As for the word таг “plateau; the flat summit of a mountain”, it can be found in the old-
written Mongolian language with the meaning “mountain plateau; mountain with a flat top”,
while in modern Mongolian languages, there is no such a word. As V.I. Rassadin writes,
This word exists in the Buryat language in the form һарьдаг and means
‘woodless mountain top’. The highest mountain in the Tunkinsky District of
Buryatia, within the Tunkinsky mountain range, is Munkhe-Sardag (Buryat:
Мүнхэ-һарьдаг), covered with permanent snow. The specific feature of this
mountain range is that its summits consist of yellow rock, which explains the
Turkic origin of the corresponding word. The components of this Mongolian
lexical unit — saridaγ — are represented by two elements — sari and daγ,
which can be well interpreted as the Turkic words sarї “yellow” and daγ
“mountain” (RASSADIN, 2015, p. 84).
In the Khalkha-Mongolian and Buryat languages, there is a word хяр, which means
“hillcrest, top of the head, mountain range, foothill” and, correspondingly, хяра meaning
“mountain crest” (qir-a in the old Mongolian script). In the modern Kalmyk language and the
language of Oirats living in Mongolia, this word cannot be found.
The Kalmyk and Oirat-Mongolian word боомо һазăр “heavy-going place” (old-written
Mongolian boγum, Khalkha-Mongolian боом, Buryat боомо газар “cape, outstanding
mountain”). V.I. Rassadin assumes that “[…] this Mongolian word was derived from the
Mongolian verb boγu ‘block, obstruct, cut off, hamper’, which also has the meaning ‘tie up, tie
around, wrap up’” (RASSADIN, 2015, p. 85).
The Kalmyk and Oirat-Mongolian word бульш “grave, repository, graveyard” (old-
written Mongolian bulaši, Khalkha-Mongolian булш “grave-mound; grave, graveyard, burying
ground, cemetery”, Buryat булаша “gravesite, grave-mound, grave, graveyard”). V.I. Rassadin
writes, “The internal form of this word consists of the components bula and ši, where ši is
nothing but a usual deverbative word-formative common Mongolian affix, while the bula
component can be identified with the Mongolian verb bula” (RASSADIN, 2015, p. 83). A few
examples: Khalkha-Mongolian булах, Buryat булаха “embed, bury”, Kalmyk булх “cover,
embed, earth, bury” with the meaning “earth, cover, embed, fill up with”.
In the old days, Mongolian nomadic peoples cooked meat in the following way: they
made a fire and a hole under the fire, where they dug meat, and thus it was cooked there.
The Kalmyk and Oirat-Mongolian word довун “small hill, mount, elevation” can be
found in the old-written Mongolian language tobung “small hill, mount, elevation” (Mongolian
товон “mount”, Buryat добуун “elevation, hill, hillock, burial mount”). These Mongolian
words are in the same semantic field though phonetically they are not identical.