Tungusic languages (or Manchu-Tungus languages) are spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria. Although it is a very debated subject, most linguists consider them to be part of the Altaic language phylum, which, if it actually exists as a genetic entity, also includes the Turkic and Mongolic language families. Many Tungusic languages are endangered, and the long-term future of the family is uncertain. Siberian Federal District (darker red) and the broadest definition of Siberia (red) arctic northeast Siberia Udachnaya pipe Siberia (Russian: , Sibir; Tatar: ) is a vast region of Russia constituting almost all of Northern Asia and comprising a large part of the Euro-Asian Steppe. ... Manchuria (Manchu: Manju; Traditional Chinese: 滿洲; Simplified Chinese: 满洲; pinyin: Mǎnzhōu, Russian: ) is a vast territorial region in northeast Asia. ... Altaic is a proposed language family which includes 66 languages [1] spoken by about 348 million people, mostly in and around Central Asia and northeast Asia. ... The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe to Siberia and Western China with an estimated 140 million native speakers and tens of millions of second-language speakers. ... The Mongolic languages are a group of thirteen languages spoken in Central Asia. ...

Classification

Linguists working on Tungusic have proposed a number of different classifications based on different criteria, including morphological, lexical, and phonological characteristics. One classification which seems to be advocated for a little more than the other alternatives is that the Tungusic languages can be divided into a northern branch and a southern branch, with the southern branch further subdivided into southeastern and southwestern groups.

Northern Tungusic

• Evenki (obsolete: Tungus), spoken by Ewenkis in central Siberia and northeastern China and
• Even (Lamut) of eastern Siberia

Following languages can be considered dialects or related languages of Evenki The Evenk language (Evenki language) (SIL: EVN, ISO 639-2: tut) is the largest of the northern group of the Manchu-Tungus languages, a group which also includes the Even and Negidal languages. ... The Evenks (obsolete: Tungus) are a nomadic indigenous people, one of the Northern Indigenous Peoples (pop. ... Siberian Federal District (darker red) and the broadest definition of Siberia (red) arctic northeast Siberia Udachnaya pipe Siberia (Russian: , Sibir; Tatar: ) is a vast region of Russia constituting almost all of Northern Asia and comprising a large part of the Euro-Asian Steppe. ... The Evens (formerly known as the Lamuts) (Эвены in Russian) are a people in Siberia. ... Siberian Federal District (darker red) and the broadest definition of Siberia (red) arctic northeast Siberia Udachnaya pipe Siberia (Russian: , Sibir; Tatar: ) is a vast region of Russia constituting almost all of Northern Asia and comprising a large part of the Euro-Asian Steppe. ...

• Oroqen
• Negidal
• Solon
• Manegir

Southern Tungusic The Oroqen people (鄂伦春族) (also spelled Oroqin and sometimes Orochen and Orochon) are an ethnic group in northern China. ... The Negidal language is a language of the Tungusic family spoken in the Russian Far East. ... The Solon language is a language of the Tungusic family; it may also be considered a dialect of the related Evenk language. ...

• Southeast Tungusic
  • Nanai (Gold, Goldi, Hezhen)
  • Akani
  • Birar
  • Kile
  • Samagir
  • Orok
  • Ulch
  • Oroch
  • Udege

• Southwest Tungusic (or the Jurchen-Manchu group)
  • Manchu of Manchuria, the language of the Manchus, who founded the Qing Dynasty of China.
  • Sibe - spoken in Xinjiang province by descendants of a Manchurian tribe dispatched by the Qing Dynasty to Xinjiang as a military garrison.
  • Jurchen - an extinct language of the Jin Dynasty of China.

Jurchen-Manchu (Jurchen and Manchu are simply different stages of the same language; in fact, the ethnonym "Manchu" did not come about until 1636 when Emperor Hong Taiji decreed that the term would replace "Jurchen") is the only Tungusic language with a literary form which dates back to at least the mid- to late-1100s, as such it is a very important language for the reconstruction of Proto-Tungusic. The earliest extant text in Jurchen is the Da Jin deshengtuo songbei inscription (The Jin Victory Memorial Stele), which dates from the dading period (1161-1189). The Nanai language, is a language spoken by the Nanai people in Siberia. ... The Hezhen people (also called Hezhe, Nanai, Gold/Goldi, Samagir; own names in IPA: [xÉ™dÊ‘É™n], [nanio] and [kilÉ™n]; Chinese: 赫哲族, Hèzhézú) are an ethnic group. ... The Ulch language, or Olcha, is a language spoken by the Ulch people in Siberia. ... The Udege language (also Udihe language, Udekhe language) is a language of the Tungusic family. ... The Manchu language is a Tungusic language spoken in Northeast China; it used to be the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Mandarin Chinese and there are fewer than 70 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus. ... Manchuria (Manchu: Manju; Traditional Chinese: 滿洲; Simplified Chinese: 满洲; pinyin: MÇŽnzhōu, Russian: ) is a vast territorial region in northeast Asia. ... The Manchu (Manchu: Manju; Simplified Chinese: , Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: MÇŽnzú, Mongolian: Манж) are a Tungusic people who originated in Manchuria (todays Northeast China). ... The Qing Dynasty (Chinese: ; pinyin: QÄ«ng cháo; Wade-Giles: Ching chao; Manchu: daicing gurun), occasionally known as the Manchu Dynasty, was a dynasty founded by the Manchu clan Aisin Gioro, in what is today northeast China, expanded into China and the surrounding territories, establishing the Empire... The Xibe ( Sibe; Chinese, 錫伯 XÄ«bó) are an ethnic group living mostly in northeast China and Xinjiang. ... For the county in Shanxi province, see Xinjiang County. ... The Jurchens (Chinese: 女真, pinyin: nǚzhēn) were a Tungus people who inhabited parts of Manchuria and northern Korea until the seventeenth century, when they became the Manchus. ... The Jin Dynasty (金 pinyin: JÄ«n 1115-1234; Anchu in Jurchen), also known as the Jurchen dynasty, was founded by the Wanyan (完顏 Wányán) clan of the Jurchen, the ancestors of the Manchus who established the Qing Dynasty some 500 years later. ...

Common characteristics

The Tungusic languages are of an agglutinative morphological type, and some of them have complex case systems and elaborate patterns of tense and aspect marking. They also exhibit a complex pattern of vowel harmony, based on the parameters of vowel rounding and vowel tenseness, also known as ATR. An agglutinative language is a language in which the words are formed by joining morphemes together. ... In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns and adjectives to indicate such features as number (typically singular vs. ... Grammatical tense is a way languages express the time at which an event described by a sentence occurs. ... In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof) in the described event or state. ... Vowel harmony (also metaphony) is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels. ... Rounding is the process of reducing the number of significant digits in a number. ... Tenseness is a term used in phonology to describe a particular vowel quality that is phonemically contrastive in many languages, including English. ...

Relationships with other languages

Tungusic has traditionally been linked with Turkic and Mongolic languages in the Altaic language family. Others have suggested that the Tungusic languages might be related (perhaps as a paraphyletic outgroup) to the Korean, Japonic, or Ainu languages as well. The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe to Siberia and Western China with an estimated 140 million native speakers and tens of millions of second-language speakers. ... The Mongolic languages are a group of thirteen languages spoken in Central Asia. ... Altaic is a proposed language family which includes 66 languages [1] spoken by about 348 million people, mostly in and around Central Asia and northeast Asia. ... Paraphyletic - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... The Japonic languages or Japanese-Ryukyuan languages constitute a language family that is agreed to have descended from a common ancestral language known as Proto-Japonic or Proto-Japanese-Ryukyuan. ... The Ainu language (Ainu: , aynu itak; Japanese: ainu-go) is spoken by the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō. It was once spoken in the Kurile Islands, the northern part of Honshū, and the southern half of Sakhalin. ...

References

• Kane, Daniel. The Sino-Jurchen Vocabulary of the Bureau of Interpreters. Indiana University Uralic and Altaic Series, Volume 153. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1989.
• Miller, Roy Andrew. Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1971.
• Poppe, N.N. Vergleichende Grammatik der Altaischen Sprachen [A Comparative Grammar of the Altaic Languages]. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1960.
• Tsintsius, V. I. Sravnitel'naya Fonetika Tunguso-Man'chzhurskikh Yazïkov [Comparative Phonetics of the Manchu-Tungus Languages]. Leningrad, 1949.

External links

• - Monumenta Altaica - Altaic Linguistics. Grammars, Texts, Dictionaries, Bibliographies of Mongolian and other Altaic languages
• Tungusic Research Group at Dartmouth College