Vagindra script

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Proposed script for the Buryat language

title: "Vagindra script" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["alphabets", "mongolian-writing-systems", "writing-systems-introduced-in-the-1900s", "buryat-language", "1910s-disestablishments-in-the-russian-empire", "1900s-establishments-in-the-russian-empire"] description: "Proposed script for the Buryat language" topic_path: "geography/russia" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagindra_script" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Proposed script for the Buryat language ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox writing system"]

Field	Value
name	Vagindra script
altname	Buryat script
sample	Monggol (Vagindra).svg
image size	100px
caption	"Mongol" in Vagindra
languages	Buryat, Russian
creator	Agvan Dorzhiev
type	Alphabet
fam1	Proto-Sinaitic alphabet
fam2	Phoenician alphabet
fam3	Aramaic alphabet
fam4	Syriac alphabet
fam5	Sogdian alphabet
fam6	Old Uyghur alphabet
fam7	Mongolian script
sisters	Clear script, Manchu script
date	about 1905
time	in the status of national writing 1905—1910
::

| name = Vagindra script

History

Agvan Dorzhiev, or Agvaandorj, a Khory Buryat, developed the script in 1905 with the assistance of Tseveen Jamsrano as a means to cultural unification of the Buryats, naming it "Vagindra" for the Sanskrit version of his name. He based it primarily on the Classical Mongol and Todo script, expressing the hope that it would also help Buryats to read materials in the old script. Approximately ten books and pamphlets were published in the script until 1910, using a hybrid dialect primarily based on stern Buryat, but it was not used after that; there was discussion in 1917 of reviving it for use in native schools, but Classical Mongol was thought more likely to foster Mongol unity. Dorzhiev himself apparently lost interest in the project, and neither mentions it nor uses it in his autobiography. It was opposed by Mikhail Bogdanov, who advocated rapid assimilation through Russian, and it has been suggested that the hybrid language used presented problems for readers, although evidence suggests otherwise. Probably most importantly, the Tsarist government perceived Mongolian unification, and hence the Vagindra script, as a political threat and exiled some of its proponents.

Description

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Алфавит_Агвана_Доржиева.PNG" caption="Alphabet of Agvan Dorzhiev"] ::

The script is derived primarily from Classical Mongol on the analogy of the Clear script, and like it is written vertically. The version published by Nicolai Amagaev and "Alamzhi-Mergen" (Rinchingiin Elbegdorj) in 1910 consists of 7 vowels and 21 consonants. Diacritics are used to indicate long vowels (a vertical line), palatization (a circle), and letters for use in rendering Russian (a dot), including a letter representing the historical Russian double consonant /ʃt͡ʃ/ (corresponding to Cyrillic Щ). He also added a special letter to mark, Х (h) sound of the Buryat dialect. The alphabet can therefore also be represented as having 36 letters including 8 vowels. Unlike Classical Mongol, the letter forms are invariant regardless of position in the word, being based on the medial forms in Classical Mongol, with the exception of a, which is based on the Uighur script and has a reduced form in medial and final position.

References

Otgonbayar Chuluunbaatar, ''Einführung in die mongolischen Schriften'', Einführungen in fremde Schriften, Hamburg: Buske, 2008, {{ISBN. de
Yeshen-Khorlo Dugarova-Montgomery and Robert Montgomery, "The Buriat Alphabet of Agvan Dorzhiev", in ''Mongolia in the Twentieth Century: Landlocked Cosmopolitan'', ed. Stephen Kotkin and Bruce A. Elleman, Armonck, New York: Sharpe, 1999, {{ISBN
9780810874527.
(October 2025). ""www.munkho.de"".
Dugarova-Montgomery and Montgomery, [https://books.google.com/books?id=BoWGituXr8MC&q=Like+Classical+Mongol%2C+the+new+alphabet+was+written+vertically&pg=PA79 p. 85].
Dugarova-Montgomery and Montgomery, [https://books.google.com/books?id=BoWGituXr8MC&q=rejected+in+favor+of+Classical+Mongolian&pg=PA79 p. 86].
Chuluunbaatar, [https://books.google.com/books?id=0wuHO5OgGY8C&q=Beherrschung+solch+einer+hybriden+Schriftsprache p. 57].
Dugarova-Montgomery and Montgomery, [https://books.google.com/books?id=BoWGituXr8MC&q=most+likely+cause+of+the+new+script%27s+disappearance&pg=PA79 p. 88].
BNMAU-yn Shinzhlėkh Ukhaany Akademi, ''Information Mongolia: The Comprehensive Reference Source of the People's Republic of Mongolia (MPR)'', Countries of the world information series, Oxford/New York: Pergamon, 1990, {{ISBN
Nikolai Amagaev and Alamzhi-Mergen, ''Novyi mongolo-buriatskii alfavit'', St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperatorskoi akademii nauk, 1910, cited in Dugarova-Montgomery and Montgomery, [https://books.google.com/books?id=BoWGituXr8MC&q=Nikolai+Amagaev&pg=PA79 p. 86], Chart 1, p. 87.
Chuluunbaatar, [https://books.google.com/books?id=0wuHO5OgGY8C&q=wurde+senkrecht+geschrieben+und+aus+sieben+Vokalen+und+21+Konsonanten p. 56].
[http://www.viahistoria.com/SilverHorde/research/images/Scripts/V_Script_1.jpg Chart] linked at Luigi Kapaj (in the SCA: Gülügjab Tangghudai), [http://www.viahistoria.com/SilverHorde/main.html?research/MongolScripts.html Mongol Scripts], The Silver Horde, [[Society for Creative Anachronism]], 2003.
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