i Endangered Tongue: Manchu speakers in China | Bureau of His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Endangered Tongue: Manchu speakers in China

Dec. 30 (Radio Free Asia): Experts say less than 70 people now speak the Manchu language in China. While more than 100 million people in China are currently classified by the government as Manchurian in ethnicity, almost none of them speaks their ancestral tongue. Manchu, once the official language of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), lost its political weight with the dynasty’s fall, triggered by the 1911 revolution led by Sun Yat-sen.

Full story: http://bit.ly/hNHh5P