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85-666: 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 . 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

170-436: A Han. But all my life I have made a hobby of Manchu." Shen didn't have to learn Manchu as part of his job because he was never an official,so he seems to have studied it voluntarily. Most Han people were not interested in learning non-Han languages, so it is not known why Shen was doing it, but he did praise Manchu writing, saying that it was simpler and clearer than Chinese. A Hangzhou Han Chinese, Chen Mingyuan , helped edit

255-630: A Manchu–Chinese dictionary. In the late 1830s, Georgy M. Rozov translated from Manchu the History of the Jin (Jurchen) Dynasty . A school to train Manchu language translators was started in Irkutsk in the 18th century, and existed for a fairly long period. An anonymous author remarked in 1844 that the transcription of Chinese words in Manchu alphabet, available in the contemporary Chinese–Manchu dictionaries,

340-454: A commotion'). Manchu has twenty consonants, shown in the table using each phoneme's representation in the IPA , followed by its romanization in italics. /pʰ/ was rare and found mostly in loanwords and onomatopoeiae , such as pak pik ('pow pow'). Historically, /p/ appears to have been common, but changed over time to /f/ . /ŋ/ was also found mostly in loanwords and onomatopoeiae and there

425-485: A community with special collective rights . Language can also be considered as scientific knowledge in topics such as medicine, philosophy, botany, and more. It reflects a community's practices when dealing with the environment and each other. When a language is lost, this knowledge is often lost as well. In contrast, language revitalization is correlated with better health outcomes in indigenous communities. During language loss—sometimes referred to as obsolescence in

510-470: A dominant position in a country. Speakers of endangered languages may themselves come to associate their language with negative values such as poverty, illiteracy and social stigma, causing them to wish to adopt the dominant language that is associated with social and economical progress and modernity . Immigrants moving into an area may lead to the endangerment of the autochthonous language. Dialects and accents have seen similar levels of endangerment during

595-433: A fraction of the world's linguistic diversity, therefore their picture of what human language is—and can be—will be limited. Some linguists consider linguistic diversity to be analogous to biological diversity, and compare language endangerment to wildlife endangerment . Linguists, members of endangered language communities, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and international organizations such as UNESCO and

680-442: A language associated with social or economic power or one spoken more widely, leading to the gradual decline and eventual death of the endangered language. The process of language shift is often influenced by factors such as globalisation, economic authorities, and the perceived prestige of certain languages. The ultimate result is the loss of linguistic diversity and cultural heritage within affected communities. The general consensus

765-409: A language is unlikely to survive another generation and will soon be extinct. The fourth stage is moribund , followed by the fifth stage extinction . Many projects are under way aimed at preventing or slowing language loss by revitalizing endangered languages and promoting education and literacy in minority languages, often involving joint projects between language communities and linguists. Across

850-655: A larger sign language or dispersal of the deaf community) can lead to the endangerment and loss of their traditional sign language. Methods are being developed to assess the vitality of sign languages. While there is no definite threshold for identifying a language as endangered, UNESCO 's 2003 document entitled Language vitality and endangerment outlines nine factors for determining language vitality: Many languages, for example some in Indonesia , have tens of thousands of speakers but are endangered because children are no longer learning them, and speakers are shifting to using

935-401: A rule, back and front vowels cannot co-occur in a word: in other words, the lone front vowel never occurs in a word with any the regular back vowels ( a, o, ū ). (An exception is the diphthong eo , which does occur in some words, i.e. deo , "younger brother", geo , "a mare", jeo , "department", leole , "to discuss", leose , "building", and šeole , "to embroider", "to collect".) In contrast,

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1020-497: A second language through governmental primary education or free classes for adults in classrooms or online. 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. Like most Siberian languages, Manchu

1105-404: A vowel. In some words, there were vowels that were separated by consonant clusters, as in the words ilha ('flower') and abka ('heaven'); however, in most words, the vowels were separated from one another by only single consonants. This open syllable structure might not have been found in all varieties of spoken Manchu, but it was certainly found in the southern dialect that became the basis for

1190-441: Is potential endangerment . This is when a language faces strong external pressure, but there are still communities of speakers who pass the language to their children. The second stage is endangerment . Once a language has reached the endangerment stage, there are only a few speakers left and children are, for the most part, not learning the language. The third stage of language extinction is seriously endangered . During this stage,

1275-427: Is vowel harmony . It is described as based on the opposition between back and front vowels , but these phonological natural classes differ from the actual phonetic realization. The vowels a, o, ū function as back, as expected, but the only phonologically front vowel is e (even though it is phonetically central). Finally, the vowels i and u function as "neutral" vowels for the purposes of vowel harmony. As

1360-455: Is also sometimes referred to as language revival or reversing language shift . For case studies of this process, see Anderson (2014). Applied linguistics and education are helpful in revitalizing endangered languages. Vocabulary and courses are available online for a number of endangered languages. Language maintenance refers to the support given to languages that need for their survival to be protected from outsiders who can ultimately affect

1445-780: 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'. The Qing dynasty used various Mandarin Chinese expressions to refer to

1530-448: Is pronounced as /joː/ ), io(w)an , io(w)en , ioi ( /y/ ), and i(y)ao , and they exist in Chinese loanwords. The diphthong oo is pronounced as /oː/ , and the diphthong eo is pronounced as /ɤo/ . Stress in Manchu has been described in very different ways by different scholars. According to Paul Georg von Möllendorff (1892), it was always on the last syllable. In contrast, Ivan Zakharov (1879) gives numerous specific rules: on

1615-404: Is shown here as phonemic. Early Western descriptions of Manchu phonology labeled Manchu b as "soft p", Manchu d as "soft t", and Manchu g as "soft k", whereas Manchu p was "hard p", t was "hard t", and k was "hard k". This suggests that the phonological contrast between the so-called voiced series ( b, d, j, g ) and the voiceless series ( p, t, c, k ) in Manchu as it was spoken during

1700-404: Is taught there as a tool for reading Qing-dynasty archival documents. In 2009 The Wall Street Journal reported that the language is offered (as an elective) in one university, one public middle school, and a few private schools. There are also other Manchu volunteers in many places of China who freely teach Manchu in the desire to rescue the language. Thousands of non-Manchu speakers have learned

1785-400: Is that there are between 6,000 and 7,000 languages currently spoken. Some linguists estimate that between 50% and 90% of them will be severely endangered or dead by the year 2100. The 20 most common languages , each with more than 50 million speakers, are spoken by 50% of the world's population, but most languages are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people. The first step towards language death

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1870-547: Is very common in modern spoken Xibe but unknown in Manchu. Since the 1980s, there have been increased efforts to revive the Manchu language. Revival movements are linked to the reconstruction of ethnic Manchu identity in the Han-dominated country. The Manchus mainly lead the revival efforts, with support from the PRC state, NGOs and international efforts. Revivalism began in the post- Mao era when non-Han ethnic expression

1955-500: The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages , there are four main types of causes of language endangerment: Causes that put the populations that speak the languages in physical danger, such as: Causes that prevent or discourage speakers from using a language, such as: Often multiple of these causes act at the same time. Poverty, disease and disasters often affect minority groups disproportionately, for example causing

2040-587: The Ili valley in Xinjiang , having been moved there by the Qianlong Emperor in 1764. Modern written Xibe is very close to Manchu, although there are slight differences in the writing system which reflect distinctive Xibe pronunciation. More significant differences exist in morphological and syntactic structure of the spoken Xibe language. For one example among many, there is a " converb " ending, - mak , that

2125-728: The Northwest Pacific Plateau . Other hotspots are Oklahoma and the Southern Cone of South America. Almost all of the study of language endangerment has been with spoken languages. A UNESCO study of endangered languages does not mention sign languages. However, some sign languages are also endangered, such as Alipur Village Sign Language (AVSL) of India, Adamorobe Sign Language of Ghana, Ban Khor Sign Language of Thailand, and Plains Indian Sign Language . Many sign languages are used by small communities; small changes in their environment (such as contact with

2210-532: The Pentaglot . Among his directives were to eliminate directly borrowed loanwords from Chinese and replace them with calque translations which were put into new Manchu dictionaries. This showed in the titles of Manchu translations of Chinese works during his reign which were direct translations contrasted with Manchu books translated during the Kangxi Emperor 's reign which were Manchu transliterations of

2295-415: The Qianlong Emperor was shocked to see a Manchu official, Guo'ermin, not understand what the emperor was telling him in Manchu, despite coming from the Manchu stronghold of Shengjing (now Shenyang ). By the 19th century, even the imperial court had lost fluency in the language. The Jiaqing Emperor (reigned 1796–1820) complained that his officials were not proficient at understanding or writing Manchu. By

2380-611: The national language (e.g. Indonesian ) in place of local languages. In contrast, a language with only 500 speakers might be considered very much alive if it is the primary language of a community, and is the first (or only) spoken language of all children in that community. Asserting that "Language diversity is essential to the human heritage", UNESCO's Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages offers this definition of an endangered language: "... when its speakers cease to use it, use it in an increasingly reduced number of communicative domains, and cease to pass it on from one generation to

2465-527: The " plurality of ethnic cultures within one united culture". Another reason for revivalism lay in the archives of the Qing Empire–a way to translate and resolve historical conflicts between the Manchus and the state. Lastly, the people wanted to regain their language for the rituals and communication to their ancestors–many shamans do not understand the words they use. Manchu associations can be found across

2550-605: The (Qing) dynasty (had been) unable to coerce the country's ministers and people to learn the national writing and national speech (Manchu)". Chinese fiction books were translated into Manchu. Bannermen wrote fiction in the Chinese language. Huang Taiji had Chinese books translated into Manchu. Han Chinese and Manchus helped Jesuits write and translate books into Manchu and Chinese. Manchu books were published in Beijing . The Qianlong Emperor commissioned projects such as new Manchu dictionaries, both monolingual and multilingual like

2635-472: The 21st century due to similar reasons. Language endangerment affects both the languages themselves and the people that speak them. This also affects the essence of a culture. As communities lose their language, they often lose parts of their cultural traditions that are tied to that language. Examples include songs, myths, poetry, local remedies, ecological and geological knowledge, as well as language behaviors that are not easily translated. Furthermore,

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2720-550: The Chinese characters. The Pentaglot was based on the Yuzhi Siti Qing Wenjian ( 御製四體清文鑑 ; "Imperially-Published Four-Script Textual Mirror of Qing"), with Uyghur added as a fifth language. The four-language version of the dictionary with Tibetan was in turn based on an earlier three-language version with Manchu, Mongolian, and Chinese called the "Imperially-Published Manchu Mongol Chinese Three pronunciation explanation mirror of Qing" ( 御製滿珠蒙古漢字三合切音清文鑑 ), which

2805-678: The European Union are actively working to save and stabilize endangered languages. Once a language is determined to be endangered, there are three steps that can be taken in order to stabilize or rescue the language. The first is language documentation, the second is language revitalization and the third is language maintenance. Language documentation is the documentation in writing and audio-visual recording of grammar , vocabulary, and oral traditions (e.g. stories, songs, religious texts) of endangered languages. It entails producing descriptive grammars, collections of texts and dictionaries of

2890-416: The Manchu alphabet, but are not distinguished in the romanization. The vowel e (generally pronounced like Mandarin [ɤ] )) is pronounced as /e/ after y , as in niyengniyeri /ɲeŋɲeri/. Between n and y , i is absorbed into both consonants as /ɲ/. The relatively rare vowel transcribed ū (pronounced [ʊ] ) was usually found as a back vowel ; however, in some cases, it was found occurring along with

2975-846: The Manchu language by Russian sinologists started in the early 18th century, soon after the founding of the Russian Orthodox Mission in Beijing, to which most early Russian sinologists were connected. Illarion Kalinovich Rossokhin   [ Wikidata ] (died 1761) translated a number of Manchu works, such as The history of Kangxi's conquest of the Khalkha and Oirat nomads of the Great Tartary, in five parts ( История о завоевании китайским ханом Канхием калкаского и элетского народа, кочующего в Великой Татарии, состоящая в пяти частях ), as well as some legal treatises and

3060-650: The Manchu language, such as "Qingwen" ( 清文 ) and "Qingyu" ( 清語 ) ("Qing language"). The term "national" was also applied to writing in Manchu, as in Guowen ( 國文 ), in addition to Guoyu ( 國語 ) ("national language"), which was used by previous non-Han dynasties to refer to their languages and, in modern times, to the Standard Chinese language. In the Manchu-language version of the Treaty of Nerchinsk ,

3145-425: The ancestors of the Manchu and ruled over the later Jin dynasty (1115–1234) . Manchu began as a primary language of the Qing dynasty Imperial court, but as Manchu officials became increasingly sinicized , many started losing the language. Trying to preserve the Manchu identity, the imperial government instituted Manchu language classes and examinations for the bannermen , offering rewards to those who excelled in

3230-481: The book Introduction to the Qing language ( 清文啟蒙 ; Cing wen ki meng bithe ), which was co-written by a Manchu named Uge. Uge gave private Manchu language classes, which were attended by his friend Chen. Chen arranged for its printing. Han Chinese at the Hanlin Academy studied the Manchu language in the Qing. The Han Chinese Hanlin graduate Qi Yunshi knew the Manchu language and wrote a book in Chinese on

3315-406: The case of dzengse (orange) (Chinese: chéngzi ) and tsun (inch) (Chinese: cùn ). In addition to the vocabulary that was borrowed from Chinese, such as the word pingguri (apple) (Chinese: píngguǒ), the Manchu language also had a large number of loanwords from other languages such as Mongolian , for example the words morin (horse) and temen (camel). A crucial feature of the Manchu language

3400-480: The cities or to other countries, thus dispersing the speakers. Cultural dominance occurs when literature and higher education is only accessible in the majority language. Political dominance occurs when education and political activity is carried out exclusively in a majority language. Historically, in colonies, and elsewhere where speakers of different languages have come into contact, some languages have been considered superior to others: often one language has attained

3485-575: The contributions of linguists globally. Ethnologue's 2005 count of languages in its database, excluding duplicates in different countries, was 6,912, of which 32.8% (2,269) were in Asia, and 30.3% (2,092) in Africa. This contemporary tally must be regarded as a variable number within a range. Areas with a particularly large number of languages that are nearing extinction include: Eastern Siberia , Central Siberia , Northern Australia , Central America , and

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3570-549: The country, including Hong Kong , and Taiwan which is now under the administration of the Republic of China. Consisting of mostly Manchus and Mongols, they act as the link between the people, their ethnic leaders and the state. NGOs provide large support through "Manchu classes". Manchu is now taught in certain primary schools as well as in universities. Heilongjiang University Manchu language research center in no.74, Xuefu Road, Harbin , listed Manchu as an academic major . It

3655-461: The cycles of language death and emergence of new languages through creolization as a continuous ongoing process. A majority of linguists do consider that language loss is an ethical problem, as they consider that most communities would prefer to maintain their languages if given a real choice. They also consider it a scientific problem, because language loss on the scale currently taking place will mean that future linguists will only have access to

3740-408: The dispersal of speaker populations and decreased survival rates for those who stay behind. Among the causes of language endangerment cultural, political and economic marginalization accounts for most of the world's language endangerment. Scholars distinguish between several types of marginalization: Economic dominance negatively affects minority languages when poverty leads people to migrate towards

3825-517: The earliest is GIDS (Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale) proposed by Joshua Fishman in 1991. In 2011 an entire issue of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development was devoted to the study of ethnolinguistic vitality, Vol. 32.2, 2011, with several authors presenting their own tools for measuring language vitality. A number of other published works on measuring language vitality have been published, prepared by authors with varying situations and applications in mind. According to

3910-571: The early modern era was actually one of aspiration (as shown here) or tenseness , as in Mandarin . /s/ was affricated to [ts] in some or all contexts. /tʃʰ/ , /tʃ/ , and /ʃ/ together with /s/ were palatalized before /i/ or /y/ to [tɕʰ] , [tɕ] , and [ɕ] , respectively. /kʰ/ and /k/ were backed before /a/, /ɔ/, or /ʊ/ to [qʰ] and [q] , respectively. Some scholars analyse these uvular realizations as belonging to phonemes separate from /kʰ/ and /k/ , and they were distinguished in

3995-705: The end of the 19th century the language had declined to such an extent that even at the office of the Shengjing general the only documents written in Manchu (rather than Chinese) would be the memorials wishing the emperor long life; during the same period, the archives of the Hulan banner detachment in Heilongjiang show that only 1% of the bannermen could read Manchu and no more than 0.2% could speak it. Nonetheless, as late as 1906–1907, Qing education and military officials insisted that schools teach Manchu language and that

4080-596: The front vowel e . Much disputation exists over the exact pronunciation of ū . Erich Hauer , a German sinologist and Manchurist, proposes that it was pronounced as a front rounded vowel initially, but a back unrounded vowel medially. William Austin suggests that it was a mid-central rounded vowel. The modern Xibe pronounce it identically to u . There are altogether eighteen diphthongs and six triphthongs. The diphthongs are ai , ao , ei , eo , ia , ie , ii , io , iu , oi , oo , ua , ue , ui , uo , ūa , ūe , ūi , and ūo . The triphthongs are ioa , ioo (which

4165-431: The frontier regions and Manchu in order to be able to write and compile their writings on the region. A Manchu-language course over three years was required for the highest ranking Han degree holders from Hanlin but not all Han literati were required to study Manchu. Towards the end of the Qing it was pointed out that a lot of Bannermen themselves did not know Manchu anymore and that, in retrospect, "the founding emperors of

4250-602: The frontier regions of China by translating and using the Manchu-language sources in the Grand Secretariat 's archives. In 1740, Hanlin Academy expelled the Han Chinese Yuan Mei for not succeeding in his Manchu studies. Injišan, and Ortai, both Manchus, funded his work. The Han Chinese Yan Changming had the ability to read Tibetan , Oirat , and Mongolian. Han Chinese officials learned languages on

4335-425: The increased efforts to revive the Manchu language, there are many obstacles standing in the way. Even with increased awareness, many Manchus choose to give up their language, some opting to learn Mongolian instead. Manchu language is still thought of as a foreign language in a Han-dominated Chinese speaking country. Obstacles are also found when gaining recognition from the state. Resistance through censorship prevented

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4420-429: The language through these measures. Despite the efforts of NGOs, they tend to lack support from high-level government and politics. The state also runs programs to revive minority cultures and languages. Deng Xiaoping promoted bilingual education. However, many programs are not suited to the ethnic culture or to passing knowledge to the younger generations. If the programs were created via "top-down political processes"

4505-420: The language was for voice commands in the Qing army, attested as late as 1878. Bilingual Chinese-Manchu inscriptions appeared on many things. A Jiangsu Han Chinese named Shen Qiliang wrote books on Manchu grammar, including Guide to Qing Books ( 清書指南 ; Manju bithe jy nan ) and Great Qing Encyclopedia ( 大清全書 ; Daicing gurun-i yooni bithe ). His father was a naval officer for the Qing and his grandfather

4590-492: The language. Chinese classics and fiction were translated into Manchu and a body of Manchu literature accumulated. As the Yongzheng Emperor (reigned 1722–1735) explained, "If some special encouragement … is not offered, the ancestral language will not be passed on and learned." Still, the use of the language among the bannermen declined throughout the 18th century. Historical records report that as early as 1776,

4675-416: The languages, and it requires the establishment of a secure archive where the material can be stored once it is produced so that it can be accessed by future generations of speakers or scientists. Language revitalization is the process by which a language community through political, community, and educational means attempts to increase the number of active speakers of the endangered language. This process

4760-491: The last years of the dynasty. In 1912 the Qing was overthrown, most Manchus could not speak their language, and the Beijing dialect replaced Manchu. A large number of Manchu documents remain in the archives, important for the study of Qing-era China. Today, written Manchu can still be seen on architecture inside the Forbidden City , whose historical signs are written in both Chinese and Manchu. Another limited use of

4845-399: The linguistic literature—the language that is being lost generally undergoes changes as speakers make their language more similar to the language that they are shifting to. For example, gradually losing grammatical or phonological complexities that are not found in the dominant language. Generally the accelerated pace of language endangerment is considered to be a problem by linguists and by

4930-825: The local government. Among the various classes of the Manchurian language and calligraphy some turned out to be a success. Beijing has the biggest and most wealthy Beijing Daxing Regency Manchu Association ( 北京大兴御苑满族联谊会 ). (pp100-101) Other support can be found internationally and on the Internet . Post- Cultural Revolution reform allowed for international studies to be done in China. The dying language and ethnic culture of Manchus gained attention, providing local support. Websites facilitate communication of language classes or articles. Younger generations also spread and promote their unique identity through popular Internet media. Despite

5015-433: The locals tend to look at them with distrust. But if they were formed via specialized governmental organizations, they fare better. According to Katarzyna Golik : In Mukden , the historical Manchurian capital, there is a Shenyang Manchu Association ( 沈阳市满族联谊会 ) which is active in promoting Manchurian culture. The Association publishes books about Manchurian folklore and history and its activities are run independently from

5100-451: The meaning of the Chinese text". Currently, several thousand people can speak Manchu as a second language through primary education or free classes for adults offered in China. However very few native Manchu speakers remain. In what used to be Manchuria virtually no one speaks the language, the entire area having been completely sinicized . As of 2007, the last native speakers of the language were thought to be 18 octogenarian residents of

5185-453: The meanings of the names. He goes on that the Manchu translations of Chinese classics and fiction were done by experts familiar with their original meaning and with how best to express it in Manchu, such as in the Manchu translation of the Peiwen yunfu . Because Manchu is not difficult to learn, it "enables the student of Sinology to use the Manchu versions of the classics […] in order to verify

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5270-416: The neutral vowels i and u are free to occur in a word with any other vowel or vowels. The form of suffixes often varies depending on the rules of vowel harmony. Certain suffixes have only one form and are not affected by vowel harmony (e.g. de ); these include the suffixes of the accusative, dative-locative and alternate ablative cases ( be , de , deri ), the suffix for the imperfect converb (- me ) and

5355-455: The next. That is, there are no new speakers, adults or children." UNESCO operates with four levels of language endangerment between "safe" (not endangered) and "extinct" (no living speakers), based on intergenerational transfer: "vulnerable" (not spoken by children outside the home), "definitely endangered" (children not speaking), "severely endangered" (only spoken by the oldest generations), and "critically endangered" (spoken by few members of

5440-464: The nominalizers ( -ngge , -ningge and ba ). Others have two forms ( giyan/giyen , hiyan/hiyen , kiyan/kiyen ), one of which is added to front-vowel stems and the other to back-vowel stems. Finally, there are also suffixes with three forms, either a/e/o (e.g. han/hen/hon ) or o/ū/u (e.g. hon/hūn/hun ). These are used in accordance with the following scheme: Endangered language Language shift most commonly occurs when speakers switch to

5525-545: The number of speakers of a language. UNESCO seeks to prevent language extinction by promoting and supporting the language in education, culture, communication and information, and science. Another option is "post-vernacular maintenance": the teaching of some words and concepts of the lost language, rather than revival proper. As of June 2012 the United States has a J-1 specialist visa , which allows indigenous language experts who do not have academic training to enter

5610-416: The officials testing soldiers' marksmanship continue to conduct an oral examination in Manchu. The use of the language for the official documents declined throughout Qing history as well. In particular, at the beginning of the dynasty, some documents on sensitive political and military issues were submitted in Manchu but not in Chinese. Later on, some Imperial records in Manchu continued to be produced until

5695-731: The oldest generation, often semi-speakers ). UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger categorises 2,473 languages by level of endangerment. Using an alternative scheme of classification, linguist Michael E. Krauss defines languages as "safe" if it is considered that children will probably be speaking them in 100 years; "endangered" if children will probably not be speaking them in 100 years (approximately 60–80% of languages fall into this category) and "moribund" if children are not speaking them now. Many scholars have devised techniques for determining whether languages are endangered. One of

5780-420: The one hand, he seems to say that every prosodic word lent slight prominence to the vowel of its first syllable by lengthening it, but on the other hand suffixes such as the case markers and the interrogative particles received stress, as did the perfect participle suffix and the optative suffix when these forms have future meaning. In the closely related Xibe, Jerry Norman (1974) found yet another system – stress

5865-453: The original Chinese. De Moyriac de Mailla (1669–1748) benefited from the existence of the parallel Manchu text when translating the historical compendium Tongjian Gangmu ( Tung-chien Kang-mu ; 资治通鉴纲目 ). Jean Joseph Amiot , a Jesuit scholar, consulted Manchu translations of Chinese works as well, and wrote that the Manchu language "would open an easy entrance to penetrate … into the labyrinth of Chinese literature of all ages." Study of

5950-412: The performing of Banjin festivals , a festival in recognition of a new reconstructed Manchu identity, in Beijing. Written Manchu was close to being called an " open syllable " language because the only consonant that came regularly at the end of native words was /n/ , similar to Beijing Mandarin , Northeastern Mandarin , Jilu Mandarin and Japanese . This resulted in almost all native words ending in

6035-661: The social structure of one's community is often reflected through speech and language behavior. This pattern is even more prominent in dialects. This may in turn affect the sense of identity of the individual and the community as a whole, producing a weakened social cohesion as their values and traditions are replaced with new ones. This is sometimes characterized as anomie . Losing a language may also have political consequences as some countries confer different political statuses or privileges on minority ethnic groups, often defining ethnicity in terms of language. In turn, communities that lose their language may also lose political legitimacy as

6120-502: The speakers. However, some linguists, such as the phonetician Peter Ladefoged , have argued that language death is a natural part of the process of human cultural development, and that languages die because communities stop speaking them for their own reasons. Ladefoged argued that linguists should simply document and describe languages scientifically, but not seek to interfere with the processes of language loss. A similar view has been argued at length by linguist Salikoko Mufwene , who sees

6205-454: The term "Chinese language" ( Dulimbai gurun i bithe ) referred to all three Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol languages, not just one language. Manchu is southern Tungusic . Whilst Northern Tungus languages such as Evenki retain traditional structure, the Chinese language is a source of major influence upon Manchu, altering its form and vocabulary. In 1635 Hong Taiji renamed the Jurchen people and Jurchen language as 'Manchu'. The Jurchen are

6290-741: The village of Sanjiazi ( Manchu : ᡳᠯᠠᠨ ᠪᠣᡠ᠋ ,  Möllendorff : ilan boo ,  Abkai : ilan bou ), in Fuyu County , in Qiqihar , Heilongjiang Province. A few speakers also remain in Dawujia village in Aihui District of Heihe Prefecture. The Xibe (or Sibe) are often considered to be the modern custodians of the written Manchu language. The Xibe live in Qapqal Xibe Autonomous County near

6375-477: The vowels of Chinese loanwords. These sounds are believed to have been pronounced as such, as they never occurred in native words. Among these, was the symbol for the high unrounded vowel (customarily romanized with a y , /ɨ/) found in words such as sy (Buddhist temple) and Sycuwan (Sichuan); and the triphthong ioi which is used for the Chinese ü sound. Chinese affricates were also represented with consonant symbols that were only used with loanwords such as in

6460-457: The world is not known, and it is not well defined what constitutes a separate language as opposed to a dialect. Estimates vary depending on the extent and means of the research undertaken, and the definition of a distinct language and the current state of knowledge of remote and isolated language communities. The number of known languages varies over time as some of them become extinct and others are newly discovered. An accurate number of languages in

6545-418: The world was not yet known until the use of universal, systematic surveys in the later half of the twentieth century. The majority of linguists in the early twentieth century refrained from making estimates. Before then, estimates were frequently the product of guesswork and very low. One of the most active research agencies is SIL International , which maintains a database, Ethnologue , kept up to date by

6630-413: The world, many countries have enacted specific legislation aimed at protecting and stabilizing the language of indigenous speech communities . Recognizing that most of the world's endangered languages are unlikely to be revitalized, many linguists are also working on documenting the thousands of languages of the world about which little or nothing is known. The total number of contemporary languages in

6715-444: The written language. It is also apparent that the open-syllable tendency of the Manchu language had been growing ever stronger for the several hundred years since written records of Manchu were first produced: consonant clusters that had appeared in older forms, such as abka and abtara-mbi ('to yell'), were gradually simplified, and the words began to be written as aga or aha (in this form meaning 'rain') and atara-mbi ('to cause

6800-478: Was allowed. By the 1980s, Manchus had become the second largest minority group in China . People began to reveal their ethnic identities that had been hidden due to 20th century unrests and the fall of the Qing Empire . Language revival was one method the growing numbers of Manchus used in order to reconstruct their lost ethnic identity. Language represented them and set them apart from other minority groups in

6885-624: Was an official of the Ming dynasty before rebels murdered him. Shen Qiliang himself fought against the Three Feudatories as part of the Qing army. He then started learning Manchu and writing books on Manchu grammar from Bordered Yellow Manchu Bannermen in 1677 after moving to Beijing. He translated the Hundred Family Names and Thousand Character Classic into Manchu and spent 25 years on the Manchu language. Shen wrote: "I am

6970-565: Was in turn based on the "Imperially-Published Revised and Enlarged mirror of Qing" ( 御製增訂清文鑑 ) in Manchu and Chinese, which used both Manchu script to transcribe Chinese words and Chinese characters to transcribe Manchu words with fanqie . A number of European scholars in the 18th century were frustrated by the difficulties in reading Chinese, with its "complicated" writing system and classical writing style. They considered Manchu translations, or parallel Manchu versions, of many Chinese documents and literary works very helpful for understanding

7055-522: Was more useful for learning the pronunciation of Chinese words than the inconsistent romanizations used at the time by the writers transcribing Chinese words in English or French books. In 1930, the German sinologist Erich Hauer argued forcibly that knowing Manchu allows the scholar to render Manchu personal and place names that have been "horribly mutilated" by their Chinese transliterations and to know

7140-519: Was no single letter in the Manchu alphabet to represent it, but rather a digraph of the letters for /n/ and /k/ . [ɲ] is usually transcribed with a digraph ni , and has thus often been considered a sequence of phonemes /nj/ rather than a phoneme of its own, though work in Tungusic historical linguistics suggests that the Manchu palatal nasal has a very long history as a single segment , and so it

7225-448: Was usually penultimate (rarely antepenultimate) in the stem and was not affected by the addition of suffixes, except for monosyllabic suffixes beginning in a voiceless sound, which were treated as part of the stem for the purposes of stress placement. Disyllabic suffixes sometimes had secondary stress of their own. Manchu absorbed a large number of non-native sounds into the language from Chinese. There were special symbols used to represent

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