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
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—E.E. (Edward Estlin)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)