Nanai language

The Nanai language is spoken by the Nanai people who live in Siberia. It is also used by a smaller group in China, especially in the Heilongjiang area, where people call it Hezhe.

Even though there are around 17,000 Nanai people, only about 1,400 still speak the Nanai language. Most people, especially younger ones, also know how to speak Russian or Chinese, and they often use these languages when they talk to each other.

Nomenclature

In China, the Nanai language is called Hèzhéyǔ. The Nanai people there use several names to refer to themselves, such as /na nio/, /na bəi/, and /na nai/, which all mean "local people". They also use /ki lən/ and /χə ɖʐən/, with the last one being the source of the Chinese name Hezhe.

Geographic distribution

The Nanai language is spoken in several far apart places. In Russia, it is mainly found along the Amur River below Khabarovsk, in areas like Nanai and Amursk. There are also smaller groups near Khabarovsk city and in the Pozharsky District of Primorsky Krai. In China, the language is spoken near the Ussuri River in Heilongjiang.

In Russia, the Nanai language is best kept alive in the Nanai District of Khabarovsk Krai. There, people have been working hard to publish books and textbooks in Nanai. However, only about 100 to 150 native speakers remain there. Most Nanai people now speak Russian instead. In China, studies of the language were done in villages like Jiejinkou, but the youngest fluent speaker was already 55 years old in 1982.

There have been many ways to group the Nanai dialects. Early studies looked at where people lived rather than language differences. Over time, the areas where Nanai is spoken have shrunk, and some dialects have disappeared. Modern classifications try to sort the dialects based on language features, but because people have moved around a lot and schools teach mainly one dialect, it is hard to separate the dialects clearly today.

Pedagogy

The Nanai language is taught in schools in Russia, especially in villages in Khabarovsk Krai.

In China, the Nanai people, also called Hezhe, mainly use Chinese for writing. The number of people who can speak the Nanai language has been getting smaller over many years. By the 1980s, people only used the language in special situations or when talking with family. To help bring the language back, a book for Hezhe school children about the Hezhe language was made in 2005, using pinyin writing.

Phonology

The Nanai language has different sounds depending on the area where it is spoken. In one area, there are seven vowel sounds, and in another area, there are six. These vowels can combine in special ways to form new sounds.

There are also twenty-nine consonant sounds in Nanai. Sometimes, these sounds change depending on what sounds come before or after them.

Different areas where Nanai is spoken have slightly different sounds, influenced by the languages spoken nearby.

Orthography

The Nanai language has had three main ways of writing it down throughout its history. Until the early 1930s, people tried to write it using letters from the Russian alphabet. From 1931 to 1937, they used letters from the Latin alphabet. Since 1937, the Nanai language has used the Russian alphabet again.

The first books in Nanai were printed in the late 1800s by Russian missionaries. In the 1920s and 1930s, Russian language experts helped create the modern written form of Nanai. Today, Nanai uses almost the same letters as Russian.

Nanai Latin script (1931–1937)

In 1930, leaders decided to make a special writing system using Latin letters for small groups of people in the far north, including the Nanai. In January 1932, this new writing system for Nanai was officially approved. Some versions of this alphabet used a special letter, while others used a regular Latin C.

Nanai Cyrillic script (1937 – present)

In June 1936, leaders decided to change the writing system for Nanai and other northern groups to use the Russian alphabet. By early 1937, the Nanai alphabet using Russian letters was approved. It included all Russian letters except two special ones. A certain sound was shown by combining two letters, Нг нг. By 1939, the rules for writing Nanai were set, and in 1958, the alphabet was updated to include all 33 Russian letters plus one extra letter Ӈ ӈ, though many books still used Нг нг.

The current Nanai alphabet was approved in 1993. To show long sounds in educational books, special marks called macrons are placed above the letters.

In China, a book for Nanai schools was published in 1987 with texts in both Chinese and Nanai. The Nanai text in this book used Pinyin, a way of writing Chinese sounds with Latin letters.

Alphabet matching table

Lexicon

The Nanai language includes many words borrowed from other languages. For example, it has words like [ʐili] for "calendar," which came from Chinese. Other words, such as [pomidor] for "tomato," likely came from Russian or nearby languages.

Nanai also shares some words with Mongolian and Turkic languages. For instance, [sal] means "beard" in Nanai, similar to words in Mongolian and other related languages. These shared words might be borrowings, or they could hint at an ancient connection between the languages.

Nanai has also influenced the Udege language, which has very few speakers today. Some Udege words, like [banixe] for "thank you," come from Nanai. This shows how the two languages have mixed together, especially in areas where people live close to each other.

Sample text

Here is an example of text from a Bible translation that was published in 2002.