Khorchin phonology

Khorchin has the consonant phonemes

and the vowel phonemes

The large vowel system hails from the depalatalization of consonants that left former allomorphic vowels as phonemes, hence and. On the other hand, *ö is absent, e.g. Proto-Mongolic > Kalmyk, Khalkha  'colour', but Khorchin , thus merging with. is absent in the native words of some varieties and is completely restricted to loanwords from Chinese, but as these make up a very substantial part of Khorchin vocabulary, it is not feasible to postulate a separate loanword phonology. This also resulted in a vowel harmony system that is rather different from Chakhar and Khalkha: may appear in non-initial syllables of words without regard for vowel harmony, as may  (e.g.  'horses' and  'expensive'; Khalkha would have  'horses' and ). On the other hand, still determines a word as front-vocalic when appearing in the first syllable, which doesn't hold for  and. In some subdialects, and  which originated from palatalized  and, have changed vowel harmony class according to their acoustic properties and become front vowels in the system, and the same holds for their long counterparts. E.g. *mori-bar 'by horse' > Khorchin vs. Jalaid subdialect.

On the consonant side, has been replaced by, and in some varieties,  is replaced by. Then, *u (<*<*u) has regressively assimilated to before *p, e.g. *putaha (Written Mongolian budaγ-a) > pata ‘rice’. However, less systematic changes that pertain only to a number of words are far more notable, e.g. 'capacity'> Khorchin. This last example also illustrates that Khorchin allows for the consonant nuclei and  (cp.  'many').