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Juha Janhunen

Tungusic: an endangered language family in Northeast Asia

Languages of the Tungusic family are historically spoken all over Northeast Asia, including Siberia, Manchuria, and Eastern Turkestan (Xinjiang). Most importantly, the Tungusic family includes Manchu, the offcial administrative language of China during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Due to the impact of Chinese and Russian, Tungusic languages have been rapidly losing ground, and there are today only two potentially viable groups speaking Tungusic: the Manchu-speaking Sibe (Xibo) in Xinjiang and the Ewenki-speaking Solon (Ewenke) in Northern Inner Mongolia (Western Manchuria). In both cases, the language could only be saved by drastic positive measures at the national and international levels.

International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Walter de Gruyter

Print ISSN: 0165-2516
Volume: 2005, 05/2005
Pages: 37 - 54

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