The Khalkha dialect is a dialect of central Mongolic widely spoken in Mongolia. According to some classifications, the Khalkha dialect includes Southern Mongolianvarieties such as Shiliin gol, Ulaanchab and Sönid. As it was the basis for the Cyrillic orthography of Mongolian, it is de factothe national language of Mongolia. The name of the dialect is related to the name of the Khalkha Mongols and the Khalkha river. There are certain differences between normative and spoken Khalkha. For example, the normative language uses proximal demonstratives based on the word stem and thus exhibits the same developmental tendency as exhibited by Oirat. On the other hand, the spoken language also makes use of paradigms that are based on the stems and. This seems to agree with the use in Chakhar Mongolian. The same holds for the distal demonstrative. Khalkha may roughly be divided into Northern and Southern Khalkha, which would include Sönid etc. Both varieties shareaffricate depalatalization, namely, > and > except before *i, while Southern Khalkha patterns with Chakhar and Ordos Mongolian in that it exhibits a dissimilating deaspiration, e.g. >. However, Mongolian scholars more often hold that the border between Khalkha and Chakhar is the border between the Mongolian state and the Chakhar area of South Mongolia. Especially in the speech of younger speakers, > may take place, as in Written Mongolian qabtasu > Sünid ~ 'cover '. One of the classifications of Khalkha dialect in Mongolia divides it into 3 subdialects: Central, Western and Eastern. The orthography of the Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet is essentially based on the Central Khalkha dialect. Among the main differences is the pronunciation of initial letter х in feminine words which is in Central Khalkha pronounced as it is written, in Western Khalkha as kh, and in Eastern Khalkha as g. Example: хөтөл, көтөл, гөтөл. The initial letter х is pronounced in masculine words in Western Khalkha dialect as h if the second consonant is voiceless, and is pronounced as gh in Eastern Khalkha. Example: хутга hутага, гутага. Initial т is pronounced in Eastern Khalkha dialect as d. Example: талх талк, далх.
Juha Janhunen - 'Mongolian' book - from 2012 - grouping of Khalkha dialects
In Juha Janhunen's book titled "Mongolian", he groups the Khalkha dialects into the following 19:
