Tungusic languages
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.
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
SiberiaFollowing languages can be considered dialects or related languages of Evenki
*
Oroqen*
Negidal*
Solon*
ManegirSouthern Tungusic*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 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 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.
Tungusic has traditionally been linked with
Turkic and
Mongolian languages in the
Altaic language family.
*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.
*
- Monumenta Altaica - Altaic Linguistics. Grammars, Texts, Dictionaries, Bibliographies of Mongolian and other Altaic languages*
Tungusic Research Group at Dartmouth College
