Language Families

Tungusic

Citation Formats

General Reference

Language Atlas. "Tungusic." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://language.interactiveatlas.org/language-families/tungusic.

APA Style

Language Atlas. (n.d.). Tungusic. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://language.interactiveatlas.org/language-families/tungusic

BibTeX

@misc{languageatlas-tungusic,
  author = {Language Atlas},
  title = {Tungusic},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://language.interactiveatlas.org/language-families/tungusic},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

A family of a dozen living languages spoken across Siberia, Manchuria and Xinjiang, split into a Northern (Ewenic-Udegheic) and a Southern (Jurchenic-Nanaic) branch. Manchu, historically the most influential Tungusic language, is now critically endangered, and many other Tungusic languages face the same threat.

Facts

Region

Siberia, Manchuria, Xinjiang 1

Speaker Count

75,000 1

Proto-Language Status

Tungusic is considered a primary language family in its own right, with internal relationships among its languages well established even as many member languages face severe endangerment. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections

Held Differently

Altaic

Why this is disputed. Tungusic is one of the three core families the Altaic hypothesis proposes to unite; most specialists attribute the resemblance to areal contact rather than common descent.

Source Wikipedia: Altaic Languages