Tungusic peoples are an

ethnolinguistic group An ethnolinguistic group (or ethno-linguistic group) is a group that is unified by both a common ethnicity and language. Most ethnic groups share a first language. However, "ethnolinguistic" is often used to emphasise that language is a major bas ...

formed by the speakers of

Tungusic languages The Tungusic languages (also known as Manchu–Tungus and Tungus) form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered. There are approximately 75,000 native speakers of the ...

(or Manchu–Tungus languages). They are native to Siberia,

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. The Tungusic language family is divided into two main branches, Northern ( Ewenic– Udegheic) and Southern Tungusic ( Jurchenic– Nanaic).

Name

The name ''Tungusic'' is artificial, and properly refers just to the linguistic family (

). It is derived from Russian (), a

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

exonym An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...

for the

Evenks The Evenki, also known as the Evenks and formerly as the Tungus, are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic people of North Asia. In Russia, the Evenki are recognised as one of the Indigenous peoples of the Russian North, indigenous peoples of the Russi ...

(Ewenki). English usage of ''Tungusic'' was introduced by

Friedrich Max Müller Friedrich may refer to: Names *Friedrich (given name), people with the given name ''Friedrich'' *Friedrich (surname), people with the surname ''Friedrich'' Other *Friedrich (board game), a board game about Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' ...

in the 1850s, based on earlier use of German by Heinrich Julius Klaproth. The alternative term ''Manchu–Tungus'' is also in use ( 'Tunguso-Manchurian').

The name ''Tunguska'', a region of eastern Siberia bounded on the west by the Tunguska rivers and on the east by the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

, has its origin from the Tungus people (Evenks).''The Languages of the Seat of War in the East''
by Max Müller, 1855 Russian was either taken from the

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

word (, 'Eastern Barbarians', cf. 'Tungusic')., or from East Turkic (literally, 'wild pig, boar', from Old Turkic ).Tungus. (n.d.) ''American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition''. (2011). Retrieved May 2, 2019 from https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Tungus

This "chance similarity in modern pronunciation led to the once widely held assumption that the

Eastern Hu The Donghu (; ) were a tribal confederation of nomadic Hu people that were first recorded from the 7th century BCE and was taken over by the Xiongnu in 150 BCE. They lived in northern Hebei, southeastern Inner Mongolia and the western part of Lia ...

were Tungusic in language. However, there is little basis for this theory."

History

It is generally suggested that the homeland of the Tungusic people is in northeastern

Manchuria Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...

, somewhere near the

Amur River The Amur River () or Heilong River ( zh, s=黑龙江) is a perennial river in Northeast Asia, forming the natural border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China (historically the Outer and Inner Manchuria). The Amur ''proper'' is ...

region. Genetic evidence collected from the

Ulchsky District Ulchsky District () is an administrativeResolution #143-pr and municipalLaw #194 district (raion), one of the seventeen in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. It is located in the east of the krai and named after the indigenous Ulch people. The area of ...

suggests a date for the expansion predating 3500 BC. The Tungusic expansion into Siberia displaced the indigenous Siberian languages, which are now grouped under the term

Paleosiberian The Paleo-Siberian languages are several language isolates and small language families spoken in parts of Siberia. They are not known to have any genetic relationship to each other; their only common link is that they are held to have antedated ...

. Several theories suggest that the

Pannonian Avars The Pannonian Avars ( ) were an alliance of several groups of Eurasian nomads of various origins. The peoples were also known as the Obri in the chronicles of the Rus' people, Rus, the Abaroi or Varchonitai (), or Pseudo-Avars in Byzantine Empi ...

of the

Avar Khaganate The Pannonian Avars ( ) were an alliance of several groups of Eurasian nomads of various origins. The peoples were also known as the Obri in the chronicles of the Rus' people, Rus, the Abaroi or Varchonitai (), or Pseudo-Avars in Byzantine Empi ...

in Central, East and Southeast Europe were of Tungusic origin or of partially Tungusic origin (as a ruling class). Tungusic people on the Amur river like Udeghe, Ulchi and Nanai adopted Chinese influences in their religion and clothing with Chinese dragons on ceremonial robes, scroll and spiral bird and monster mask designs, Chinese New Year, using silk and cotton, iron cooking pots, and heated homes from China. The

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...

originally came from

, which is now

Northeast China Northeast China () is a geographical region of China, consisting officially of three provinces Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. The heartland of the region is the Northeast China Plain, the largest plain in China with an area of over . The regi ...

and the

Russian Far East The Russian Far East ( rus, Дальний Восток России, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in North Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asia, Asian continent, and is coextensive with the Far Easte ...

. Following the Manchu establishment of the Qing dynasty in the 17th century, they have been almost completely assimilated into the language and culture of the ethnic Han population of

. The southern Tungusic Manchu farming sedentary lifestyle was very different from the nomadic hunter gatherer forager lifestyle of their more northern Tungusic relatives like the Warka, which left the Qing state to attempt to make them sedentarize and farm like Manchus. During the 17th century, the

Tsardom of Russia The Tsardom of Russia, also known as the Tsardom of Moscow, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of tsar by Ivan the Terrible, Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great in 1721. ...

was expanding east across Siberia, and into Tungusic-speaking lands, resulting in early border skirmishes with the Qing dynasty of China, leading up to the 1689

Treaty of Nerchinsk The Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689 was the first treaty between the Tsardom of Russia and the Qing dynasty of China after the defeat of Russia by Qing China at the Siege of Albazin in 1686. The Russians gave up the area north of the Amur River as ...

. The first published description of a Tungusic people to reach beyond Russia into the rest of Europe was by the Dutch traveler

Isaac Massa Isaac Abrahamszoon Massa (baptized October 7, 1586, in Haarlem, died 1643) was a Dutch people, Dutch grain trader, traveller and envoy to Tsardom of Russia, Russia. He wrote memoirs related to the Time of Troubles and created some of the earliest ...

in 1612. He passed along information from Russian reports after his stay in Moscow.

Ethnic groups

"Tungusic" (Manchu-Tungus) peoples are divided into two main branches: northern and southern. The southern branch is dominated by the

(historically Jurchen). Qing emperors were Manchu, and the Manchu group has largely been

sinicized Sinicization, sinofication, sinification, or sinonization (from the prefix , 'Chinese, relating to China') is the process by which non-Chinese societies or groups are acculturated or assimilated into Chinese culture, particularly the language, ...

(the

Manchu language Manchu ( ) is a critically endangered language, endangered Tungusic language native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China. As the traditional native language of the Manchu people, Manchus, it was one of the official language ...

being moribund, with 20 native speakers reported as of 2007). The

Sibe Sibe may refer to: *Sibe people, an East Asian ethnic group living in China *Xibe language, language of Sibe people * Sibe Mardešić (1927–2016), Croatian mathematician * Nagovisi language, a South Bougainville language spoken in Papua New Guin ...

were possibly a Tungusic-speaking section of the (Mongolic)

Shiwei Shiwei may refer to: *Shiwei people Shiwei () were a Mongolic people that inhabited far-eastern Mongolia, northern Inner Mongolia, northern Manchuria and the area near the Okhotsk Sea beach. Records mentioning the Shiwei were recorded from th ...

and have been conquered by the expanding Manchu (Jurchen). Their language is mutually intelligible with Manchu. The Nanai (Goldi) are also derived from the Jurchen. The Orok (Ulta) are an offshoot of the Nanai. Other minor groups closely related to the Nanai are the Ulch, Oroch and Udege. The Udege live in the

Primorsky Krai Primorsky Krai, informally known as Primorye, is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krais of Russia, krai) of Russia, part of the Far Eastern Federal District in the Russian Far East. The types of inhabited localities in Russia, ...

and

Khabarovsk Krai Khabarovsk Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krai) of Russia. It is located in the Russian Far East and is administratively part of the Far Eastern Federal District. The administrative centre of the krai is the types of ...

in the Russian Federation. The northern branch is mostly formed by the closely related ethnic groups of

(Ewenki) and

Evens The Evens /əˈvɛn/ ( Even: эвэн; pl. эвэсэл, ''evesel'' in Even and эвены, ''eveny'' in Russian; formerly called ''Lamuts'') are a people in Siberia and the Russian Far East. They live in regions of the Magadan Oblast and ...

. (Evenks and Evens are also grouped as "Evenic". Their ethnonyms are only distinguished by a different suffix - -n for Even and -nkī for Evenkī; endonymically, they even use the same adjective for themselves - ǝwǝdī, meaning "Even" in the Even language and "Evenkī" in the Evenkī language.) The Evenks live in the

Evenk Autonomous Okrug Evenk Autonomous Okrug (, ; , ), or Evenkia, was a federal subject of Russia (an autonomous okrug of Krasnoyarsk Krai). It had been created in 1930. Its administrative center was the urban-type settlement of Tura. As of 2006, at 767,600 ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

in addition to many parts of eastern Siberia, especially

Sakha Republic Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), is a republics of Russia, republic of Russia, and the largest federal subject of Russia by area. It is located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of one million ...

. The Evens are very closely related to the Evenks by language and culture, and they likewise inhabit various parts of eastern Siberia. People who classify themselves as Evenks in the Russian census tend to live toward the west and toward the south of eastern Siberia, whereas people who classify themselves as Evens tend to live toward the east and toward the north of eastern Siberia, with some degree of overlap in the middle (notably, in certain parts of

). Minor ethnic groups also in the northern branch are the

Negidals Negidals (, "local people"; , ''negidaltsy'') are an Indigenous ethnic group in the Khabarovsk Krai in Russia, who live along the Amgun River and Amur River. The ethnonym "Negidal" is a Russian rendering of the Ewenki term ''ngegida'', which ...

and the Oroqen. The Oroqen,

Solon Solon (; ; BC) was an Archaic Greece#Athens, archaic History of Athens, Athenian statesman, lawmaker, political philosopher, and poet. He is one of the Seven Sages of Greece and credited with laying the foundations for Athenian democracy. ...

, and

Khamnigan The Khamnigan, Hamnigan Mongols, or Tungus Evenki, are an ethnic subgroup of Mongolized Evenks. Khamnigan is the Buryat– Mongolian term for all Ewenkis. In the early 16th century, the Evenks of Transbaikalia or Khamnigans were tributary to the ...

inhabit some parts of

Heilongjiang Province Heilongjiang is a province in northeast China. It is the northernmost and easternmost province of the country and contains China's northernmost point (in Mohe City along the Amur) and easternmost point (at the confluence of the Amur and Ussu ...

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's China–Mongolia border, border with the country of Mongolia. ...

in China, and

and may be considered as subgroups of the Evenk ethnicity, though the Solons and the Khamnigans in particular have interacted closely with Mongolic peoples (

Mongol Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China (Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family of M ...

, Daur, Buryat), and they are ethnographically quite distinct from the Evenks in Russia. The Taz people are unique among Tungusic peoples for having a Sinitic dialect as their native language. They are the result of intermarriages between Han Chinese men and Udege, Nanai, and Oroch women in Outer Manchuria during the Qing dynasty.

Demographics

Tungusic peoples are:

Population genomics

Tungusic, Mongolic, and Turkic peoples all have large amounts of Ancient Northeast Asian ancestry. Northern Mongolic people in Siberia and eastern Tungusic people in Amur River Basin possess mostly Ancient Northeast Asian ancestry, Western Turkic people harbour more Western Eurasian related ancestry, and Southern Mongolic people in China have genetic influence from Neolithic Yellow River Basin (YRB) farmers. Previous studies argued for a potential shared ancestry between Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic, Koreanic, and Japonic populations via Neolithic agriculturalist societies from Northeast China (e.g. the

Liao civilization The Liao Civilization or Liao River Civilization (), named after the Liao River, is an umbrella term for several ancient civilizations that originated in the Liao basin. It is thought to have first formed in 6,200 BC. This civilization was dis ...

) as a part of the hypothetical Altaic language family. However, genetic data contradicts this because while West Liao River ancestry was found among the "macro-Altaic" Koreans and Japanese, it was absent among the "micro-Altaic" Tungusic and Mongolic populations. Other complications of associating the hypothetical Altaic language family to the West Liao River is that the earliest genomes from the West Liao River also contain Yellow River ancestry (which is not found in Amur or Primorye) and that the similarities between

Ancient Northeast Asian In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient Northeast Asian (ANA), also known as Amur ancestry, is the name given to an ancestral component that represents the lineage of the hunter-gatherer people of the 7th–4th millennia before present, in far easte ...

ancestries originating from the West Liao River with those native to the Amur region make such movements into this region difficult to track genetically. The

, the largest Tungusic-speaking population, displays increased genetic affinity with

Han Chinese The Han Chinese, alternatively the Han people, are an East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Greater China. With a global population of over 1.4 billion, the Han Chinese are the list of contemporary ethnic groups, world's la ...

, and

Koreans Koreans are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Korean Peninsula. The majority of Koreans live in the two Korean sovereign states of North and South Korea, which are collectively referred to as Korea. As of 2021, an estimated 7.3 m ...

, compared to with other Tungusic peoples. The Manchu were therefore an exception to the coherent genetic structure of Tungusic-speaking populations, likely due to the large-scale population migrations and genetic admixtures with the Han Chinese in the past few hundred years.

Paternal haplogroups

Tungusic peoples display primarily paternal haplogroups associated with

Ancient Northeast Asians In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient Northeast Asian (ANA), also known as Amur ancestry, is the name given to an ancestral component that represents the lineage of the hunter-gatherer people of the 7th–4th millennia before present, in far easte ...

, and display high affinity to

Mongolic peoples The Mongolic peoples are a collection of East Asian people, East Asian-originated ethnic groups in East Asia, North Asia and Eastern Europe, who speak Mongolic languages. Their ancestors are referred to as Proto-Mongols. The largest contempora ...

as well as other Northeastern Asian populations. Their primarily haplogroup is associated with the C-M217 clade and its subclades. The other dominant haplogroup is

Haplogroup N-M231 Haplogroup N (M231) is a Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup defined by the presence of the single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) marker M231. It is most commonly found in males originating from northern Eurasia. It also has been observed at lower fr ...

, which was found in Neolithic Northeastern Asian societies along the Liao river and widespread throughout Siberia. An exception are modern

Manchu people The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...

which display higher frequency of

Haplogroup O-M122 Haplogroup O-M122 (also known as Haplogroup O2 (formerly Haplogroup O3)) is an Eastern Eurasian Y-chromosome haplogroup. The lineage ranges across Southeast Asia and East Asia, where it dominates the paternal lineages with extremely high freque ...

. 29/97 = 29.9% C-M86 in a sample of Mongols from northwest Mongolia,Natalia Balinova, Helen Post, Siiri Rootsi, ''et al.'' (2019), "Y-chromosomal analysis of clan structure of Kalmyks, the only European Mongol people, and their relationship to Oirat-Mongols of Inner Asia." ''European Journal of Human Genetics'' https://doi.org/10.1038/s41431-019-0399-0

Maternal haplogroups

The maternal haplogroups of Tungusic peoples are primarily shared with other Northern East Asians. Maternal haplogroup diversity seems to reflect some amount of

gene flow In population genetics, gene flow (also known as migration and allele flow) is the transfer of genetic variation, genetic material from one population to another. If the rate of gene flow is high enough, then two populations will have equivalent ...

with peoples living around the

Sea of Okhotsk The Sea of Okhotsk; Historically also known as , or as ; ) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, Japan's island of Hokkaido on the sou ...

(Koryaks, Nivkhs, Ainus, ''etc.'') on the one hand and peoples living in

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

(Iranian, Turkic, Mongolic peoples) on the other. According to a total of 29 sample from the mtDNA studies of Xibo, Oroqen, and

Hezhen The Nanai people () are a Tungusic people of East Asia who have traditionally lived along Heilongjiang (Amur), Songhuajiang (Sunggari) and Wusuli River (Ussuri) on the Middle Amur Basin. The ancestors of the Nanai were the Wild Jurchens of no ...

from

: 283 samples from a mtDNA study of Tungusic Evenks, Evens, and Udeges in Russia published in 2013, their main mtDNA haplogroups are :

Gallery

File:Mazer Portrait of Tungus (1850).jpg, Portrait of a Tungusic man by

Carl Peter Mazer Carl may refer to: *Carl, Georgia, city in USA *Carl, West Virginia, an unincorporated community *Carl (name), includes info about the name, variations of the name, and a list of people with the name *Carl², a TV series * "Carl", List of Aqua Teen ...

(1850) File:Foochow Manchu.jpg, The Manchu people in

Fuzhou Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian, China. The city lies between the Min River (Fujian), Min River estuary to the south and the city of Ningde to the north. Together, Fuzhou and Ningde make up the Eastern Min, Mindong linguistic and cultural regi ...

in 1915 File:Portrait of the Imperial Bodyguard Zhanyinbao.jpg, A

guard File:Evenkshome.jpg, An

wooden home File:Lansdell-1885-p211-Sibo-military-colonists.jpg,

military colonists (1885) File:Udege Family.jpg, An Udege family (early 20th century) File:P270a Drunken Tungus at Vorogovo.jpg, Tungus man in

Vorogovo Vorogovo () is a rural locality (selo) in Turukhansky District, Krasnoyarsk Krai. It had a population of 856 in 2010, a decrease from its 2002 population of 1104. It was one of the last strongholds of the now-extinct Yugh language. Climate Vor ...

, Siberia (1914) File:A Manchu young man dressed in traditional clothes.jpg, A Manchu man in traditional clothing

References

* Mile Nedeljković, Leksikon naroda sveta, Beograd, 2001.

External links

Manchu Tungusic people of China
{{Authority control Ethnic groups in China Ethnic groups in Russia