Nanai language
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The Nanai language (also called Gold, Goldi, or Hezhen) is spoken by the
Nanai people The Nanai people are a Tungusic people of East Asia who have traditionally lived along Heilongjiang (Amur), Songhuajiang (Sunggari) and Wusuli River on the Middle Amur Basin. The ancestors of the Nanai were the Jurchens of northernmost Manc ...
in
Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
, and to a much smaller extent in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
's
Heilongjiang Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost province ...
province, where it is known as Hezhe. The language has about 1,400 speakers out of 17,000 ethnic Nanai, but most (especially the younger generations) are also fluent in
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
or
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
, and mostly use one of those languages for communication.


Nomenclature

In China, the language is referred to as ''Hèzhéyǔ'' (
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
: ). The Nanai people there variously refer to themselves as /na nio/, , /na nai/ (which all mean "local people"), , and , 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 The Amur (russian: река́ Аму́р, ), or Heilong Jiang (, "Black Dragon River", ), is the world's List of longest rivers, tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China, Northeastern China (Inne ...
below
Khabarovsk Khabarovsk ( rus, Хабaровск, a=Хабаровск.ogg, r=Habárovsk, p=xɐˈbarəfsk) is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative centre of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia,Law #109 located from the China ...
(Nanai, Amursk, Solnechny and Komsomolsk districts of
Khabarovsk Krai Khabarovsk Krai ( rus, Хабаровский край, r=Khabarovsky kray, p=xɐˈbarəfskʲɪj kraj) is a federal subject (a krai) of Russia. It is geographically located in the Russian Far East and is a part of the Far Eastern Federal District ...
); * Kur-Urmi dialect: the area around the city of
Khabarovsk Khabarovsk ( rus, Хабaровск, a=Хабаровск.ogg, r=Habárovsk, p=xɐˈbarəfsk) is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative centre of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia,Law #109 located from the China ...
(the
Kur The ancient Mesopotamian underworld, most often known in Sumerian as Kur, Irkalla, Kukku, Arali, or Kigal and in Akkadian as Erṣetu, although it had many names in both languages, was a dark, dreary cavern located deep below the ground, where ...
and Urmi rivers, and the Khabarovsk District of
Khabarovsk Krai Khabarovsk Krai ( rus, Хабаровский край, r=Khabarovsky kray, p=xɐˈbarəfskʲɪj kraj) is a federal subject (a krai) of Russia. It is geographically located in the Russian Far East and is a part of the Far Eastern Federal District ...
); probably not Nanai or even Southern Tungusic (see Kili language); * Bikin dialect: Pozharsky District of
Primorsky Krai Primorsky Krai (russian: Приморский край, r=Primorsky kray, p=prʲɪˈmorskʲɪj kraj), informally known as Primorye (, ), is a federal subject (a krai) of Russia, located in the Far East region of the country and is a part of the ...
(near the middle
Ussuri River The Ussuri or Wusuli (russian: Уссури; ) is a river that runs through Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krais, Russia and the southeast region of Northeast China. It rises in the Sikhote-Alin mountain range, flowing north and forming part of the ...
);Sem 1976, p24 * Sungari dialect: boundary areas of the Ussuri River in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
.Stolyarov 1994 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 worldwide 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 recorded 12,194 Nanai people who claimed to speak
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
as well. 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. 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 (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
. 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 The Songhua or Sunghwa River (also Haixi or Xingal, russian: Сунгари ''Sungari'') is one of the primary rivers of China, and the longest tributary of the Amur. It flows about from the Changbai Mountains on the China–North Korea bor ...
, Upper
Amur The Amur (russian: река́ Аму́р, ), or Heilong Jiang (, "Black Dragon River", ), is the world's List of longest rivers, tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China, Northeastern China (Inne ...
,
Ussuri The Ussuri or Wusuli (russian: Уссури; ) is a river that runs through Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krais, Russia and the southeast region of Northeast China. It rises in the Sikhote-Alin mountain range, flowing north and forming part of the ...
, Urmi,
Kur The ancient Mesopotamian underworld, most often known in Sumerian as Kur, Irkalla, Kukku, Arali, or Kigal and in Akkadian as Erṣetu, although it had many names in both languages, was a dark, dreary cavern located deep below the ground, where ...
, 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 The Amur (russian: река́ Аму́р, ), or Heilong Jiang (, "Black Dragon River", ), is the world's List of longest rivers, tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China, Northeastern China (Inne ...
and
Ussuri The Ussuri or Wusuli (russian: Уссури; ) is a river that runs through Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krais, Russia and the southeast region of Northeast China. It rises in the Sikhote-Alin mountain range, flowing north and forming part of the ...
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". # Upper Amur: Sakachi-Alyan, Naykhin, Bolon, Dzhuen, Garin # 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. # Upper Amur: Right-bank Amur, Sungari, Bikin (Ussuri), Kur-Urmi # Central Amur: Sakachi-Alyan, Naykhin, Dzhuen # Lower Amur: Bolon, Ekon, Gorin Among the contemporary carriers of Nanaian language (middle and lower Amur dialects),
dialect levelling Dialect levelling or leveling (in American English) is the process of an overall reduction in the variation or diversity of features between two or more dialects. Typically, this comes about through assimilation, mixture, and merging of certain d ...
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 ( rus, Хабаровский край, r=Khabarovsky kray, p=xɐˈbarəfskʲɪj kraj) is a federal subject (a krai) of Russia. It is geographically located in the Russian Far East and is a part of the Far Eastern Federal District ...
. 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 Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
transcription).


Orthography

In the history of the Nanai written, there are 3 stages: * until the early 1930s, early attempts to create Cyrillic script writing; * 1931–1937 –
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...
; * since 1937 – modern Cyrillic script. The first books in the Nanai language were printed by Russian Orthodox missionaries in the late 19th century in a
Cyrillic , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...
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. The Nanai language uses the same alphabet as the
Russian alphabet The Russian alphabet (russian: ру́сский алфави́т, russkiy alfavit, , label=none, or russian: ру́сская а́збука, russkaya azbuka, label=none, more traditionally) is the script used to write the Russian language. I ...
.


Nanai Latin script (1931–1937)

In 1930, it was decided to create a
Unified Northern Alphabet The Unified Northern Alphabet (UNA) (russian: Единый северный алфавит) was created during the Latinisation in the Soviet Union for the Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East, "small" language ...
on the Latin basis for the small-numbered peoples of the North. In January 1932, these alphabets, including Nanai, were officially approved at the I All-Russian Conference on the Development of Languages and Writings of the Peoples of the North. The approved Nanai alphabet was as follows: In some versions of the alphabet, the letter Ꞓ ꞓ was replaced with the usual Latin ''C c'' and meant the same sound.


Nanai Cyrillic script (1937 – present)

On June 5, 1936, the Presidium of the Council of Nationalities of the CEC of the USSR decided to translate the written language of the peoples of the North, including the Nanai, into Cyrillic. At the beginning of 1937, the Nanai Cyrillic alphabet was officially approved - it included all the letters of the Russian alphabet except ''Щ щ'' and ''Ъ ъ''. The sound was indicated by a combination of letters Нг нг. In 1939, the Nanai spelling rules in Cyrillic were adopted, refined in 1958, when the Nanai alphabet began to contain all 33 letters of the Russian alphabet, as well as the letter Ӈ ӈ (instead of ''Нг нг''). However, in fact, in most publications, instead of ''Ӈ ӈ'', the use of ''Нг нг'' continued. The current version of the Nanai alphabet was approved in 1993. The modern Nanai alphabet has the following form: To indicate long vowels in the educational literature, diacritics are used – macrons above the letters. In
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, where Nanai residents also live, in 1987 a reading book for Nanai schools was published with parallel text in Chinese and Nanai languages.
Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
was used to write the Nanai text.


Alphabet matching table

Sample text from a Bible translation published in 2002 is shown below.


Phonology


Vowels and vowel harmony

The Nanai language has seven phonemic vowels: . There are twelve allowed
diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
s: ; there are also two allowed
triphthong In phonetics, a triphthong (, ) (from Greek τρίφθογγος, "triphthongos", literally "with three sounds," or "with three tones") is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement of the articulator from one vowel q ...
s: . Phonemic vowels change as follows based on surrounding consonants: * is elided after * becomes after * becomes after * A glottal stop is inserted before when it begins a syllable and precedes . * may optionally become in non-initial syllables * A vowel in a final syllable is nasalised when it precedes The following table summarises the rules of vowel harmony.


Consonants

As for consonants, there are twenty-eight: Phonemic consonants may optionally change as follows: * become (respectively) between two vowels * to in syllable-final position, before 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, including monophthongisation of diphthongs, denasalisation of
nasal vowels A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced witho ...
, deletion of reduced final vowels, epenthetic vowel preventing consonant final words, and the deletion of intervocalic .Tolskaya 2001, p24


Lexicon

Tolskaya's survey of the Nanai language also noted a variety of
loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
s from Chinese, such as "calendar" from Chinese 日曆 (
Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
: ''rìlì''); a few also came from other languages, such as omidor(tomato), almost certainly from
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
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 and the
Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic languag ...
, such as: * ("beard"; Mongolian , Uyghur and Kazakh ); * ("chicken"; Mongolian , Uyghur , Kazakh ); * ("sheep"; Mongolian , Uyghur and Kazakh ). 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 The Udege language (also Udihe language, Udekhe language, Udeghe language) is the language of the Udege people. It is a member of the Tungusic family. History Previously an oral language, in 1931 an alphabet was created for writing Udege as a pa ...
, supplanting Udege vocabulary: * (thank you), from Nanai , instead of Udege ; * (work), from Nanai , instead of Udege ; * (book) from Nanai , itself a loanword from Chinese 單子 (
Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
: dānzi), which actually means "list". A large degree of mutual assimilation of the two languages has been observed in the
Bikin Bikin (russian: Бики́н) is a town in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, located on the river Bikin (a tributary of the Ussuri) southwest of Khabarovsk. Population: 19,000 (1967). History It was founded in 1885 as Bikinskaya and was granted town s ...
region; the Udege language itself only has 230 speakers left.Lewis 2009
Udihe
/ref>


Notes


Sources

* * * * * * * *


Further reading


General works

* * * * * * * * * *


Texts in Nanai

* * * * * * * * * * * *


Dictionaries

* * * * * * *


External links



*ELAR archive o
Endangered Tungusic languages of Khabarovskij Kraj (including Kur-Urmi)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nanai Language Agglutinative languages Languages of Russia Khabarovsk Krai Languages of China Tungusic languages Endangered languages