.

Under the influence of the Soviet Union, Mongolia switched to using the Latin alphabet in 1931, and the Cyrillic alphabet in 1937. In 1931, Mongolia passed a law abolishing the classical Mongolian script, but since 1994 they have tried to reintroduce it into use. Today, classical Mongolian writing is partly studied in schools, but it is mainly used for decorative purposes by artists, designers, calligraphers and poets. The average person in Mongolia knows almost nothing about the classical Mongolian script, although there is a lot to say about the Cyrillic alphabet. In Inner Mongolia (an autonomous region in China), this type of script continues to be used.

Classic Mongolian script

Peculiarities

• Writing type: phonemic alphabet with separate letters for vowels and consonants
• Writing direction: left to right, vertical columns from top to bottom
• Letters have different shapes, the choice of which depends on the letter's position in the word, as well as the letter that follows it.

Mongolian alphabet

Cyrillic

Latin

Numerals

The first number system (tegen, nigen, etc.) is classical Mongolian, the others belong to the period of modern Mongolian language.

(Inner Mongolia)

Mongolian ( Mongol Hal , Mongol khel)- the official language of Mongolia in 1921. Belongs to the Mongolian group of languages. The literary language develops on the basis of the Khalkha dialect. Mongolian is also spoken in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, although the number of speakers there has been declining over time, the Russian Far East and Kyrgyzstan. The total number of speakers is about 5 million. The modern language (with its dialects) was formed in the XIV-XVI centuries on the basis of one of the dialects of the ancient Mongolian language.

Most speakers in Mongolia speak the Khalkha dialect; those living in China speak the Chahar, Oirat, and Barg-Buryat groups of dialects.

1. Classification of the Mongolian language

The Altaic language theory supports the hypothesis that the Mongolian language family is part of the larger Altaic family, which also includes the Turkic and Tungusic languages. Associated languages ​​include Kalmyk, whose speakers live near the Caspian Sea, and the Buryat language of Eastern Siberia, as well as a number of minor languages ​​in China and the Mughal language of Afghanistan.

2. Geographical distribution

More than two million people speak Mongolian in Mongolia. In addition to three million native speakers of Northern China, they constitute a minority of the population of Inner Mongolia. This is especially true for cities. Mongol Khalkha is the national language of Mongolia. In Inner Mongolia, standard Mongolian is based on the Mongol Chahar dialect.

2.1. Dictionary

The vocabulary of the Mongolian language includes quite a few historical borrowings, especially from the old Turkic languages, Sanskrit (often via Uyghur), Tibetan, Chinese and Tungusic, supplemented by more recent borrowings from Russian, Chinese and English. Mongolia's language commissions have made efforts to transfer the latest terminology into the Mongolian language, thus producing Mongolian words such as president "jer?nhijl?gč" ("generalizer") and beer "sloy airag" ("yellow kumiss"). There are also a small number of cripples, such as "population" h?n from Chinese r?nkŏu (人口, population).

2.2. Morphology

Modern Mongolian is an aglutive, exclusively suffixal language. Most suffixes consist of a single morpheme. Mongolian has a rich range of morphemes, which allows you to create complex words from simple roots. For example, a word consists of a root, to "be", an insertive, causative (then for "foundation"), a derived suffix, which forms nouns created by action ("organization"), and a complex suffix, which means anything pertaining to the changed words (would be generic).

Mongolian has eight cases:

The main difference between modern dialects is the use of africata j, dz, c, h; There are whistling-hissing dialects (in which all four sounds are present) and sibilant dialects (in which there are only j, h).

The structure of modern language differs from the ancient one, among other things, in the absence of personal-predicative particles.

Since ancient times, the Mongolian language has been written in a special vertical script. This letter is still used in Chinese Inner Mongolia. In Mongolia itself, starting in 1945, the Cyrillic alphabet was introduced with the addition of two letters (ө, ү). The Cyrillic alphabet is still used to write the Mongolian language.

3. Group of Mongolian languages

Khalkha Mongolian language is part of the Mongolian language family. This family is divided into the following groups: Northern Mongolian languages: Buryat, Kalmyk, Ordos, Khamnigan, Oirat South-Mongolian languages: Dagurska, Shira-Yugur, Dongxiangska, Baoanska, then language (Mongorska), a separate Mughal in Afghanistan. These languages ​​are quite close to each other.

The differences between the language of the Mongols of the MR and the language of the Mongols of Inner Mongolia affect phonetics, as well as such morphological parameters, which are very variable within the Mongolian family, such as the set of participial forms and the presence/absence of some peripheral case forms. The same type of differences exist between dialects both within the Mongolian language of Mongolia proper and within the Mongolian language of Inner Mongolia. In reality, it is one language, divided by a state border, with many dialects represented on both sides. This includes the umbrella term modern Mongolian; In total, over 5 million (according to other estimates - up to 6 million) people speak it, that is, more than 3/4 of the total Mongol-speaking population. Close to 6 thousand Mongols live in Taiwan; 3,000 according to the 1989 census lived in the USSR. The division has consequences mainly of a Zovnishnyom nature: in the MR and in Inner Mongolia there are different literary norms (in the latter case the norm is based on the old written language), in addition, the dialects of Inner Mongolia have experienced significant influence from Chinese in the field of vocabulary and intonation.

4. Historical Mongolian languages

With an even broader interpretation of the concept, the “Mongolian language” expands not only geographically, but also historically, and then it includes the post-galal Mongolian language, which existed until about the 12th century, as well as the old written Mongolian language - the common literary language of all Mongolian tribes from the 13th to the 17th centuries . The dialectal basis of the latter is unclear; in fact, it has always been a purely written supra-dialectal form, which was facilitated by the fact that the written language (basically Uyghur) did not very accurately convey the phonetics of words, leveling out inter-dialectal differences.

Perhaps this language was formed by one of the Mongol tribes that were destroyed or completely assimilated during the emergence of the empire of Genghis Khan (probably the Naimans). It is generally accepted that Old Script Mongolian reflects an older stage in the development of Mongolian languages ​​than any of the known Mongolian dialects; this explains its role in the comparative historical study of Mongolian languages.

In the history of written speech, ancient (XIII-XV centuries), pre-classical (XV-XVII centuries) and classical (XVII - early XX centuries) stages are distinguished. The terms often found “Old Mongolian language” and “Middle Mongolian language” are used to designate the common, although dialectally fragmented, language of the Mongolian tribes before the 13th century and in the 13th-15th centuries, respectively. Since the 17th century, in connection with the creation of the so-called clear script (tod bichig) by Zaya-Pandit, adapted to the peculiarities of the Oirat dialects, and the formation of the Oirat literary language, the classical old written Mongolian language began to be used mainly in the eastern part of the Mongolian area - in Khalkha (Outer Mongolia) and Inner Mongolia. In Buryatia, a special Buryat form of the old written Mongolian language gradually formed. In Inner Mongolia, the old written language is still used today. In Buryatia, writing was introduced first on a Latin basis (in 1931) and then on a Cyrillic basis (in 1939). In the Mongolian People's Republic, the Cyrillic alphabet was introduced in 1945. Accordingly, new literary languages ​​developed there. In post-communist Mongolia, and partly in Buryatia, interest in the old written language in our time [ When? ] is being revived, its teaching is being actively carried out.

The language of the monuments of the so-called “square script” of the 13th-14th centuries. Due to the presence of a number of structural features, it is sometimes considered as a special variety of the Mongolian language.

5. Writing systems

At different times, various alphabets were used to write Mongolian. The Uyghur alphabet was adapted to the Mongolian in 1208. This Mongolian alphabet was used in Mongolia until 1931, when the Latin alphabet was introduced, and finally the Cyrillic alphabet in 1937. The traditional alphabet was abolished by the pro-Soviet government in 1941, and a short-lived attempt to revive the traditional alphabet after 1990 was abandoned after a few years.

In China, Mongolian, along with Chinese, is an official language in some regions in Inner Mongolia. They always used the traditional alphabet, although a transition to the Cyrillic alphabet was considered before the Sino-Soviet crisis occurred. In China, two types of Mongolian script are used - the classic, official among the Mongols on a state scale, and the clear script, which is used mainly by the Oirats in Khingan.

The modified Cyrillic alphabet used in Mongolian is as follows:

Үү and Өө are sometimes written as Vv and Э, predominantly using Russian keyboard software that does not support them.

6. Example

"Testament" of T. Shevchenko in Mongolian language (translated by Mishigiin Tsedendorzh)

We often see heated debates between active forum members from Mongolia and Kazakhstan on social networks. One of these discussions is about Mongolian writing, which we present on our website. Material unchanged:

Modern Mongolian has retained its ancient origins. The language has undergone changes over the years, but it still retains its roots. The current Mongols prove this every time with precision. translation I documents, letters from the 12th, 13th... centuries.

This translation from old Mongolian how the guys from Mongolia did it and how they did it translation historian Daniyarov Kalibek.

Kazakh historian D. Kalibek tried to translate the verse into medieval Mongolian. According to the Kazakhs and that historian, the transcription of Old Mongolian is in Latin and everything is almost clear to them. In fact, Kazakhs cannot understand because the Mongolian language is completely foreign to them.
Here is a poem in ancient Mongolian and modern Mongolian:

Erte udur – ece jeeinjisun okin-o- Onketen;\mng: Ert өdroөөs shinzhsen ohin Ongeten;
ulus ulu temecet-\mng:uls ulu temceed
Qasar qoa okid-i—-\mng:hatsar goa okidig
Qaqan boluqsan – a taho—\mng:Khaan bolson ta ho
Qasaq terken – tur unoiju—\mng: Hasag tergendee unazh
Qara buura kolkeji——\mng:har buuraa hollozh-
Qataralsu otcu——-\mng:Khatirlaj odsu-\
Qatun saulumu ba—-\mng:Khatan suulgamu ba-
Ulus irken ulu te temecet ba—\mng:uls irgen vlV de temetsed ba—
Onke sait Okid-iyen ockeju—\mng:ongo site okidoo Osgozh—
Olijke tai terken-tur unouliu—\mng:Olzhigotoy tergend unuulyuu-
Ole buura kolkeju—\mng:өl buuraa khөllөzh—
Euskeju otcu—\mng:vvsgezh odsu—
Undur saurin-tur—\mng:өndөr suurin dur-
Orecle etet sauqui ba—\mng: өrgөl eded suuguy ba—\
Erfenece Kunqirat irket.—\mng:ertnees khongiraad irged—

Our daughters have been chosen for a long time
Our beautiful girls
To you who became khans (given)
We ride on tall, fast carts
We harness black camels (males) to them
And let's run fast
They become mistresses
They confront with the subjects of other uluses
We give away the best daughters
We put them on fast carts
We harness camels to them
And (to you) we take
They sit on a high place
For a long time, Khongirat subjects

Any Mongolian, having read this poem, will immediately understand that he is praising the beautiful, beautiful-faced Khongiraat girls, who have been marrying the khan for a long time, becoming the khansha\mistress\. Hongiraat is a Mongolian tribe. They now live in Mongolia.

And here the most interesting thing is “translated” by the same historian D. Kalibek in quotation marks))):

1.Qacar ​​- Gasyr - Epoch\ this is not quite an EPOCH, here is the word Khatsar-cheeks, face, especially since here comes the Mongolian phrase Qasar qoa-khatsar goo-beautiful-faced,\

2.Qatun - Katyn - Wife\khatan is a mistress, khansha in Mongolian. It's a sin to make a mistake with a Khatan.\

3. Okid-i – Okidy – Teaches\ incorrect translation Teaches; and on MNG Okid-i-okhidiyg-girls\

4. Qaqan – Kagan – Ruler; \Khan, khan na mng. There's simply no room for error here. In many languages, khan, hag, kagan are king, ruler, head\

5. Qasaq terken tyr – Іазає тјрін стр – Kazakh relatives of the wife are standing—this is clearly not a coincidence))) in Mongolian it is written Khasag tergen dur - means in a BIG CART.

6. Erfenece kunqirat irken – Erte»nen konrat erkin – For a long time, konrat have been free.——there is no word freedom here. It’s just been written for a long time khongiraada and that’s it.

The main thing is to pay attention to his translation, why he could not write word for word in his Kazakh as we wrote in Mongolian in 30 minutes. It’s obvious that he just kind of fantasized about it and called it a translation. Thus, the man wanted to seem to understand the language of Genghis Khan, in fact he perfectly proved that he had nothing in common with the language of the great ancestors of the Mongols.

The Mongols of the 13th century spoke Mongolian, which we, the Mongols of the 21st century, understand. But the Turks, including Kalibek Daniyarov, can only understand individual words or even phrases, which is not surprising. In general, Mongolian is a completely alien language to the Turks. It is a fact.

Translation: From P. Uranbileg and D. Sodnom

Paul Ternes, philosopherstudies Mongolian literature,Central Asia, North KoreaAndancient Greece:

“My first impression of this language is that it has a lot of snake sounds, i.e. “chr”, “shshshh”.

As I became more familiar with the language, I came across a lot of very interesting structural things that I found fascinating (but not the sounds).

I also find it interesting that the same text spoken in Mongolian is often longer than in English. (You'll notice this when watching Mongolian videos with English subtitles. I first became aware of this when the organizers scheduled 25 minutes for a speech in English, but 40 minutes for one in Mongolian).

Mongolian is often described as “harsh and guttural,” and I think that's largely true, but perhaps not always. Interestingly, the School of Life Youtube channel published a series of videos dedicated to the working life of specialists in different countries. Among them was a video about a Mongolian architect, and many viewers described the language as bland. Interesting comments can be found here:

Daghan Korkmaz, fluent in Turkish and English, studies Frenchthlanguage:

“When I hear Mongolian, I hear the sounds “ch” and “k”. "K" is not an unfamiliar sound, but in Nogai we use "sh" instead of "ch". However, in Turkish the "ch" is very prominent. Some sounds, such as "h" and "zh", are similar to the sounds of my language.

I sometimes manage to hear some similar words. For example, the Mongols say “Miniy” - mine. We say “Menim”. Otherwise, Mongolian sounds completely foreign to me. As Irene said, it sounds somewhat similar to the Uralic languages, not because of its vocabulary, but because of the sounds it pronounces.

I believe that language is a mirror of our way of life. Mongolian may seem harsh, but that is because the traditional way of life of the Mongolian people was harsh.

I didn't realize until I read Bom-Bogor's answer that this language sounds very natural. But, in my opinion, this is because the Mongolian way of life requires unity with nature.

Dimitris Almirantis, loves stories,OwhichXthe world has forgotten:

“Mongolian sounds harsh and guttural - perhaps this is the language I would call the epitome of guttural.

I think this language, which promotes vocalization and clarity of sound, which makes me consider it more spontaneous than, for example, English, reflects my native Greek. I can pronounce most consonants in Mongolian with ease, more so than in most other languages ​​(German is an exception).

It can sound either deep or high-pitched, depending on the speaker's voice. Given that Mongolian vowels are generally not “cut”, the speaker's voice comes through this. Mongolian often uses the sounds “z” and “ch”, and this gives it an unusual sound; they are rare in most other languages.

I can't separate Mongolian from throat singing. It seems to me that its similarity with Turkish is obvious.

Iren Avetyan,speaks English:

“I didn't have a chance to listen to Mongolian, except for some YouTube videos.

This language sounds like Finno-Ugric, it is similar to Finnish. I was expecting more Turkish sounds with the repetition of U, but I was surprised to see absolutely no similarity. If I had just heard this language, not knowing that it was Mongolian, I would have attributed it to Western languages, to Eurasia, closer to Finland. I would say - an unclear dialect of Western Finno-Ugric.

Sagar B.K., from Khambhat Bay:

“To me it sounds very similar to Russian, and even a little like French and Arabic. I don't hear any similarities with other East Asian languages.

Now I heard Mongolian for the first time. I was listening to a news video about Mongolia.

Please note that I speak Gujarati (India), a language spoken 4,100 km southeast of Mongolia.

Ase Lundgren, works at Chipotle Mexican Grill:

“Based on the fact that I just heard Mongolian and have never learned it, I can say that it has a lot of back-language sounds, as well as the sound combinations “khacha” and “tsku”, as if you were shooting darts with your mouth. Apparently, the Mongols are not very hospitable and friendly in their homes.

Bom Bogor, loves greenseherbss, therefore, protecting them, eats their enemies - sheep Andgoats:

“Mongolian is not harsh, it is a very unique language that is not like East Asian or European languages, so it may well seem unfamiliar.

Mongolian to me sounds like a combination of nature sounds. I hear the whistle of the wind, the noise of trees and the roar of falling stones in the rocks. The word for "rainy" - "borootoy" - sounds like a drop of water, gal (with the Mongolian L) sounds like fire. I find this language very melodic.

Mongolian songs show the beauty of the language, unfortunately, if you want to learn the Mongolian language, you will have to face pronunciation difficulties.

My native language is Turkish, so I can understand vowel harmony rules better, but I keep getting confused by ү, y, o, ө (definitely doesn't sound like ö and ü), so I'm studying more about pronunciation rather than grammar. L in Mongolian sounds is also different.

I've been studying Mongolian for several months and the biggest problem is finding language material. My favorite source was the Info Mongolia online e learning site “Hicheel”, but now the site is not working: (It’s a shame, because it was the best source, with easy-to-understand reading texts, sound files helped to learn the language, gave answers to a variety of questions, and not limited to a list of daily phrases. I hope that the site will be returned.)