Tungusic

The Tungusic or Manchu-Tungus languages are spoken across eastern Siberia, Manchuria and the Amur basin, and divide into northern and southern branches. Their common ancestor, Proto-Tungusic, is placed in the middle Amur or Lake Khanka region, from which Tungusic speakers spread north into Siberia during the early centuries of the Common Era.

The earliest written member is Jurchen, the language of the Jin dynasty that ruled northern China from 1115 to 1234; in 1119 Wanyan Xiyin devised a Jurchen script modelled on Khitan writing, preserved on stelae such as the victory monument erected in 1185.

In 1599 Nurhaci had a Manchu alphabet adapted from Mongolian script, and in 1635 Hong Taiji renamed Jurchen Manchu, in which the Qing empire kept official records. Other Siberian and Amur tongues long remained unwritten vernaculars of reindeer herders, hunters and fishing peoples.