Nanai language
Encyclopedia
The Nanai language is spoken by the Nanai people in Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

, and to a much smaller extent in China's Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang
For the river known in Mandarin as Heilong Jiang, see Amur River' is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. "Heilongjiang" literally means Black Dragon River, which is the Chinese name for the Amur. The one-character abbreviation is 黑...

 province, where it is known as Hezhe. The language has about 3,902 speakers out of 12,160 members of the ethnicity, but most of them (especially younger generations) are also fluent in Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

 or Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

 (depending on the country where they live), and mostly use one of those languages for communication.

Nomenclature

In China, the language is referred to as (Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

: ). The Nanai people there variously refer to themselves as /na nio/, /na bəi/, /na nai/ (which all mean "local people"), /ki lən/, and /χə ɖʐən/, the last being the source of the Chinese ethnonym Hezhe.

Distribution

The language is distributed across several distantly-located areas:
  • Middle/lower Amur dialects (Naykhin, Dzhuen, Bolon, Ekon, etc.): the areas along the Amur River below Khabarovsk (Nanai, Amursk, Solnechny, and Komsomolsk districts of Khabarovsk Krai
    Khabarovsk Krai
    Khabarovsk Krai is a federal subject of Russia , located in the Russian Far East. It lies mostly in the basin of the lower Amur River, but also occupies a vast mountainous area along the coastline of the Sea of Okhotsk, an arm of the Pacific Ocean. The administrative center of the krai is the...

    );
  • Kur-Urmi dialect: the area around the city of Khabarovsk
    Khabarovsk
    Khabarovsk is the largest city and the administrative center of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. It is located some from the Chinese border. It is the second largest city in the Russian Far East, after Vladivostok. The city became the administrative center of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia...

     (the Kur
    Kur River (Khabarovsk Krai)
    The Kur River is a river in the Khabarovsk Krai, 434 km long. It merges with the Urmi River, forming the Tunguska River, which is a left tributary of the Amur.The Kur and Urmi often flood in the summer.- Sources :*...

     and Urmi
    Urmi River
    The Urmi River is a river in Khabarovsk Krai of Russia. It is 458 km long, and drains the area of 15,000 km². There are some 1,040 lakes in the Urmi basin; their total surface area is more than 32 km²....

     rivers, and the Khabarovsk District of Khabarovsk Krai
    Khabarovsk Krai
    Khabarovsk Krai is a federal subject of Russia , located in the Russian Far East. It lies mostly in the basin of the lower Amur River, but also occupies a vast mountainous area along the coastline of the Sea of Okhotsk, an arm of the Pacific Ocean. The administrative center of the krai is the...

    );
  • Bikin dialect: Pozharsky District of Primorsky Krai
    Primorsky Krai
    Primorsky Krai , informally known as Primorye , is a federal subject of Russia . Primorsky means "maritime" in Russian, hence the region is sometimes referred to as Maritime Province or Maritime Territory. Its administrative center is in the city of Vladivostok...

     (near the middle Ussuri River
    Ussuri River
    The Usuri ula is a river in the south of the Outer Manchuria and east of Inner Manchuria . It rises in the Sikhote-Alin range, flowing north, forming part of the Sino-Russian border based on the Sino-Russian Convention of Peking in 1860, until it joins the Amur River at Khabarovsk . It is...

    )
  • Sungari dialect: boundary areas of the Ussuri River in China


It is thought that in Russia, the Nanai language has been best preserved in the Nanai District of Khabarovsk Krai, because of the active Nanai-speaking community there, which has been active in working on the publication of books in Nanai, as well as textbooks on the language, and also because of the ethnic autonomous status of the Nanai District. According to Stolyarov's data, the world-wide Nanai population is 11,883, of whom 8,940 live in rural localities of Khabarovsk Krai. However, only 100-150 native speakers of the language remain there. The 2002 Census
Russian Census (2002)
Russian Census of 2002 was the first census of the Russian Federation carried out on October 9 through October 16, 2002. It was carried out by the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics .-Resident population:...

 recorded 12,194 people who claimed to speak the language, 90% in Khabarovsk Krai, 3.5% in Primorsky Krai
Primorsky Krai
Primorsky Krai , informally known as Primorye , is a federal subject of Russia . Primorsky means "maritime" in Russian, hence the region is sometimes referred to as Maritime Province or Maritime Territory. Its administrative center is in the city of Vladivostok...

, 1.3% in Sakhalin Oblast
Sakhalin Oblast
Sakhalin Oblast is a federal subject of Russia comprising the island of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.The oblast has an area of 87,100 km² and a population of 546,695...

, and no more than 0.5% in any other area; of those, only 49, almost all in Khabarovsk Krai, were not also bilingual in Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

. Three ethnic Nanai villages remain, those being Dzhuen, Ulika, and Dada; in the remaining populated areas, the proportion of Nanais among local residents is much smaller.

Even in Russia, the situation for language preservation is not favorable: the carriers of language are scattered in different villages and often isolated from each other. The Nanai language continues to be used in the sphere of everyday contact among people older than 40. In their contact with people their age or younger, they prefer the Russian language, using Nanaian only for contact with elderly people aged 70 or older. On the whole, the Nanai language has been superseded by Russian in almost all spheres of communication; drastic measures are required for language preservation.

Scholars in China have traditionally presented less fine-grained dialect classifications; An identified only two, Hezhen and Qile'en, the former referring to all varieties of the language spoken in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. He conducted his studies in Jiejinkou, Bacha, And Sipai villages in Heilongjiang; at the time of his survey in 1982, the youngest fluent speaker was 55, and the oldest 72.

Historical dialect classifications

There are several classifications of Nanai dialects. Early classifications tended to be areal and paid less attention to criteria for the differentiation of dialects. Lipskoy-Val'rond's classification, which distinguishes seven dialects, is one example of this; he distinguished the Sungari
Songhua River
The Songhua or Sunggari River is a river in Northeast China, and is the largest tributary of the Heilong River , flowing about from Changbai Mountains through Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces. The river drains of land, and has an annual discharge of .As the Second Songhua River, it joins the...

, Upper Amur, Ussuri, Urmi
Urmi River
The Urmi River is a river in Khabarovsk Krai of Russia. It is 458 km long, and drains the area of 15,000 km². There are some 1,040 lakes in the Urmi basin; their total surface area is more than 32 km²....

, Kur
Kur River (Khabarovsk Krai)
The Kur River is a river in the Khabarovsk Krai, 434 km long. It merges with the Urmi River, forming the Tunguska River, which is a left tributary of the Amur.The Kur and Urmi often flood in the summer.- Sources :*...

, Central Amur, and Lower Amur dialects. In the 1920s, the period of initial studies of the Nanai language, the area of settlement of the Nanai people was more extensive than at present; many dialects, which had not yet been classified by researchers, later disappeared, and remain unnamed.

The next period of studies did not begin until after a 20-year interruption, at the end of the 1940s; by then, the number of dialects had grown, and subsequent classifications distinguished as many as ten. Also, the distribution of the Nanai language had sharply narrowed; many Lower Amur and Ussuri dialects remained unstudied. According to Sunik's classification, which emphasizes morphological and phonetic features, "Nanaian language forms two groups, which are decomposed into a number of dialects".
  1. Upper Amur: Sakachi-Alyan, Naykhin, Bolon, Dzhuen, Garin
  2. Central Amur: Kur-Urmi, Bikin, Right-bank Amur, Sungari, Ussuri


Avrorin divided the language into three varieties: Sungari (aka Upper Amur), (Lower) Amur, and Kur-Urmi, further subdividing them into a number of dialects. The basic difference with Sunik's classification concerns the Amur and Upper Amur groups: Avrovin considered Bolon and Dzhuen under Naykhin, while separating Kur-Urmi as its own group, while Sunik viewed Kur-Urmi as a dialect. Sem, in contrast, classified Nanai into Upper, Central, and Lower Amur groups, each divided into a number of dialects; he counted a total of ten dialects.
  1. Upper Amur: Right-bank Amur, Sungari, Bikin (Ussuri), Kur-Urmi
  2. Central Amur: Sakachi-Alyan, Naykhin, Dzhuen
  3. Lower Amur: Bolon, Ekon, Gorin

It should be noted that among the contemporary carriers of Nanaian language (middle and lower Amur dialects), dialect levelling
Dialect levelling
Dialect levelling is the means by which dialect differences decrease. For example, in rural areas of Britain, although English is widely spoken, the pronunciation and grammar have historically varied. During the 20th century people have been moving into towns and cities, standardizing the English...

 and mixing has occurred due to extensive population migrations and the system of teaching of Nanai language (based on the Naykhin dialect); therefore it is difficult to differentiate the dialects in contemporary language data.

Pedagogy

The Nanai language is taught in secondary schools in Russia, mainly in Nanai villages in Khabarovsk Krai
Khabarovsk Krai
Khabarovsk Krai is a federal subject of Russia , located in the Russian Far East. It lies mostly in the basin of the lower Amur River, but also occupies a vast mountainous area along the coastline of the Sea of Okhotsk, an arm of the Pacific Ocean. The administrative center of the krai is the...

.
The duration of instruction and weekly contact hours vary; a standard curriculum used in 7 villages. Furthermore, in the villages of Belgo, Nizhnie Khalby (Lower Khalby), and Verkhnyaya Ekon (Upper Ekon), there is an experimental teaching programe in Nanaian language with a greater number of contact hours. Normally there are one to two contact hours per week; in different schools, the duration of instruction varies from 4 to 10 years, beginning from the first year. In the schools with the experimental program, the language is taught from years 1 through 9 with a larger number of contact hours.

Textbooks on the Nanai language, fairy tales, and artistic literature are used in Nanai language teaching. Sometimes teachers took the initiative to use oral folklore as well. However, there is a shortage of teaching and auxiliary materials, as well as difficulty in motivating students. Nanai language textbooks follow the model of Russian language textbooks aimed at native speakers, rather than emphasising instruction in the language itself, and in the theoretical/practical grammar. This model is not adequate for the situation of heritage language preservation. Moreover the existing language teaching materials are oriented predominantly (or only) towards the development of reading habits; however, the number of publications in the Nanaian language does not exceed one-two ten, mostly collections of folklore or artistic works of the historical-biographical genre, publishing in limited print runs. Instruction in spoken language is not conducted sufficiently and is not reinforced by teaching aids.

In China, the Nanai (Hezhe) people use Chinese for writing. The number of speakers has been in continual decline for decades; by the 1980s, the use of the language was restricted to special situations and communication with family members. In an effort to reverse this decline, a text book for Hezhe schoolchildren discussing the Hezhe language was published in 2005 (in pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

 transcription).

Orthography

The first books in the Nanai language were printed by Russian Orthodox missionaries in the late 19th century in a Cyrillic
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...

 orthography. In the 1920s-30s, after several false starts, the modern written form of the Nanai language was created by a team of Russian linguists led by Valentin Avrorin
Valentin Avrorin
Valentin Avrorin was a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and an expert in languages. He was born in Tambov, Russia to a family of teachers. He was outstanding in the sphere of Tungusic languages languages, and was one of the active creators of the Nanai written language....

.
А а Б б В в Г г Д д Е е Ё ё Ж ж
З з И и Й й К к Л л М м Н н О о
П п Р р С с Т т У у Ф ф Х х Ц ц
Ч ч Ш ш Щ щ Ъ ъ Ы ы Ь ь Э э Ю ю
Я я


Sample text from a Bible translation published in 2002 is shown below.
Lord's Prayer
Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer is a central prayer in Christianity. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, it appears in two forms: in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the discourse on ostentation in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Gospel of Luke, which records Jesus being approached by "one of his...

 (Luke
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...

 11:2-4)
Nanai (Cyrillic) Transliteration English (NIV
New International Version
The New International Version is an English translation of the Christian Bible. Published by Zondervan in the United States and by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK, it has become one of the most popular modern translations in history.-History:...

)
² ² Nǒani dahamdičii uŋkini: "Kesive geleĭdueri tuĭ undusu: 'Boadu, uĭle bi, Endur Ama! Gebukudi gerbusi bigini. Si boa ǎlovani dalačaĭsi erin isigini! Nadu-da, boadu-da Si čihalaĭsi bigini! ² He said to them, "When you pray, say: 'Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
³ ³ Ini taondoani siagopova epembe bundu buru. ³ Give us each day our daily bread.
⁴ Bue orkimpova gudiesiguru, bue-de orkiŋku, naŋdaku gurumbe gudiesiepu, bue murumpuve-de edi pamavanda, haĭ-da dǎlimbani, orkimbani edi dǎl dǎpavanda.'" ⁴ Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation"

Vowels and vowel harmony

The Nanai language has seven phonemic vowels: /i, u, y, o, œ, a, ə/. There are twelve allowed diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...

s: /ai, ao, əi, əo, ia, iə, io, iu, ua, ui, uo, oi, ya, yə/; there are also two allowed triphthong
Triphthong
In phonetics, a triphthong is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement of the articulator from one vowel quality to another that passes over a third...

s: /iao, uai/. Phonemic vowels change as follows based on surrounding consonants: becomes [] after [dz, ts, s] becomes [ɪ] after /ɖʐ, ʈʂ, s/ becomes [i̟] after /m, n, l, d/
  • A glottal stop [ʔ] is inserted before /i/ when it begins a syllable and precedes /dz, s, tɕ, ɕ, l, m, ŋ/. may optionally become [ɯ] in non-initial syllables
  • A vowel in a final syllable is nasalised
    Nasalization
    In phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth...

     when it precedes /n/


The following table summarises the rules of vowel harmony.
Vowel harmony in Nanai
Class Group Members Notes
Yang vowels Group 1 [a]
Group 2 [o, œ] Do not appear after [i, u, y]; also [o] does not appear after [œ]
Yin vowels Group 3 [ə] After [a, o], becomes neutral and can harmonise with any vowel
Neutral vowels Group 4 [i]
Group 5 [u, y] [y] will not appear again after [y]

Consonants

As for consonants, there are twenty-eight:
  Labial
Labial consonant
Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...

Dental /
alveolar
Alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...

 
Retroflex
Retroflex consonant
A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...

(Alveolo
Alveolo-palatal consonant
In phonetics, alveolo-palatal consonants are palatalized postalveolar sounds, usually fricatives and affricates, articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate...

-)
Palatal
Palatal consonant
Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...

Velar
Velar consonant
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....

Uvular
Uvular consonant
Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and...

Plosives p b t d         k ɡ q ɢ
Affricates     ts dz ʈʂ ɖʐ        
Fricatives
Fricative consonant
Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...

f   s   ʂ ʐ ɕ   x   χ  
Nasals
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...

  m   n           ŋ    
Approximants
Approximant consonant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...

      l       j   w    
Rhotic
Rhotic consonant
In phonetics, rhotic consonants, also called tremulants or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including "R, r" from the Roman alphabet and "Р, p" from the Cyrillic alphabet...

      r                


Phonemic consonants may optionally change as follows: become [z ʑ ʁ] (respectively) between two vowels to [ɣ] in syllable-final position, before [d] in the following syllable

Dialects

Phonology of the various dialects of Nanai has been influenced by surrounding languages. Tolskaya specifically noted several phonological peculiarities of Bikin dialect which may indicate influence from Udege
Udege language
The Udege language is the language of the Udege people. It is a member of the Tungusic family.-Vocabulary:...

, including monopthongisation of diphthongs, denasalisation of nasal vowels, deletion of reduced final vowels, epenthetic vowel preventing consonant final words, and the deletion of intervocalic [w].

Lexicon

An noted a variety of loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...

s from Chinese in his survey, such as [ʐili] "calendar" from Chinese 日曆 (Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

: rìlì); a few also came from other languages, such as [pomidor] (tomato), almost certainly from Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

 помидор, though the exact route of transmission is not attested and it may have been reborrowed from other neighbouring languages rather than directly from Russian. There is also some vocabulary shared with Mongolian
Mongolian language
The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...

 and the Turkic languages
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...

, such as: ("beard"; Mongolian
Mongolian language
The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...

 [sahɘl], Uyghur
Uyghur language
Uyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...

 and Kazakh
Kazakh language
Kazakh is a Turkic language which belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, closely related to Nogai and Karakalpak....

 [saqal]) ("chicken"; Mongolian
Mongolian language
The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...

 [tahia], Uyghur
Uyghur language
Uyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...

 [toχo], Kazakh
Kazakh language
Kazakh is a Turkic language which belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, closely related to Nogai and Karakalpak....

 [tawuq]) ("sheep"; Mongolian
Mongolian language
The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...

 [χœŋ], Uyghur
Uyghur language
Uyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...

 and Kazakh
Kazakh language
Kazakh is a Turkic language which belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, closely related to Nogai and Karakalpak....

 [qoi])
These too are likely loanwords, though proponents of the Altaic hypothesis may take these as evidence of a genetic relationship. Conversely, the Nanai language itself has also contributed some loanwords to the Udege language
Udege language
The Udege language is the language of the Udege people. It is a member of the Tungusic family.-Vocabulary:...

, supplanting Udege vocabulary: (thank you), from Nanai [banixa], instead of Udege [usasa] (work), from Nanai [dœbo], instead of Udege [etete] (book) from Nanai [daŋsa], itself a loanword from Chinese 單子 (Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

: ), which actually means "list"
A large degree of mutual assimilation of the two languages has been observed in the Bikin region; the Udege language itself only has 230 speakers left.

Sources


General works


Texts in Nanai


Dictionaries


External links

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