Proto-Tungusic, sometimes called Proto-Tungus–Manchu, is the reconstructed ancestor of the endangered Tungusic languages. Although its modern descendants are spoken over a wide area across the Russian Far East and northern China, linguists have narrowed the proto-language's origins to the area from around Lake Khanka southward toward the modern China–North Korea–Russia tripoint. Estimates of when the language was spoken vary somewhat, but it is believed to have been spoken around the turn of the first millennium AD. There is no consensus on precisely how the modern Tungusic languages are descended from Proto-Tungusic, but it eventually divided into four subfamilies: Ewenic, Udiheic, Nanaic, and Jurchenic.
The phonology of Proto-Tungusic is the subject of scholarly debate. Linguists are divided on how many vowels and diphthongs Proto-Tungusic had, as well as how to categorize the language's consonants. However, like other languages in the region, Proto-Tungusic exhibited vowel harmony, traditionally split into "male" and "female" categories. The exact mechanism by which these vowels were divided also remains the subject of debate, but the harmony system was governed either by vowel backness or by a retracted tongue root (RTR). Harmony was dictated by a word's first vowel and stress likely fell on the first syllable.
Grammatically, Proto-Tungusic was agglutinative and declined for number and case. It had at least two noun classes, which generally distinguished countable from uncountable nouns, and differentiated between alienable and inalienable possession. Proto-Tungusic had a constituent word order of subject–object–verb (SOV) and was head final. The language's vocabulary was heavily influenced by its neighboring languages, particularly Proto-Turkic and Proto-Mongolic. As Tungusic-speaking peoples spread from their homeland, they appear to have slowly and mostly peacefully linguistically assimilated speakers of other languages; the effect of those languages on Tungusic is unclear.
History Proto-Tungusic is the reconstructed ancestor of the Tungusic languages. These languages are spoken or attested largely in the Russian Far East and Manchuria, though a handful are found in Siberia and the Xinjiang region of Western China. Linguists have identified about twenty Tungusic languages, which taken together comprise fewer than 100,000 modern speakers in total; all Tungusic languages are either endangered or extinct. Aside from the Jurchenic subfamilywhich includes the Manchu, Xibe, and Jurchen languagesmost Tungusic languages are poorly documented and none have any ancient manuscripts.
Reconstructions of Proto-Tungusic go at least as far back as 1949, with the work of Russian linguist entitled ('Comparative Phonetics of the Tunguso-Manchurian Languages'). This was later followed up with the comparative work ('The Tungusic Languages: An Attempt at a Comparative Grammar') by the German linguist Johannes Benzing in 1955. These two are considered the classic sources for reconstructions of Proto-Tungusic and remain highly regarded.
Origins Dating Proto-Tungusic was probably spoken about two thousand years ago, sometime roughly between 500 BC and 500 AD. While there is some disagreement about the precise timing, all scientific estimates fall between 600 BC and 700 AD. Evidence for this time frame coincides with the region's Iron Age, as vocabulary for relatively complex metallurgical concepts are reconstructable to Proto-Tungusic. Compared to other proto-languages, this is relatively recent, especially given the wideness with which these languages are spread.
There is some evidence that the Tungusic languages appear to have begun fragmenting around the same time as the collapse of the Han dynasty in 220 AD. During this period, the Tungusic ethnonym changed to in the Chinese dynastic chronicles. A 2022 Bayesian inference suggests a breakup around 1 AD, which supports earlier analyses. Once Proto-Tungusic had begun its fragmentation, it is unclear how the daughter languages should be understood phylogenetically. Currently, there are four universally accepted subfamilies: Ewenic, Udiheic, Nanaic, and Jurchenic. There are currently four competing theories as to linguistic descent from Proto-Tungusic: +Ewenic-firstNorth–South splitJurchenic-then-NanaicJurchenic-then-Ewenic The Finnish linguist Juha Janhunen considers the main division to be between Northern Tungusic (Ewenic and Udiheic) and Southern Tungusic (Nanaic and Jurchenic), though he concedes that this division may have been the result of earlier splits in the family. He considers the four-branch approach as potentially legitimate, if somewhat conservative.
During the first millennium AD, the Liao River basin appears to have divided the Tungusic and Mongolic peoples, with Tungusic peoples occupying the eastern side of the basin and being predominately Jurchenic speaking. The Jin Empire (1115–1234) was a Jurchen-speaking state, and Tungusic languages were likely the languages of the Korean dynasties which ruled the Parhae and Goguryeo kingdoms as well. Later splits are much more recent. The split between Xibe and Manchu, for example, can be dated to 1764, when the Xibe people were forcibly removed from Manchuria to Xinjiang.
Urheimat
The geographic origin of Proto-Tungusic has been the subject of scholarly debate. Early attempts to discern the location focused on lexical and archeological studies of remains, but more modern investigations have also included DNA analysis. Genetic evidence through the Tungusic-associated haplogroup C-M217 has helped determine location. Ancient genetic data from around the Devil's Gate maps closest to Tungusic groups when European admixture from Northwestern Tungusic groups, such as the Evens and Evenki, is accounted for. This places Tungusic origins as somewhere in Amur River region of the Russian Far East, though this timeframe suggests a period around 6000 BC, long before estimates of when Proto-Tungusic is estimated to have been spoken.
Given the clustering of Tungusic languages along the Sea of Japan, most proposals have been located at various points along its Russian coastline or interior, though a handful of older proposals have suggested origins around Lake Baikal. The Lake Baikal hypothesis, however, has been rejected, as the linguistic evidence demonstrates that certain reconstructable terms for flora are not attested in the Baikal region. Words for trees like Manchurian ash (), Mongolian poplar (), Amur linden (), and candle-shape maple () are all reconstructable to Proto-Tungusic, but none of these varieties are found in the area around Lake Baikal.
More recently, linguists such as Martine Robbeets have identified the area from around Lake Khanka down toward the modern-day China–North Korea–Russia tripoint as a better candidate for the origins of Proto-Tungusic. One piece of evidence toward this conclusion is that Proto-Tungusic distinguished between pine generally (), and two specific species: creeping pine () and Korean pine (), the latter of which only grows in a limited area. Archeobotanical evidence shows that dwelling pits in the southern Primorye area from as early as 1300 BC contain the shells of Korean pine nuts. This has been cited as strong contributing evidence in placing Proto-Tungusic's origins around Lake Khanka.
Language contact and vocabulary Over the course of relatively little time, the Tungusic languages spread throughout a wide area of Northeast Asia. They have been in near-constant contact with over a dozen other language families, both during and probably before the Proto-Tungusic period. Historically, influence from the Mongolic and Amuric languages strongly affected Tungusic, though the modern descendants more influenced by the ubiquity of Chinese and Russian in their respective countries. Old Chinese, however, did have contact with Proto-Tungusic; the Proto-Tungusic term ('barley and similar crops') is a loanword from Old Chinese (; 'a kind of wheat'), which maps with the archeological evidence of barley's introduction to the Iron Age south of Lake Khanka.
Much of the Proto-Tungusic vocabulary was borrowed, especially from the neighboring Turkic and Mongolic languages. The Mongolic languages in particular had a long and deep effect on the Tungusic vocabulary. Often, Turkic terms were borrowed through a Mongolic intermediary and vice versa. For example, the Proto-Turkic term ('sheep') passed to Proto-Mongolic as or and then into Proto-Tungusic as or . How these words entered Proto-Tungusic suggests that the language was spoken during the same period as the other two proto-languages. Much of the Mongolic vocabulary was spread by the Manchu, though among the northern Tungusic languages, the dispersal of both Turkic and Mongolic loans occurred through their interactions with the Yakut and their language. Later on, Turkic and Mongolic borrowings were then re-borrowed from one Tungusic language to another through their own interactions with each other.
Proto-Tungusic also shares some vocabulary with the nearby Nivkh language, as in Proto-Tungusic and Nivkh (), both meaning 'pig'. It is not clear, however, which language borrowed from which. The northward push of some Northern Tungus–speaking peoples into the Russian Far East probably displaced Nivkh- and other Amuric-speaking peoples. The spread of Ewenic-speaking peoples seems to correspond with the spread of the Mongol Empire along its northern border, possibly spurred on by a Dagur invasion of the original Ewenic homeland in Manchuria during the 10th and 11th centuries. Northern Tungus-speaking peoples also had contact with speakers of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages, from whom they borrowed substantial vocabulary early in their development. Similarly, the Southern Tungusic languages were affected typologically by their interactions with contemporary Chinese speakers and other languages in the area.
The Tungusic peoples appear to mostly have assimilated other peoples linguistically as they spread outward without significant violence or drastic replacement. Evidence of pre-Tungusic languages is retained in some toponyms, but it is not clear what languages these people spoke. It is possible they spoke Samoyedic or related Uralic languages, or perhaps some unrecorded Paleo-Siberian language. The effect of these languages on the Tungusic languages is more difficult to determine. The Northern Tungusic languages have many early borrowings unique to their group, while the Southern group has nearly none.
The Tungusic languages have also been in relatively constant contact with each other. This has led linguists to draw a distinction between common elements from language contact with other Tungusic languages, termed "Common Tungusic features", and common elements derived from their common Proto-Tungusic ancestor. According to the Russian linguist Alexander Pevnov, part of the problem with classifying the descendant subfamilies is that the linguistic changes are "not only of divergence, but also of convergence". Proto-Tungusic affected its neighbors as well. The Proto-Mongolic term ('smoke-hole') was probably borrowed from Proto-Tungusic ('smoke-hole, door'), and Proto-Mongolic ('snare') also appears to be a borrowing from Proto-Tungusic .
Phonology Vowels Proto-Tungusic had an eight-vowel system, with both long and short pairs. This system was as follows, with long vowels represented with duplicated vowels: +FrontCentralBackunroundedroundedClose* *ii*ü *üü*ï *ïï* *uuMid*e *ee*ö *öö* *ooOpen*a *aa