Tungusic languages (or Manchu-Tungus languages) are spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria. Although it is a very debated subject, some 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. Siberia Siberia (Russian: , common English transliterations: Sibir’, Sibir; from the Tatar for “sleeping land”) is a vast region of Russia and northern Kazakhstan constituting almost all of northern Asia. ... Extent of Manchuria according to Definition 1 (dark red), Definition 3 (dark red + medium red) and Definition 4 (dark red + medium red + light red) Manchuria (Manchu: Manju, Simplified Chinese: 满洲; Traditional Chinese: 滿洲; Hanyu Pinyin: ) is a name given to a vast territorial region in northeast Asia. ... Altaic is a proposed language family which includes 60 languages spoken by about 250 million people, mostly in and around Central Asia and Far East. ... 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, Mongolia, and China and
• Even (Lamut) of eastern Siberia
• Oroqen
• Negidal
• Solon
• Manegir

Southern Tungusic 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. ... Siberia Siberia (Russian: , common English transliterations: Sibir’, Sibir; from the Tatar for “sleeping land”) is a vast region of Russia and northern Kazakhstan constituting almost all of northern Asia. ... The Evens (formerly known as the Lamuts) (Эвены in Russian) are a people in Siberia. ... Siberia Siberia (Russian: , common English transliterations: Sibir’, Sibir; from the Tatar for “sleeping land”) is a vast region of Russia and northern Kazakhstan constituting almost all of northern Asia. ...

• 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, descendants of the Manchus brought to Xinjiang as a military garrison.
  • Jurchen - an extinct language of Jin dynasty.

Jurchen-Manchu (Jurchen and Manchu are simply different stages of the 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 Manchu language is a member of the Tungusic languages; it used to be the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Mandarin Chinese and there are fewer than 100 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus. ... Extent of Manchuria according to Definition 1 (dark red), Definition 3 (dark red + medium red) and Definition 4 (dark red + medium red + light red) Manchuria (Manchu: Manju, Simplified Chinese: 满洲; Traditional Chinese: 滿洲; Hanyu Pinyin: ) is a name given to a vast territorial region in northeast Asia. ... The Qing Dynasty (Manchu: daicing gurun; Chinese: 清朝; pinyin: qīng cháo; Wade-Giles: ching chao), sometimes known as the Manchu Dynasty, was founded by the Manchu clan Aisin Gioro, in what is today northeast China expanded into China proper and the surrounding territories of Inner Asia, establishing the... The Xibe (Sibe; Chinese, 錫伯 Xíbó) are a Chinese ethnic group living mostly in northeast China and Xinjiang. ... Xinjiang (Uyghur: (Shinjang); Chinese: æ–°ç–†; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Hsin1-chiang1; Postal Pinyin: Sinkiang), full name Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Uyghur: شىنجاڭ ئۇيغۇر ئاپتونوم رايونى (Shinjang Uyghur Aptonom Rayoni); Simplified Chinese: 新疆维吾尔自治区; Traditional Chinese: 新疆維吾爾自治區; Hanyu Pinyin: ), is an autonomous region of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). ... 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. ... Jin may refer to: Jin Dynasty (265-420) Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) (Jinn) Jin, a state in China during the Spring and Autumn Period Later Jin Dynasty, founded in 1616 by Nurhaci Jin, a ruler of the Xia dynasty The Jin state of late Bronze Age Korea Jin, Chinese American...

Common characteristics

The Tungusic languages are agglutinative languages, and some of them have complex case systems and elaborate patterns of marking tense and aspect. 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 a feature of inflected languages. ... Grammatical tense is a way languages express the time at which an event described by a sentence occurs. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... Vowel harmony (also metaphony) is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels. ... // Rounding Rounding means reducing the significant digits in a number while trying to keep its value similar. ... 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 Mongolian languages in the Altaic language family. Korean and Japanese are also considered by some to belong to the Altaic family, but this theory is not universally accepted. Some linguists have proposed a closer relationship within Altaic between Tungusic, Korean and possibly Japanese, though this remains speculative. 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. ... Altaic is a proposed language family which includes 60 languages spoken by about 250 million people, mostly in and around Central Asia and Far East. ...

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