mongolian script was the first writing system to be used to write the mongolian language. it is similar to the arabic alphabet in that it is a cursive writing system, or a writing system where all the letters in a word always touch each other and change depending on if the letter is at the beginning, middle, or end of a word. it is a vertically written system, meaning that it is written top-to-bottom, and it is the only vertical writing system to be read left-to-right (all other vertical systems, like chinese and korean, are left-to-right). it is one of the two writing systems used to write the mongolian language, alongside cyrillic, in the independent country of mongolia (which is sometimes called outer mongolia to distinguish it from inner mongolia) and the only writing system used to write the language in the chinese autonomous region of inner mongolia. unlike arabic, and old uyghur, the traditional mongolian script and it's variants are an abugida and brahmic script. it is also used to write several other mongolic and tungustic languages such as buryat, kalmyk, oirat, manchu, and xibe.