# Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (Third Edition)/North-east Asia

​North-east Asia
Juha Janhunen
Siberia
Siberia, or Asiatic Russia, comprises the region between the Ural mountains and the North Pacific coast of Eurasia. In the south, the region includes the Altai and Sayan mountains and borders the steppes of Mongolia and Central Asia. Siberia came under Russian rule in 1580. Since 1860 the region has also comprised northern and eastern Manchuria, known today as the Russian Far East. Off the Pacific coast, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin were partially under Japanese rule between 1855 and 1945. At the Sino-Mongolian border, the region of Tuva, formerly a part of Mongolia, was an independent state (the Tannu-Tuva Republic) from 1921 until 1944, when it was annexed by the Soviet Union.
Until premodern times, most of Siberia, including the Russian Far East, was inhabited by aboriginal populations speaking some fifty to sixty distinct languages belonging to ten separate language families: Uralic, Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Yeniseic (Ket-Kott), Amuric, Ainuic, Yukaghiric, Chukchi-Kamchadal and Eskimo-Aleut. On typological and geographical grounds these are conventionally lumped together into two major groups, known as Ural-Altaic (Uralic, Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic) and Palaeo-Siberian (Yeniseic, Amuric, Ainu, Yukaghir, ChukchiKamchadal and Eskimo-Aleut). Most of the language families in the region are relatively shallow. The Uralic family is, however, represented by two mutually very distant branches, Ugric and Samoyedic. ChukchiKamchadal is also divided into two fairly distantly related branches, Chukchi (northern) and Kamchadal (southern). Several of the PalaeoSiberian language families are represented by a single language isolate, or by a coherent group of very closely related languages, typical examples being Nivkh, Ainu and Yukaghir. Some other families that ​used to comprise several languages are today represented by a single surviving member, an example being Ket (Yeniseian).
With the introduction of Russian rule, Russian became the main colonial language throughout Siberia and is today spoken by virtually all the total population of about 30 million people. By contrast, the aboriginal languages are spoken by some 1 million people, most of whom are bilingual in Russian. In the Sino-Russian and Sino-Japanese border zones, both Chinese and Japanese have also played the role of colonial languages, while in north-east Siberia (the Bering Strait region) English has made some historical intrusions on the Asiatic side.
The typical size of a linguistically distinct population in premodern times varied between 500 and 5,000 people. Larger populations and speech communities have arisen in recent historical times among the nomadic populations, especially in the tundra and steppe environments. In general, languages spoken by tundra and steppe people tend to be internally more uniform than those spoken by less mobile groups, such as river fishers.
Since Soviet times, many, though not all, aboriginal populations of Siberia have had a titular position in ethnic territories at various levels of the administration. This system is also meant to bring linguistic benefits, especially at the highest level, at which there are today five federal republics: Buryatia, Yakutia, Tuva, Khakassia and the Altay Republic. The actual situation of the ethnic language of the titular population in each republic depends, however, on the local demographic situation. The situation is most favourable in Yakutia and Tuva, where the titular populations, comprising several hundred thousand people, are still the local majority. By contrast, Buryat (Mongolic) in Buryatia, Khakas (Turkic) in Khakassia and Altay (Turkic) in the Altay Republic are in a clear minority position in their areas.
The rest of the aboriginal populations of Siberia were grouped together in the Soviet system under the label, the 'Twenty-six Small Peoples of the Far North'. Throughout the Soviet period, the languages of these peoples were intensively documented and studied, one of the aims being the creation of orthographies, literary standards and textbooks. The orthographies were initially based on a unified application of the Roman alphabet, but were changed to Cyrillic during the 1930s. Most of the literary languages thus created have survived up to the present day; these include Northern Mansi (Ugric), Northern and Central Khanty (Ugric), Tundra Nenets (Samoyed), Northern Selkup (Samoyed), Evenki (Tungusic), Even (Tungusic), Nanay (Tungusic), Amur, Sakhalin Nivkh, Chukchi (Chukchi-Kamchadal), Koryak (Chukchi-Kamchadal) and Siberian Yupik (Eskimo-Aleut). Some literary languages, including Ket (Yeniseic), Udege (Tungusic) and Itelmen (Chukchi-Kamchadal), have only recently been revived, while several new ones including Dolgan (Turkic) and Forest Nenets (Samoyed) have even been created in the post-Soviet period.
The policy of creating written languages for the Siberian populations has been of major symbolic significance for the speakers of the languages concerned. It has not, however, prevented the decline of the spoken languages; rather, in some cases, the introduction of an artificial and dialectally biased literary standard has led to a confusion that has only weakened the status of the spoken language. At the same time, the system of compulsory education during the Soviet period involved the forced separation of children from their native communities. In the school centres, the children were placed in multiethnic boarding schools in which Russian was the only language. Returning to their native communities after completing their education, children no longer mastered their own ethnic languages.
​The status of native languages in Siberia has also been affected by problems created by the cultural, social, economic and ecological marginalization of the local aboriginal populations. The situation is not different from that encountered in North America. The populations whose languages have survived best are typically those living in the northern tundra belt, where the traditional culture of reindeer breeding is still alive. However, as the tundra belt has become a target of the international oil industry, the conditions for reindeer breeding and other traditional activities have deteriorated in many places. On the other hand, the local populations and their languages, especially in north-west Siberia, have started to receive regular financial support from the oil industry. In some cases, this support has been used to continue the literary languages created during the Soviet period.
The decline of native languages has been even more drastic in the Japanese parts of north-east Asia, where no official minority language policy has been adopted. When the island of Hokkaido was opened to Japanese colonization in 1870, the local varieties of Ainu (Hokkaido Ainu) were still spoken by some 15,000 people, most of whom were monolingual in Ainu. By 1917, the number of monolingual speakers had fallen to 350, and the decline of the language has continued rapidly ever since. Even so, in 2008, the Japanese Government, for the first time in history, recognized the existence of the Ainu as a distinct ethnic group.
Atypical dialects of Ainu, or closely related languages, were originally also spoken on Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. The Kuril Ainu were eliminated as a group during a forced transfer to Hokkaido in the late nineteenth century (1884), while the Sakhalin Ainu survived in the context of Southern Sakhalin (Karafuto), which was under Japanese colonial rule between 1905 and 1945. After the Second World War, the remaining Sakhalin Ainu, together with scattered individuals speaking Orok (Tungusic) and Nivkh, were evacuated to Hokkaido, where they have gradually vanished without forming living speech communities.
The present-day, historically known aboriginal languages of Siberia, including Sakhalin, Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands, may fairly unambiguously be classified as vulnerable, definitely endangered, severely endangered, critically endangered or extinct. Although several cases of extinction have been recorded since the eighteenth century, the bulk of the region's languages are still extant, though they are almost all endangered to varying degrees. The only completely safe languages are those used as official state languages — primarily Russian and Japanese, but also Mongolian. For the time being, however, Tuva (Tuvan), a former state language, also seems to be beyond immediate threat thanks to the relative isolation of the Tuva Republic.
The category of vulnerable languages comprises, in particular, Eastern Buryat, but Yakut probably also belongs here, at least in some areas. Both Eastern Buryat and Yakut are supported by sufficiently large speech communities, but the speakers are territorially widely dispersed. Although both languages have a relatively old and well-functioning literary standard with a considerable amount of native literature, most intellectual activities take place in Russian. On the other hand, languages like Khakas and Siberian Tatar (Turkic, closely related to Volga Tatar) are less safe, especially since the number of young speakers is declining rapidly. The native languages typically remain restricted to rural villages and sparsely inhabited wilderness areas.
Among the smaller linguistic groups, Dolgan (Turkic, closely related to Yakut), with perhaps only 5,000 speakers but a high rate of native language proficiency, may probably also be classified as only vulnerable. In a somewhat similar position, though with as many as 25,000 speakers, is Tundra Nenets. Both Dolgan and Tundra Nenets are ​spoken by populations engaged in traditional reindeer breeding in the tundra belt. The status of Tundra Nenets is more problematic than that of Dolgan, however, as its speakers are scattered over wide distances extending from the Kola peninsula in Europe to Taimyr in Siberia. Due to social and ecological problems, the number of young speakers is declining, in particular among the European Tundra Nenets. The oil industry is also threatening the language on the Yamal peninsula, the principal Tundra Nenets area on the Siberian side.
Another language that may be classified as only endangered is Khamnigan Mongol (Mongolic). The language was originally spoken across the current state boundaries in the Sino-Russo-Mongolian border region. It has, however, become virtually extinct in both the Russian Federation and Mongolia and survives today only among an emigrant population within China (northern Inner Mongolia). The speech community is compact, and its members are still semi-nomadic, but there are hardly more than 2,000 speakers, and the number of Chinese settlements in the area is increasing. Even more endangered than Khamnigan Mongol itself is its traditional symbiosis with two forms of Evenki (Khamnigan Evenki). Khamnigan Mongol and Evenki have coexisted for several generations as the two ethnic languages of a single, almost fully bilingual population, but this pattern is today being disrupted in favour of Khamnigan Mongol only.
Most other languages in the region are best classified as severely endangered. In all these cases, the speech communities are small, mainly between 500 and 5,000 individuals. The speaker profile is biased towards the old and middle generations, and the number of children fluent in the ethnic language is diminishing, often being close to zero. Examples are Northern Khanty, Selkup, Nganasan, Ket, Shor (intermediate between Altay and Khakas), Teleut (a distinct variety of Altay), Western Buryat (relatively distinct from Eastern Buryat), Even, Nanay, Sakhalin Nivkh, Chukchi, Koryak and Alutor (closely related to Koryak). Diaspora entities such as Kamchatka Even are in an even more precarious situation.
A somewhat special case is that of Evenki, which used to be the principal and most widespread language of the Siberian forest zone between the Ob-Yenisey basins and the Pacific coast as far east as Sakhalin. A separate local entity was formed by the so-called Equestrian Tungus in Transbaykalia, whose dialects formed the basis of Khamnigan Evenki. Varieties of Evenki are also spoken in Manchuria. In premodern times, the total number of Evenki-speakers may have reached a maximum of 50,000 individuals. However, the spread of Russian colonization, as well as the expansion of Yakut in central Siberia and Buryat in the Baykal region, have split the formerly continuous belt of Evenki-speakers into a number of local groups, now undergoing assimilation to Russian, Yakut and Buryat. The number of speakers on the Siberian side is down to 5,000, and there are only a few small communities where children are fluent in the native language.
The other Siberian languages still extant today are critically endangered, since the remaining speech communities are very small and the youngest speakers have already passed reproductive age. Languages in this category include Mansi (Ugric), Tundra and Forest Enets (Samoyed), Yug (Yeniseic, if not extinct), Chulym (Turkic, an atypical branch of Khakas), Tofa (Turkic) with related Tukha and Uyghur Uryangkhai on the Mongolian side, Tundra and Forest Yukaghir, Itelmen (Chukotko-Kamchatkan), Amur Nivkh, Negidal (an atypical form of Evenki), Ulcha (closely related to Nanay), as well as Orok, Oroch and Udege (all Tungusic). On the Japanese side, Hokkaido Ainu, with fewer than a dozen rudimentary speakers, is also critically endangered.
​Languages that have become extinct since being linguistically described include Mator (Samoyed, in the 1840s), Kott (Yeniseic, in the 1850s), Arman (an archaic variety of Even, in the 1970s), Kamas (Samoyed, in 1989), Sakhalin Ainu (in 1994) and Kerek (Chukchi, in 2005).
A glance at the map reveals that Siberia's remaining linguistic diversity is concentrated along the margins of the region: in the west (the Ob-Yenisey region), the south (the Altai-Sayan region), the north-east (Chukotka and Kamchatka) and the south-east (the Amur region). Much of rural central Siberia, which was formerly dominated by Evenki, is today Yakut-speaking. The spread of Russian has traditionally taken place mainly in the south-to-north direction along the major rivers, as well as in the west-to-east direction along the old Sino-Russian trade routes and, subsequently, the Trans-Siberian Railway. More recently, Russian-speaking communities, including mining towns and oil drilling stations, have arisen more randomly, especially in the Arctic tundra belt.
The current wave of extinction is inevitably leading to the disappearance of at least the critically endangered languages, which comprise nearly half of Siberia's linguistic diversity. The other half is formed by languages most of which are severely endangered and hence also likely to disappear. Considering both demographic and ecological circumstances as well as the administrative context, only a few languages in the region have a realistic chance of survival. These would seem to include, in particular, Tundra Nenets and possibly Khakas. On the other hand, with a sufficient investment of human effort and economic resources, it would not be impossible to save even some very small speech communities.
From the point of view of linguistic diversity, the greatest losses will take place if and when entire language families become extinct. In north-east Asia, the Ainu and Yukaghir families are already critically endangered, and the position of the Yeniseic (Ket) and Nivkh families is severely endangered. The Chukchi-Kamchadal family is only slightly less endangered. Even the formerly large and diversified family of Tungusic may be lost, unless it can survive on the Chinese side of the border. On the other hand, Uralic, Turkic and Mongolic will survive as families irrespective of what happens to their members dispersed throughout north-east Asia.
Manchuria
Manchuria as a physical region comprises the Amur and Liao river basins and the adjoining parts of the Pacific coast. As already mentioned, since 1860 the northern and eastern parts of Manchuria have been administered as the Russian Far East, which may today also be seen as an integral part of Asiatic Russia, or Siberia. The rest of Manchuria remained within the Manchu empire of the Qing, which also comprised China. Between 1931 and 1945 Manchuria formed the state of Manchukuo, before becoming part of the People's Republic of China. In the Chinese context, Manchuria is known as the 'North-East' (Dongbei). Administratively, the region is today divided between the provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning. The western part has belonged to the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region since 1979.
The Chinese immigrant population has now grown to more than 100 million, while the remaining aboriginal populations number hardly more than 10 million, of whom, however, only a small proportion retain their native languages.
Of the non-Chinese languages spoken in the Chinese North-East, only Mongol proper and Korean may be classified as safe, though locally ​even they are undergoing assimilation by Chinese. Both Mongol and Korean are supported by old and well-functioning literary languages, which are also used as mediums of school education in China. Under the label of 'Mongol', however, the Chinese system of ethnic administration also includes groups speaking several other Mongolic languages and major dialects, most of which are endangered. These include, in particular, Old and New Bargut (atypical forms of Buryat), Shinekhen Buryat (a diaspora form of Eastern Buryat on the Chinese side) and Manchurian Ölöt (a variety of Oyrat transferred from Jungaria [Djungaria] to Manchuria in the eighteenth century). Manchurian Ölöt is today critically endangered, with its speakers changing over to Chinese. The future of Bargut and Buryat is mainly threatened by the gradual loss of the atypical features in favour of standard Mongol, supported by the school system.
The most viable form of Mongolic in Manchuria apart from Mongol proper is Dagur, which is the ethnic language of a population of over 200,000 individuals. The Dagur (Dawoer) population is divided between several localities, including the Middle Amur basin in northern Manchuria (the original location of the language until the seventeenth century), the Nonni basin in central Manchuria (since the late seventeenth century) and the Hailar basin in western Manchuria (since the early eighteenth century). Among these, the most linguistically viable community today is formed by the Dagur-speakers in the Hailar basin, while the Dagur in the Amur basin are linguistically critically endangered. There is also a diaspora group in the Yili region of Jungaria (northern Xinjiang, since 1763). Historically, the Dagur may be seen as a satellite population of the Manchu, and Manchu used to serve as the literary language for Dagur-speakers. With the decline of Manchu, Dagur has more recently received some restricted use as a written language in its own right, though the main written languages used by Dagur-speakers today are Chinese and Mongol proper (written Mongol).
The decline of Manchu is a rare example of the loss of a language with a strong political and cultural status. Manchu was a direct descendant of Jurchen, the dynastic language of the Jin empire in Manchuria, and it received a new written form in 1599. By the nineteenth century it had at least 1 million speakers. After that time a process of Sinicization began that continues to the present day.
It should be noted that in the Chinese system of ethnic administration the Manchu still exist as a major population, comprising some 10 million people, the second-largest officially recognized minority nationality in China. This ethnicity is scattered all over the People's Republic, though a considerable proportion still lives in Manchuria. The Manchu language in Manchuria is, however, spoken in only two village-level localities, one in the Heihe region in the Middle Amur basin and the other in Fuyu County in the Nonni (Nenjiang) basin. Both of these represent traces of Manchu garrisons from the Qing period. The total number of Manchu-speakers was still some hundreds in the early 1960s (before China's Cultural Revolution), but it has now declined to fewer than ten individuals. There are, however, considerably more people, both ethnic Manchu and non-Manchu (especially ethnic Mongols), who are versatile in the Manchu written language, and interest has recently been expressed in the possibility of a revival of the spoken language.
Manchu also survives as both a spoken and a written language among a diaspora population in the Yili region of Jungaria, where a Manchu-speaking army unit was transferred in the late eighteenth century (1763). Officially, the Manchu-speakers in Jungaria are classified as belonging to the so-called Sibo (Xibe) nationality, which also has members in other areas of China, including Manchuria. The Sibo may ​originally have been a tribal entity within the Manchu, or even a separate ethnic group, but their current classification as a distinct ethnic group lacks a clear linguistic basis. Nevertheless, Manchu is today endangered, probably severely, also among the Sibo, though it still has some speakers of reproductive age.
The other Tungusic-speakers in Manchuria are officially divided into three ethnic groups, labelled Evenki (Ewenke), Orochen (Elunchun) and Hejen (Hezhe). Of these, the first two both speak varieties of the Evenki complex, which on the Siberian side is represented by the Evenki language (proper). An Evenki dialect of an actual Siberian origin is spoken by the so-called 'Yakut' Evenki (immigrants from Yakutia in the early nineteenth century), China's only reindeer-breeding population, who until the mid-twentieth century occupied the basin of the River Bystraya (Jiliuhe) in the Amur source region. This population comprises fewer than 200 individuals and is today severely endangered, if not critically endangered. The dialects spoken by the Orochen are linguistically more influenced by Manchu. Although the Orochen ethnic population comprises close to 10,000 people, the native language must be considered critically endangered, since all speakers have passed reproductive age.
The situation is more favourable for the two remaining groups of Evenki-speakers in Manchuria, the Khamnigan and the Solon. The Khamnigan are best defined on the basis of their Khamnigan Mongol language, which survives only in China. The Khamnigan are, however, ethnically bilingual and also speak two forms of Evenki (Khamnigan Evenki). Among the Khamnigan in China today, Evenki is clearly receding but the continuity of the language has not yet been disrupted. A similar situation of ethnic bilingualism is also characteristic of the Solon, who speak Evenki (Solon Evenki) as their basic language and Dagur as their second language.
Currently, Solon Evenki is the most viable form of any kind of Evenki, and, in fact, any kind of Tungusic. While Evenki, like all other Evenki-related groups in both Manchuria and Siberia, is either severely or critically endangered, the language still survives among at least 10,000 Solon Evenki-speakers. Linguistically, Solon is a strongly atypical form of Evenki and should probably be classified as a separate language, strongly influenced by Dagur and Manchu. The Solon are, however, also divided into several local and dialectal groups, corresponding to the historical division and movements of the Dagur.
The Hejen nationality in China is conventionally considered to form a local extension of the Nanay, as present also on the Russian side of the border. However, the Hejen in China are divided between speakers of two languages, one of which may be considered a dialect of Nanay (proper), while the other one is a 'mixed' language comprising features of both Nanay and Udege. This latter variety is today technically known as Kilen. An analogous 'mixed' language, comprising features of Nanay and Evenki and known as Kili, is recorded from the Russian side. Both Kilen and Kili are critically endangered, with only a handful of speakers left. The same is true of Nanay (proper) on the Chinese side.
Finally, there is also a Turkic language that used to be spoken in Manchuria. This is Manchurian Kirghiz, which historically represents a diaspora branch of Khakas, transferred from the Altai-Sayan region in connection with the Manchu conquest of Jungaria (in the mid-eighteenth century). The Manchurian Kirghiz may be seen as satellites of the Manchurian Ölöt, and both groups were probably transferred at the same time. Both Manchurian Kirghiz and Manchurian Ölöt were spoken in at least two locations in Manchuria, the Nonni basin and the Hailar basin. Today, only the Nonni groups remain in what is Fuyu County in central Manchuria. Out of an ethnic population of about 1,000, the ​number of Manchurian Kirghiz-speakers is today down to fewer than 5. The last speakers are trilingual in Manchurian Kirghiz, Manchurian Ölöt and Chinese. Formerly, a knowledge of Dagur was also common.
It is illuminating to compare the linguistic situation in the two parts of north-east Asia, Siberia (the Russian Federation) and Manchuria (China). Although China has copied the Soviet system of titular autonomy for minority nationalities, it has never copied the Soviet emphasis on language development. Thus, with the exception of Mongol and Manchu (as well as Korean), there are no minority languages with a functioning written standard in Manchuria today. Although there are several transnational languages spoken on both sides of the border, the literary languages created on the Russian side have never been used on the Chinese side. Even so, the situation of the oral languages is very similar on the two sides of the border, with most of the languages either critically endangered or severely endangered. In the case of Evenki, however, the survival of a transnational language seems to be more likely on the Chinese side. Ideally, cooperation across state borders could be used to support the Evenki language in Siberia.
Eastern Central Asia
In terms of physical geography and ethnic history, eastern Central Asia may be defined as the region comprising Mongolia, Jungaria (Dzungaria), Tarimia, Qinghai and Gansu. All of these were once parts of the Manchu empire of the Qing (1644–1911), but since the collapse of the empire the political situation has varied. Today, the region is divided between two independent states, Mongolia and China.
The languages spoken in eastern Central Asia represent four major genetic groups: Turkic, Mongolic, Bodic (Tibetan) and Sinitic (Chinese). Historically, Indo-European has also played an important role in the region, but its position today is marginal. As a result of recent historical developments, Tungusic has been introduced to the region. Turkic dominates today in Tarimia (south of the Tian Shan mountains), Mongolic in Mongolia, and Sinitic in Gansu, while Jungaria (north of the Tian Shan mountains) has both Turkic and Mongolic languages, as well as secondary islets of Tungusic. Qinghai, finally, offers the most diversified picture, with a considerable variety of Bodic, Mongolic, Turkic and Sinitic languages and major dialects, some of which are also spoken on the Gansu side.
The three most important native languages in eastern Central Asia are Mongol proper (or Mongolian) in Mongolia, Modern Uyghur in Tarimia, and Amdo Tibetan in Qinghai and parts of Gansu. All of these function as regional lingua francas, with between 1 million and 2 million Amdo Tibetan-speakers and between 7 million and 8 million Uyghur-speakers. The region's Sinitic languages come under the general label of North-West Mandarin, a group of idioms belonging to the Mandarin branch of Chinese. In addition, both during the Qing administration and especially after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Standard Mandarin (Putonghua) has spread to the region and is today used by an absolute majority of the population, a considerable part of which represents recent immigrants from other parts of China.
Among the speakers of Chinese and the regional non-Chinese languages live the region's smaller linguistic groups. Some of these, like the Kirghiz- and Uzbek-speakers in Tarimia and the Kazakh-speakers in Jungaria and western Mongolia, have nation-states elsewhere in Central Asia and cannot be regarded as linguistically endangered. Most other languages in the region must be classified as endangered either because they have very small numbers of speakers or because the ​number of speakers is declining rapidly. In most cases, these languages are not used for written communication.
Mongol proper is a relatively uniform language, though dialectal differences do exist, especially on the Inner Mongolian side. More substantially, there is a transition towards Buryat in the north, Ordos in the south and Oyrat in the west. Buryat, Ordos and Oyrat may all be defined as separate Mongolic languages, closely related to Mongol proper. Even so, the speakers of these languages in both Mongolia and China are systematically classified as ethnic 'Mongols', and they are served by the standardized written Mongol and Cyrillic Khalkha literary languages. On the Russian side, however, speakers of Buryat and Oyrat (Kalmyk) are recognized as separate ethnic groups. As a result, the speakers of Ordos, who live only in China (in the Ordos region at the border of Gansu and Inner Mongolia), are particularly severely endangered. The present-day number of fluent Ordos-speakers is probably only a fraction of an earlier estimate of approximately 100,000.
An idiosyncratic and critically endangered variety of Oyrat known as Henan Mongol is spoken by fewer than 100 people (out of an ethnic population of some 30,000) in Henan County of Huangnan Prefecture, located in the south-eastern part of Qinghai Province. The new ethnic language of the Henan Mongols is Amdo Tibetan. Due to the structural and lexical impact of Amdo Tibetan, Henan Mongol may be classified as a rapidly transformed and highly atypical variety of Oyrat, perhaps a separate Oyrat-based language.
The principal diversity of the Mongolic family in eastern Central Asia, however, is connected with the so-called Shirongolic branch of Mongolic, which comprises six to eight distinct idioms, all spoken in a relatively compact area in eastern Qinghai and adjoining parts of Gansu. Most importantly, the speakers of Mongghul, Mongghuor and Mangghuer, as well as the Qinghai Bonan-speakers, are classified as members of the so-called Tu nationality, conventionally also known as the 'Monguor'.
Of the Shirongolic languages, only Santa in and around Dongxiang County, southern Gansu, with some 500,000 speakers, all of them Muslim, may be considered safe for the time being, though its position might deteriorate rapidly in the near future due to better communications, rising levels of education and the growing impact of Chinese, both standard and local. Santa is also spoken by an unknown number of recent emigrants (since the 1960s) from their original ethnic area to parts of Gansu and Xinjiang. The number of permanent Santa immigrants in Xinjiang may be more than 50,000, and although the language is not totally lost in the second generation, its position in the diaspora is precarious due to the new ethnic, economic and administrative circumstances there.
In the 'Monguor' group, Mongghul, with perhaps 50,000 speakers, is the largest language. Even so, it is rapidly being lost, since its speakers are scattered among Chinese and Tibetan settlements in several counties of eastern Qinghai and central Gansu. By contrast, Mangghuer, with only some 30,000 speakers, has kept its position considerably better thanks to a coherent community structure. The situation of Mongghuor is unknown. Although Mongghuor (proto-typical 'Monguor') is the most completely documented variety of any Shirongolic language, it may always have been confined to a few village-level communities, which by the present time may or may not have been absorbed by either Mongghul or Chinese or both. Both Qinghai and Gansu Bonan, with a total of perhaps 15,000 speakers, are also village-level languages that are, however, relatively well preserved so far. Shira Yugur and Kangjia are critically endangered, with no child ​speakers. The number of elderly adult speakers of Shira Yugur may still be around 2,000, while Kangjia is spoken by fewer than 100 individuals (classified as 'Chinese Muslims').
Apart from the large Central Asian Turkic languages, Turkic is represented in eastern Central Asia by several minor idioms, none of which is safe. The largest and most vigorous entity is formed by the approximately 100,000 speakers of Salar, centred on Xunhua County of Qinghai Province. The language is not yet endangered as a whole, but many communities of Salar-speakers outside the central area are changing their language to local Chinese. Another Turkic language in the Gansu-Qinghai region is Saryg Yugur, also known as Western Yellow Uyghur. Saryg Yugur, like Shira Yugur in the immediate neighbourhood, has several thousand speakers, but in the absence of child speakers it must be classified as critically endangered.
In the Mongolian and Jungarian parts of the Altai-Sayan region, there are several minor Turkic idioms that belong taxonomically to the context of Sayan Turkic. These groups are generically known to the Mongols as 'Uryangkhai', a concept that also includes the speakers of Tuvan. Since the nineteenth century Tuvan has had diaspora groups in the Mongolian and Chinese Altay, where these groups are known as Altay Uryangkhai or Kök Munchak (Monchak). The Altay Uryangkhai probably number fewer than 10,000 individuals, most of whom are bilingual in either Oyrat or Mongol proper (Khalkha). Although knowledge of the ethnic language is declining, the loss is not fatal since Altay Uryangkhai speech is in a close dialectal relationship with Tuvan, one of the very few viable languages in the Asiatic part of the Russian Federation (the Tuva Republic).
In the context of Sayan Turkic, Tuvan, with its dialects, may be considered as constituting a western branch. An eastern branch is formed by several idioms spoken in the Eastern Sayan region across the Russo-Mongolian border. On the Russian side these idioms include Tofa (critically endangered) and Soyot (extinct), while on the Mongolian side there are Tukha or Tsaatan (to the west of Lake Khövsgöl) and Uighur Uryangkhai (to the east of Lake Khövsgöl). Tukha is the language of a reindeer-breeding community of fewer than 150 individuals and may be classified as severely endangered, while Uighur Uryangkhai is almost extinct, with fewer than 10 speakers.
In the Tibetan areas of eastern Central Asia there are several Bodic forms of speech that may or may not be classified as dialects of Amdo Tibetan, but that nevertheless might be distinct enough to require protection. Most of these idioms are spoken on the Sichuan side of the border (not covered in this chapter), but in Gansu and Qinghai there are also a few atypical Tibetan 'dialects' that should perhaps be classified as separate languages. The most obvious example is that of the dialects spoken in Jone County, southern Gansu (Gannan), which are unintelligible to the speakers of regular Amdo Tibetan. The diversity of Tibetan speech in the region is still little understood and the borderlines between dialects and languages remain to be determined. What is clear is that Tibetan is on the decline in Jone and some of the local forms of speech are already critically endangered. The languages replacing the earlier diversity are both regular Amdo Tibetan and local Chinese.
Some aspects of the linguistic map of eastern Central Asia are the result of centralized policies during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Soon after the region had become incorporated into the Manchu empire (1760), the Manchu Government moved sections of the earlier Jungarian population to Manchuria, thus creating the subsequent communities of Manchurian Oyrat (today severely endangered) and ​Manchurian Kirghiz (today virtually extinct). At the same time, speakers of Mongolic Dagur as well as Tungusic Evenki (Solon Evenki) and Manchu were introduced from Manchuria to Jungaria, where traces of these immigrants have survived into modern times. Of these, the Jungarian variety of Evenki, also known as Ongkor Solon, became extinct in the 1990s, while Dagur and Manchu are still spoken by several thousand individuals.
Of the greatest potential significance is the presence of Manchu in Jungaria. These Manchu-speakers are officially classified as representing the separate 'Sibe' (Xibo) nationality, but, in spite of contact influences from other local languages (Kazakh, Uyghur, Mongol and Russian), their native language belongs to the spoken Manchu group, and they also use written Manchu as a literary medium. As the number of Manchu-speakers elsewhere in China has declined to a handful of individuals, the preservation of the language in Jungaria may be seen as a reserve that could be used for linguistic reinvigoration among the rest of the ethnic Manchu. Unfortunately, the native language is now declining also among the 'Sibe', and the number of remaining speakers is likely to be below 5,000, with very few young speakers. Without active measures, Manchu might be rapidly lost also in its last Jungarian refuge.
Before the introduction and expansion of the present-day languages of the region, the dominant language family in large parts of eastern Central Asia, especially in Tarimia, was Indo-European. In more recent history, not considering the colonial impact of Russia, only the Iranian branch has retained a marginal position in the region. Today, Iranian is represented on the Chinese side by two Pamirian languages, Wakhi and Sarikoli, whose speakers are officially identified as Tajiks (Tajike). Wakhi is also spoken in the neighbouring countries, while Sarikoli is confined to China. A trace of the former presence of Persian (or Tajik) in Tarimia is found in the so-called Eynu (Einu, Ejnu) or Abdal 'language', today spoken by fewer than 30,000 individuals. Eynu is probably best classified as a Uyghur dialect, but it incorporates an exceptionally large proportion of Persian lexical items.