Mongolian Abbreviations and Acronyms

A Database

By Oliver Corff

1. Introduction

This database contains more than 1000 modern Mongolian abbreviations and acronyms. These include official abbreviations used for country names and political parties as well as the slightly more esoteric ones found in military and former MPRP (i.e. MAXN) propaganda context.

Abbreviations and acronyms were collected from a broad range of dictionaries, newspapers and journals and well as signposts, walls, product labels and related sources.

Only Mongolian language acronyms and abbreviations were collected; items like UNESCO or FIFA which are used as such in Mongolia are not considered.

Abbreviations and acronyms strongly reflect sociocultural realities which now and then undergo historical change. Abbreviations created for organisations and social bodies active during Communist rule have fallen in oblivion; it is all the more important to collect these items as it becomes more and more difficult with every day to read newspapers and political documents of the pre-1990 era.

New social facts and thus also new terminology (like the equivalents for VAT and Ltd.) are introduced with market economy, and again it is difficult to judge whether a newly coined abbreviation remains in specialist use or becomes widely popular in all ranges of society.

It is thus well possible that the interested reader may not find a coinage supposedly common; it is also well possible that quite a few abbreviations are resolved in a disputable fashion. More than once, different sources offered different opinions on the interpretation of certain abbreviations.

Many people have actively contributed to the growing stock of abbreviations and acronyms (as well as their meanings, of course) but the sole responsability for any defective or erroneous reporting lies with the author alone.

In all cases of concern the reader is kindly invited to submit corrections and addenda. All criticism and suggestions should be directed to the editor (infomong@zedat.fu-berlin.de).

2. How to use the database

3. Access the database