Though I took photographs of the 100 Tögrög or Tugrik (₮100), banknotes or the currency are only a secondary topic. This banknote is worth around 0.03 US$ or €. If you want to buy these notes or even smaller denominations via internet, you might pay quite some money [1]. Wikipedia: „Currently, the lowest denomination in regular use is the 10-tögrög note and the highest is the 20,000-tögrög note.“ [2] Coins are no longer in use.
I've marked scripts on the pictures of the banknote:
No. 1 is written vertical in the folded mongolian script.
No. 2 is the number 100 (both latin an cyrillic alphabeths the same).
No. 3 is the number 100 in Mongolian numerals, which have been developed from Tibetan numerals [3]. You can see that the writing/reading direction is left to right. In the traditional vertical writing the columns are also left to right, whereas in Japanese or classical Chinese the columns go right to left.
No. 4 is written in the Soyombo script. The Soyombo script is an abugida [4] created by Öndör Gegeen Zanabazar [5]. It is used more for ceremonial and decorative purposes, not only on banknotes but also on the Mongolian flag.
No. 5 shows the traditional Mongolian script. It has been derived from the Uyghur alphabet, which is a descendant of the Sogdian and therefore of the Syriac alphabet. With modifications it was later used to write Manchu, a language that is endangered nowadays, but once had been the language of the ruling Manchu during the Qing-Dynasty in China [6]. Some of my classmates in Sinology had studied Manchu at the East Asian Seminar (University of Cologne).
No. 6 is a variant of No. 5 (I first thought of 'Phags-pa).
No. 7 is written in Cyrillic script, both print form and handwriting. You might note, that Mongolian needed additional letters, these are Өө Öö and Үү Üü.
Tungalagbaatar Zagdaa, whom I know from my recent travels, had written on Facebook: Түргэн шуурхай их зүйл үзэж өгөөж арвин нутагтаа зочлоод буцлаа. Аялалд нэгдсэн та бүхэндээ баярлалаа (Visited my home country and back again. Thank you for joining the journey. Automatic translation) [7]. And he got an answer written in Roman letters: „1 udriin zunduu olon goy gazar uzej yostoi goy ayallaa. Binder sum saikhan sum bn. Hool und amtat idee undaa ihtei goy yumaa.“ So, nowadays also the Roman script is in use, but only inofficially and the current automatic translation systems cannot translate Mongolian written in Roman letters (at least I didn't find any system).
Links and Annotations:
[1] https://www.mongolia-travel-advice.com/mongolia-money.html I can't vouch for this site, but interestingly Cam is also from Melbourne like Tony and Maureen Wheeler (Lonely planet). Not only the information on Mongolian currency is interesting.
https://www.ma-shops.de/mjim/item.php?id=580 The Mongolia Banknotes Set 5,10,20,50 Tugrik 2000 is worth around 0.03 €, but you pay including „shipment“ 20.00 €.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_t%C3%B6gr%C3%B6g
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_numerals
[4] An abugida or alphasyllabary uses units of consonant plus vowel
[5] I've already mentionened Öndör Gegeen Zanabazar in another blogpost: https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2022/09/mongolia-erdene-khambiin-khiid-or.html. Excerpt: Öndör Gegeen Zanabazar (өндөр гэгээн Занабазар) lived from 1635 to 1723 and was the religious leader of Lamaism, more specifically of the Gelugpa (Yellow Hat) lineage of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia [5a], and he also has been the secular leader. Zanabazar is known for his bronze sculptures or the development of the Soyombo script [5b]; overall he was a prodigious sculptor, painter, architect, poet, costume designer, scholar and linguist.
[5a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanabazar
[5b] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyombo_script You can see the script on the Mongolian flag.
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchu_language
[7] https://www.facebook.com/tungalagbaatar.zagdaa/posts/pfbid0Vk82DfuApaLmkVymwvKjzg8cLk4EQW4VaQh6A8SQQa7cKW4ghpGh9hx4cPXPy8GKl
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