John Gombojab Hangin

John Gombojab Hangin (May 10, 1921 – October 9, 1989) was a Chahar Mongol scholar of Mongolian studies. He authored several Mongolian dictionaries and textbooks and is credited by The New York Times with helping to establish recognition for the Mongolian People's Republic from the United Nations and the United States.

Biography Hangin was born in Taibus Banner, Chahar, Inner Mongolia to a prominent family who had long been active in the Qing Dynasty court. Due to the rise of McCarthyism and charges against Lattimore, the project was eventually shut down, and Hangin had a series of tenures at Georgetown University, University of California, Berkeley, and Columbia University (where he earned his master's degree in 1963). In 1961 he helped found the Mongolia Society, a private, non-profit, non-political organization promoting the study of Mongolia, its history, language, and culture.

He joined Indiana University Bloomington in 1965 and taught in the Mongolian Program of the Department of Uralic and Altaic Studies, earning a PhD in 1970 and becoming a full professor in 1982.

Working throughout his life to promote international recognition of Mongolia, he was invited to the ceremony establishing diplomatic relations between the United States and Mongolia in January 1987.

Together with Tsorj Lama, former Abbot of the Qorgho Monastery in Western Sonid Banner, he founded the Mongol-American Cultural Association in 1987.

Death and legacy Hangin died of heart disease while doing research in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

The Mongolia Society offers a scholarship in his name to Mongolian students who wish to study in the United States.

Hangin acted as a conduit between Americans and Mongolians. The New York Times, in its 1989 obituary, indicated that "is efforts helped to lay the groundwork for recognition of the Mongolian People's Republic by the United Nations in 1961 and American recognition in 1987."