Manchu-Tungus languages

Manchu-Tungus languages

 or Tungusic languages

Family of about 10 Altaic languages spoken by fewer than 55,000 people in Siberia, Mongolia, and northern China. All the languages have been losing ground for centuries as their speakers switch to the languages of surrounding populations—Russian and Yakut in Siberia, and Chinese, Turkic, and Mongolian languages in China. Evenki has about 10,000 speakers in Siberia and far northeastern China. Even has fewer than 6,000 speakers in northeastern Siberia and the Kamchatka Peninsula. Nanai has fewer than 7,000 speakers near the lower Amur River. Juchen, the tribal language of the founders of the Juchen dynasty, is now extinct, and Manchu is spoken by fewer than 100 people, though some 10 million inhabitants of northeastern China count themselves as ethnically Manchu. Effectively a dialect of Manchu is Xibe, spoken by 10,000 descendants of Manchu-speaking soldiers garrisoned at 18th-century military outposts.