Manchu-Tungus Languages

Manchu-Tungus languages, also called Tungusic languages, smallest of three families of the Altaic language group. The Manchu-Tungus languages are a group of 10 to 17 languages spoken by fewer than 70,000 people scattered across a vast region that stretches from northern China across Mongolia to the northern boundary of Russia. Apart from the moribund Manchu and the now-extinct Juchen (Jurchen) languages, these languages have not been written. Relatively little is understood about the historical development of individual members of Manchu-Tungus or the relationships among them. This state of ignorance is likely to endure because most of the languages are extinct or near extinction.

Historically, the Manchu-Tungus peoples lived in fishing communities along the Pacific coast of Asia or formed nomadic bands of hunters and reindeer herders. The latter occupations could support only a limited number of individuals, with the result that hunting bands were small. The linguistic consequence of this scattered and only loosely associated social organization was extensive dialect differentiation. Because the language versus dialect distinction is often unclear, the precise number of Manchu-Tungus languages currently spoken is uncertain.