Manchu language

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Manchu
ᠮᠠᠨᠵᡠ
ᡤᡳᠰᡠᠨ
Manju gisun written in Manchu script
Native toChina
RegionManchuria
EthnicityManchus
Native speakers
20 native speakers[1] (2007)[2]
Thousands of second language speakers[3][4][5][citation needed]
Revival1980s
Tungusic
Early form
Manchu alphabet
Official status
Official language in
 Qing dynasty
Language codes
ISO 639-2mnc
ISO 639-3mnc
Glottologmanc1252
ELPManchu
Manchu is classified as "Critically Endangered" by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
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Manchu (Manchu:ᠮᠠᠨᠵᡠ
ᡤᡳᠰᡠᠨ, Romanization: manju gisun) is a critically endangered East Asian Tungusic language native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China.[6] As the traditional native language of the Manchus, it was one of the official languages of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) of China, although today the vast majority of Manchus speak only Mandarin Chinese. Several thousand can speak Manchu as a second language through governmental primary education or free classes for adults in classrooms or online.[3][4][5]

The Manchu language has high historical value for historians of China, especially for the Qing dynasty. Manchu-language texts supply information that is unavailable in Chinese, and when both Manchu and Chinese versions of a given text exist, they provide controls for understanding the Chinese.[7]

Like most Siberian languages, Manchu is an agglutinative language that demonstrates limited vowel harmony. It has been demonstrated that it is derived mainly from the Jurchen language though there are many loan words from Mongolian and Chinese. Its script is vertically written and taken from the Mongolian script (which in turn derives from Aramaic via Uyghur and Sogdian). Although Manchu does not have the kind of grammatical gender found in most European languages, some gendered words in Manchu are distinguished by different stem vowels (vowel inflection), as in ama, 'father', and eme, 'mother'.

  1. ^ "Manchu Ethnologue". 17 December 2016. Archived from the original on 17 December 2016.
  2. ^ Ethnologue: Languages of the World (unknown ed.). SIL International.[This citation is dated, and should be substituted with a specific edition of Ethnologue]
  3. ^ a b 抢救满语振兴满族文化 (in Chinese). 26 April 2015. Archived from the original on 8 November 2017. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  4. ^ a b China News (originally Beijing Morning Post): Manchu Classes in Remin University (Simplified Chinese)
  5. ^ a b Phoenix Television: Jinbiao's 10-year Manchu Dreams
  6. ^ Moseley, Christopher, ed. (2010). Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. Memory of Peoples (3rd ed.). Paris: UNESCO Publishing. ISBN 978-92-3-104096-2. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
  7. ^ Fletcher (1973), p. 141.