Language
The Xibe in northeast China speak Chinese as their first language. In Xinjiang, descendants of the Qing dynasty military garrison preserve their language, which is a dialect of the Manchu. Unlike the Manchu language, the Xibe language is reported to have eight vowel distinctions as opposed to the six found in Manchu, differences in morphology, and a complex kind of vowel harmony. The general vocabulary and structure of Xibe has not been affected as much by the influence of Chinese as Manchu has been. However, there are a number of Chinese loanwords, and a large body of sociological terminology, such as gəming (revolution) and gungshə (commune), have been borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the everyday vocabulary of the language. They use the Xibe script, a slightly revised Manchu script.
Read more about this topic: Xibe People
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Which I wish to remark—
And my language is plain—
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And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar:
Which the same I would rise to explain.”
—Bret Harte (1836–1902)
“The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise.”
—Edward Gibbon (1737–1794)
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—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)