Interesting article in yesterday’s NYT on the Manchu language in China (hat tip: Kate Merkel-Hess). In the village of Sanjiazi, in Heilongjiang near the border with Inner Mongolia, 18 residents, all octogenarians, represent China’s last native speakers of Manchu.
With the passing of these villagers, Manchu will also die, experts say. All that will be left will be millions of documents and files — about 60 tons of Manchu-language documents are in the provincial archive in Harbin alone — along with inscriptions on monuments and important buildings in China, unintelligible to all but a handful of specialists.
“I think it is inevitable,” said Zhao Jinchun, an ethnic Manchu born in Sanjiazi who taught at the village primary school for more than two decades before becoming a government official in Qiqihar, a city about 30 miles to the south. “It is just a matter of time. The Manchu language will face the same fate as some other ethnic minority languages in China and be overwhelmed by the Chinese language and culture.”
Perhaps some in China will wonder, “So what? The Manchus became Chinese a long time ago.”
It’s a common myth and a necessary one because the