Still, the origin of Udihe vocalism is hard to explain. Using Edward Sapir's term "drift", it can be said that in Udihe and in neighbouring Oroch varieties there was an influence of a certain "constant factor". This had to be some peculiarities of articulation that were not characteristic of other Manchu-Tungusic languages. A large amount of Udihe common words are of non-Tungusic origin: *gəʰə* 'bad', *duʰi* 'brain', *ʒaʰi* 'wild boar', *təʰu* 'all', *'ana* 'boat ', *d'a* 'cotton wool'; *gob'o* 'a fly', *'asa* 'bay'; *t'aŋki* 'middle', *s'ai* 'salt', *kæfakta* 'firewood' as well as the word *asasa* 'thank you' and some others. On a rather cautious assumption, Udihe was influenced by a non-Tungusic language, previously present in this area, but not Chinese.

### **6 Conclusions**

In the dialects of the southern cluster, three types of vowels correspond to the four types of vowels characteristic of the northern dialect cluster of Udihe.

The decrease in pitch on a laryngealized vowel is characteristic of all Udihe varieties, but in the dialects of the northern cluster the low pitch was a sideeffect of vowel laryngealization. In Bikin and Iman, due to the gradual loss of creaky phonation in allegro mode, low pitch became the main distinctive feature of laryngealized vowels in some idiolects.

All Udihe varieties are characterized by a specific prosodic structure of the word. The word has minimally two moras, and consist of an initial and final rhythmic part that differ by suprasegmental pattern. This was noted by researchers of Udihe before (Simonov 1988). Still it was often interpreted in terms of "stress" (accent): Šneider and Sunik wrote that an Udihe word has two stresses, one of which falls on the initial syllable of the word, and the other on the final

### Elena Perekhvalskaya

syllable (Šneider 1936; Sunik 1968). The term stress or accent is not appropriate here. It is the prosodic structure of the word that is contrastive: words with similar segmental chains can differ by their prosodic structure.

Contrastive prosodic patterns depend on the presence of a laryngealized vowel and on its place in the word. Contrastive prosodic patterns are, in fact, linguistic tones. Thus, Udihe and especially its southern varieties became a tonal language of the type of languages with low tone density, like Scandinavian dialects or Latvian.

Further research is hindered by the fact that suprasegmental patterns in modern versions of Udihe are lost due to the influence of Russian.

The study of Udihe varieties shows how conventional the line between synchronic and diachronic descriptions of language can be. A synchronic description and comparison of modern varieties can shed light on the history of these varieties.

The study of the Udihe dialect continuum reveals the internal mechanisms of language change. It becomes obvious that in all territorial varieties of the Udihe language, similar trends acted, but in different areas they appeared with different degrees of intensity. The internal "structure" of the dialect continuum has been demonstrated: the allegro-style of one dialect corresponds to the full style of the neighbouring dialect, which produces a new allegro-style, and so on.

It is easy to see that each dialect is an independent system that is not reducible to the system of another dialect. At the same time, mutual understanding between speakers of different dialects is preserved and can be quite easy.

As a result of these considerations, it becomes clear that the idea of the unity of "language" (the concept of "such and such a language") in the absence of codification is often misleading and causes disputes among linguists. "One language" is an abstraction. In reality, there are specific systems – idiolects that can be combined into dialects, language varieties and separate languages. However, the higher the taxon, the more likely it is that the various systems are combined. The foregoing does not apply only to cases where the "language" means a codified norm.

### **Abbreviations**

### **Acknowledgements**

I use this opportunity and thank all the participants of my field trips to the Russian Far East. I would like to express my particular gratitude to Natalia Kuznetsova, who helped to collect high-quality data on the phonetics of Udihe varieties, as well as to Kirill Maslinskij, who greatly helped in the interpretation of the material.

The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, grant 20-18- 00250 "Tonal languages of the world: on-line data base and atlas".

### **References**

## **Chapter 8**

## **Proto-Tungusic in time and space**

### Martine Robbeets

Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History & Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz

### Sofia Oskolskaya

Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences

Although there is a general consensus among historical comparative linguists that the Tungusic languages are genealogically related and descend from a common ancestral language, the internal structure of the family, its age, homeland and prehistoric cultural context remain subject to debate. In addition to four competing concepts of classification, the linguistic literature yields a wide range of time estimations for the family covering more than a millennium as well as four different proposals with regard to the location of the homeland covering Eastern Siberia and Manchuria. Here we will combine the power of traditional comparative historical linguistics and computational phylogenetics to shed light on the prehistory of the Tungusic languages. Our aim is to build on a recent Bayesian verification of the Tungusic family and examine its implications in determining a plausible time depth, location and cultural context of the ancestral proto-Tungusic speech community. We will compare spatial inferences based on two different statistically well-supported Tungusic classifications, namely one in which the break-up of Manchuric constitutes the first split in the family as well as a North-South classification with a northern branch including Even, Evenki, Negidal, Oroqen, Solon, Oroch and Udehe as opposed to a southern branch including Manchuric and Nanaic languages. Situating Proto-Tungusic in time and space, we will estimate the break-up of Proto-Tungusic in the beginning of the first millennium and place its homeland in the area around Lake Khanka. Our study pushes the field forward in answering some tantalizing questions about the prehistory of the Tungusic family, providing a quantitative basis for some conflicting hypotheses and in triangulating linguistics, archaeology and genetics into a holistic approach to the Tungusic past.

Martine Robbeets & Sofia Oskolskaya. 2022. Proto-Tungusic in time and space. In Andreas Hölzl & Thomas E. Payne (eds.), *Tungusic languages: Past and present*, 263–294. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo. 7053373

Martine Robbeets & Sofia Oskolskaya

### **1 Introduction**

The Tungusic language family is distributed over a vast area in China and Russia, ranging from the Sea of Okhotsk in the east to the Yenisei Basin in the west, and from the Bohai Sea in the south to the Arctic Ocean in the north. Figure 1 shows the distribution of 12 Tungusic languages, notably Oroch, Udehe, Hezhe,1 Nanai, Orok, Ulch, Xibe, Even, Solon, Evenki, Negidal and Oroqen, as well as dialectal varieties.2 Whereas the four Nanaic varieties, Hezhe (Heilongjiang), Najkhin Nanai (Middle-lower Amur), Kur-Urmi Nanai (Khabarovsk) and Bikin Nanai (Ussuri), are so diverse that it is not clear whether they should be considered dialects or separate languages, the Momsky and Olsky Even doculects show less internal variation. The map in Figure 1 further shows two historical varieties, notably Jurchen and Manchu. Since written materials in Jurchen, the now extinct language of the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), are only partially deciphered, the earliest well documented stage is Manchu, the official language of the Qing dynasty (1636–1911).

There is a general consensus that the Tungusic languages are genealogically related and descend from a common ancestral language, conventionally called "Proto-Tungusic". However, due to the wide geographical distribution and the considerable internal variation of these languages, the internal family structure along with its root age and homeland are subject to debate. Here we will combine the power of traditional comparative historical linguistics and computational phylogenetics to shed light on the prehistory of the Tungusic languages. Our aim is to build on recent Bayesian analyses of the Tungusic family and examine their implications for determining a plausible time depth and location of the ancestral proto-Tungusic speech community. In addition, we would like to shed light on the factors that drove early Tungusic language spread.

To this end, we will organize our paper as follows. In §2, we will summarize how the recent application of Bayesian inference methods was able to quantify the reliability of previously proposed classifications of the Tungusic family. In §3, we will compare the time range of Tungusic, previously inferred by various linguistic dating techniques, against the quantitative basis provided by Bayesian analysis. In §4, we will test various competing hypotheses concerning the possible homeland of Proto-Tungusic, applying the diversity hotspot principle on the best supported tree models. Finally, we will map our linguistic inferences about Tungusic prehistory on findings from archaeology and genetics in a holistic approach, for which we use the term "triangulation".

1We use the term *Hezhe* as a cover term for the Kilen and Hezhen dialects and used sources for both dialects.

2We used Natural Earth vector map data for the maps printed in this chapter, which are available in the public domain from https://www.naturalearthdata.com/.

Figure 1: The distribution of the Tungusic languages

### **2 Family structure**

### **2.1 Previous classifications**

Previous studies of the internal taxonomy of the Tungusic family reach different results, particularly with respect to the early separation of the Manchuric (Jurchen, Manchu, Xibe) branch.3 Cincius (1949), Benzing (1956), Menges (1968: 27) and, more recently, Kormušin (1998), Georg (2004) and Janhunen (2012) proposed a binary north-south classification, in which the separation of Manchuric from the other Tungusic languages does not constitute the earliest split in the family (Figure 2a). The classical approaches by Cincius, Benzing and Menges separated a Northern branch consisting of Evenki, Even, Solon and Negidal from the rest of the Tungusic languages, while the more recent approaches added Oroch and Udehe to the Northern branch instead (Figure 2b). Sunik (1959: 333–335), Vasilevič (1960: 44), Doerfer (1978: 5), Vovin (1993: 102), Whaley et al. (1999: 291), Robbeets (2015), Robbeets & Bouckaert (2018), Dybo & Korovina (2019) and Whaley & Oskolskaya (2020) all argued for an early breakup between Manchuric and the rest of Tungusic, even if their precise configurations do not overlap in each detail (Figure 2c). Moreover, Ikegami (1974) proposed a polytopology, distinguishing as many as four branches, namely Manchuric, Evenic, Nanaic and Udeheic (Figure

3The term Manchuric is used elsewhere in literature to designate this branch, see among others Alonso de la Fuente (2011) and Robbeets & Savelyev (2020).

### Martine Robbeets & Sofia Oskolskaya

2d).4 The basic configuration of these four topologies is represented in Figure 2.

Except for Dybo & Korovina's (2019) classification, which is based on lexicostatistics, the majority of previous research is based on the traditional Maximum Parsimony method. This approach used by historical comparative linguists, seeks a tree that explains a dataset by minimizing the number of evolutionary changes required to produce the observed data. Lexicostatistics is an early and less reliable form of statistical tree-building, which uses the shared cognate proportion in a basic vocabulary list as a distance metric to estimate linguistic relationships.

The Bayesian method seeks to explain a set of observed data by quantifying how likely it is that they have been produced by a certain model. As this is a statistical approach in which all forms of uncertainty are expressed in terms of probability, it can contribute to the current state of the art by verifying which of the models in Figure 2 is best supported by the data by quantifying the statistical robustness of different proposals and by inferring absolute divergence dates. In this way, a Bayesian approach can provide a quantitative basis for previous classifications based on classical historical linguistic approaches. Here we aim at interpreting the results of a recent Bayesian analysis of the Tungusic family (Oskolskaya et al. 2022) and at inferring spatiotemporal and cultural patterns of Tungusic linguistic dispersal.

### **2.2 A recent Bayesian approach to the classification of the Tungusic languages**

Oskolskaya et al. (2022) took a Bayesian approach to the classification of the Tungusic languages, based on the dataset of 254 basic vocabulary items collected for 21 Tungusic varieties. The maximum clade credibility tree in Figure 3, which is the best supported tree among all trees generated by applying different evolutionary models, summarizes the results of this study.5

The trees underlying Figure 3 were generated running the software BEAST 2.4.7 (Bouckaert et al. 2014), which only allows for a binary structure of splits. Jurchen, which is usually considered as a direct ancestor of Manchu is represented as a separate branch because a written standard is never considered directly ancestral to a spoken variety. The model thus assumes that Jurchen and Manchu-Xibe have separated from a common ancestor, spoken at some point in the past.

4 Some authors, such as Ikegami and Janhunen used a different terminology for these groupings, but for reason of accessibility, we use a consistent terminology here.

5All datasets and coding details are accessible through the supplementary information in Oskolskaya et al. (2022).

Figure 2: Basic configuration distinguishing four topologies for the Tungusic family: a. Classical North-South classification; b. Revised North-South classification; c. Manchu-Tungusic classification; d. Quadruple topology

Figure 3: Maximum clade credibility tree (Binary covarion, no gamma variation, relaxed clock) for the Tungusic family (Oskolskaya et al. 2022)

The numbers on the nodes show the posterior probability, which qualifies the statistical robustness of each clade. The higher the number, the more probable the existence of the clade. We can thus safely establish a Northern Tungusic branch (posterior probability = 1), a Nanaic branch with Najkhin Nanai, Orok and Ulch (posterior probability = 0.99) and a Manchuric branch, probably including Hezhe besides Jurchen, Manchu and Xibe (posterior probability = 0.97). With posterior probabilities below 0,80, the exact position in the tree of Udihe, Oroch, Kur-Urmi, Bikin Nanai and the cluster Orok-Ulch-Nakjin Nanai is less secure, but it is interesting to note that the tree in Figure 3 does not support a monophyletic cluster composed by Oroch and Udihe.6

Taking into account the probabilities of the branches, the tree in Figure 3 supports two basic classifications previously proposed in the literature, the revised

6Perekhvalskaya (2022 [this volume]) proposes that Udihe, Oroch, and Kyakala are the ends of a continuum.

North-South classification (Figure 2b) and the Manchu-Tungusic classification (Figure 2c). According to Oskolskaya et al. (2022), the revised North-South classification with a binary split between Manchuric and Nanaic on the one hand and Northern Tungusic, Udehe and Oroch on the other is best supported (i.e. in 48,3% of generated trees), while the Manchu-Tungusic classification (Figure 2c) is also highly probable (31,1% of trees). The other two classifications, namely the classical North-South and the quadruple classification presented in Figures 2a and 2d, are excluded by this analysis.

### **3 Age**

### **3.1 Previous dating**

As shown in Table 1, different linguistic dating principles yield a time range for the primary breakup of Proto-Tungusic between 950 BC and AD 700. Applying lexicostatistic methods, Dybo & Korovina (2019) dated Proto-Tungusic to around 950 BC, while Korovina (2011) dated it to the sixth century BC, but other distance-based methods, such as the Automated Similarity Judgment Program (ASJP) yielded much younger dates, notably AD 681 (Holman et al. 2011: 854). Distance-based methods use a distant metric, such as the lost cognate proportion or the number of operations required to turn one string of phonemes into another, to infer the time depth of language separation. However, as they assume a constant rate of loss over time, their results are not generally accepted. Another loose dating principle that is not entirely foolproof is tracing the primary break-up of Proto-Tungusic back to certain ethnonym shifts. Referring to the name change in Chinese dynastic chronicles of the Tungusic ethnonym "Yilou" to "Wuji", Robbeets (2015: 16–18) situated the break-up of Proto-Tungusic at the end of the Han period (206 BC–AD 220). On the basis of a rough measure of mutual intelligibility, Pevnov (2012: 32) estimated that Proto-Tungusic could not be younger than two thousand years.

Reconstructing the vocabulary of a proto-language, we can examine the cultural and ecological concepts revealed in it. The time when some of these concepts became available to the speakers of the proto-language can also serve as an indication for the language family's time depth. In line with Janhunen's (2012: 8) findings, an Iron Age dating of Proto-Tungusic is supported by the reconstruction of PTg \**sele* 'iron', reflected in Evenki *sele*, Even *hel*, Neg. *sele*, Solon *sele*, Xibe *selǝ*, Manchu *sele*, Jur. \**sele*, Ulch *sele*, Orok *sele*, Nanai *sele*, Oroch *sele* and Udihe *sele*. Although a single reconstruction, which is not backed up by other vocabulary items, cannot provide us with a reliable chronology, the Iron Age dating

### Martine Robbeets & Sofia Oskolskaya

of Proto-Tungusic is further corroborated by contact linguistics. As words have travelled between languages since prehistoric times, giving voice to new ideas and names to new products and practices, we expect to observe links between cultural diffusion and prehistoric borrowing. One possible candidate for such a link is PTg \**murgi*, the reconstructed term for 'barley and similar crops'. There is reason to believe that this word is borrowed from an Old Chinese donor word 來 \**mə.rˤək* > \**mə.rˤə* 'a kind of wheat' (Robbeets 2017b: 28–29). The linguistic reconstruction can be correlated to the archaeological evidence for barley being first imported through Chinese contact at the time of the Krounovskaya culture (600 BC–AD 200), situated in the Southern Primorye around Lake Khanka (Sergusheva & Vostretsov 2009: 214–215). This culture also marks the beginning of the Early Iron Age in the Russian Far East with the first uncontested finds of iron. Therefore, on the basis of contact studies, the break-up of Proto-Tungusic has been dated to the period between 600 BC and AD 200.

Table 1: The estimated time of separation of Proto-Tungusic according to different linguistic dating principles

### **3.2 Dating through Bayesian inference**

The Bayesian method calibrates the divergence time of the root and the nodes in a language family against known cases of language divergence over attested timespans and quantifies how likely it is that the inferred time depth falls within a certain density interval. For calculating the divergence time of the root and the nodes in Tungusic tree, Oskolskaya et al. (2022) calibrated the tree in three nodes.

First, they estimated a time depth for the transition from Jurchen into Manchu and inserted it as a calibration point. To this end, they used the time of the first known Manchu manuscript which is dated to 1599 (Gorelova 2002: 50). The logic

is that Jurchen is no longer attested by that period and had thus ceased to exist before 1599. Therefore, 351 years before present (conventionally before 1950) was used as an estimation for the separation time between Jurchen and Manchu– Xibe. However, as the model assumes that Jurchen and Manchu–Xibe already separated before the time that Jurchen was first attested, thus before 1185, a separation time that aligns with the model should be at least 765 years before present. This difference of at least 400 years is expected to yield a later date for the calculated time depth of Proto-Tungusic than the real one.

The second calibration point is the time of the split between the Xibe and Manchu languages, 186 years ago. This is based on the dating of the resettlement of Xibe populations to the northwest of China in 1764 (Gorelova 2002: 31).

The third calibration point is the time of the first break-up of Evenki, which had taken place already before 1723, i.e. more than 227 years ago. According to Vasilevič (1969), D. G. Messerschmidt in his fieldnotes in 1723 provided vocabulary collected from various Evenki people in different regions. His data show that there were at least two dialects that can be associated with the modern distinction between the Northern versus the Southern and Eastern dialects. Thus, the first break-up of Evenki had already taken place by that time.

Using these three calibration points to calibrate the tree, Bayesian analysis infers a time depth for the root and nodes in the Tungusic tree, as shown in Figure 4. 7

All dates in Figure 4 indicate a time "before present", conventionally before 1950. Each bar shows a time range, in which a specific split has taken place with a 95% higher posterior density interval (HPDI). The time depth of the primary split is particularly relevant for our present study. The credible interval for this split covers about 1800 years (737 BC–1154 AD), which implies that there are not enough data for more precise results. Nevertheless, the median of this bar is around 1500 BP, i.e. AD 450.

It should be noted that the three calibration points refer to relatively recent events and present upper limits after which the separation cannot have taken place. This could lead to a bias in the estimation of the time-depth of the Tungusic tree, by which the estimated age would be younger than the real age. This effect is increased by the fact that the split between Jurchen and Manchu-Xibe should be calibrated at least 400 years earlier. Therefore, it is probable that the actual break-up of Proto-Tungusic took place several centuries before the inferred date of AD 450, probably in the beginning of the first millennium AD, as implied in the hypotheses provided by Janhunen (2012), Pevnov (2012), Robbeets (2015) and Robbeets et al. (2020).

7The detailed information of this analysis is described in Oskolskaya et al. (2022).

Figure 4: Bayesian age estimation for the nodes in the Tungusic tree (Oskolskaya et al. 2022)

### **4 Homeland**

### **4.1 Previous proposals**

As indicated on the map in Figure 5, there are four competing hypotheses with regard to the possible homeland of Proto-Tungusic, notably (1) the Baikal region (Vasilevič 1960; Menges 1968: 23; Derevyanko 1976; Helimski 1985: 279), (2) the Mid Amur and the lower part of the Upper Amur region (Tugolukov 1980; Janhunen 1996: 169; Korovina 2011; Pevnov 2012; Wichmann p.c., 2019.10.03; Pugach et al. 2016), (3) the region around Lake Khanka (Robbeets 2020; Wang & Robbeets 2020) and (4) the Yalu River region on the border between present-day Liaoning and Northern Korea (Janhunen 2012). The evidence in support of the Baikal region comes mainly from prehistoric contact linguistics assuming ethnolinguistic interaction with ancient speakers of Amuric, Samoyedic, Mongolic and Yeniseic. An original location in the Mid and Upper Amur region is supported by various

approaches: Janhunen (1996: 169) provides ethnolinguistic indications; Korovina (2011) reconstructs names for insects, reptiles, shellfish and fish; Pevnov (2012) combines toponyms with reconstructed river vocabulary and tree names; and Wichmann takes a computer-automated approach to the diversity hotspot principle. The region around Lake Khanka is supported by the diversity hotspot principle and cultural reconstruction, while the Yalu River region is proposed on the basis of a general northward trend of expansion.

Figure 5: Proposed locations for the homeland of Proto-Tungusic: (1) the Baikal region; (2) the Mid Amur and the lower part of the Upper Amur region; (3) the region around Lake Khanka; (4) the Yalu River region

Martine Robbeets & Sofia Oskolskaya

### **4.2 Diversity hotspot principle**

The "diversity hotspot principle" is based on the assumption that the homeland is closest to where one finds the greatest diversity with regard to the deepest subgroups of the language family. It follows that the primary splits in the family are determinants for the location of the homeland. In the case of the Tungusic family, this implies that depending on which of the four classifications in Figure 2 we favor, the center of primary diversity – and thus also the inferred location of the homeland – will move on the map. The resulting locations are situated on the map in Figure 6. Whereas the classical north-south classification pushes the homeland to the north towards the Upper to Mid Amur region (Figure 6a), the revised north-south, the Manchu-Tungusic and the quadruple classifications pull it more southwards towards the Mid Amur region immediately north of Lake Khanka (Figure 6b), the area around Lake Khanka (Figure 6c) and Manchuria (Figure 6d), respectively.

Although the diversity hotspot principle can provide some clues about the homeland of a language family, it must also contend with several limitations (Wang & Robbeets 2020): the contemporary hotspot of linguistic diversity may diverge from the earlier one or the principle may be upset when a migration was suddenly directed over a long distance rather than representing slow, gradual and random movement into adjacent areas. The Xibe populations, for instance, were suddenly resettled to the west in the 18th century and northern Tungusic populations, such as the Evenki and Even, are extremely mobile. Nevertheless, we can gain more from applying the diversity hotspot principle to Tungusic, than we can lose from ignoring it, because it helps us to set up hypotheses about homelands and it makes us aware of the interconnection between internal family structure and the identification of a homeland.

Since our Bayesian analysis presented in Oskolskaya et al. (2022) and summarized in §2.2 supports the classifications represented in Figure 6b/c, it indicates that the original homeland of the Proto-Tungusic speech community was situated in the area around lake Khanka or immediately to the north of it. This location is corroborated by Wichmann et al.'s (2010) attempt to formalize the diversity hotspot principle in a computer-automated approach. Taking into account 11 Tungusic languages, notably Even, Evenki, Negidal, Oroqen, Naykhin Nanai, Oroch, Orok, Ulch, Udehe, Manchu and Xibe, they compute a diversity measure for each language and identify the homeland with the location of Naykhin Nanai, the language with the highest diversity measure.8 The location of Naykhin Nanai

8Wichmann et al.'s measure of diversity is derived as the proportion / of the linguistic distance and the geographical distance between two languages. By way of linguistic distance, they use the *Levenshtein distance*, which is the minimum number of substitutions necessary to transform one string of phonemes into another in a subset of 40 basic vocabulary items.

at latitude 49.28 and longitude 136.47 is equated with that of the Tungusic homeland. As more southern varieties such as Solon on the Nonni River in Inner Mongolia and Bikin Nanai in the southern part of the Primorye province as well as Hezhe in Heilongjiang are lacking from this analysis, we may expect the real diversity hotspot to be slightly more to the south than the inferred one.

Figure 6: Diversity hotspot of the Tungusic languages under the four proposed classifications

### **5 Triangulation**

### **5.1 Linguistics**

Combining Bayesian inference with other linguistic approaches, we estimate that Proto-Tungusic was spoken in the area around or immediately north of lake Khanka in the beginning of the first millennium AD. As shown in Table 2, cultural reconstruction indicates that the speakers of Proto-Tungusic were familiar with agriculture. The use of words such as \**pisike* 'broomcorn millet (*Panicum*

### Martine Robbeets & Sofia Oskolskaya

*miliaceum*)', \**jiya-* 'foxtail millet (Setaria italica)',9 \**murgi* 'barley',10 \**üse-* ~ *üsi-* 'to plant',11 \**üse* ~ *üsi* 'seed, seedling', \**üsin* 'field for cultivation' and \**tari-* 'to sow, plant, cultivate' implies that the speakers relied on plant cultivation for subsistence. The derivation of the Proto-Tungusic word \**üse* ~ *üsi* 'seed, seedling' as a deverbal noun from the verb \**üse-* ~ *üsi-* 'to plant' suggests that seeds were not just collected for consumption in the wild but that they were planted as part of a cultivation process. In addition, for some crop names such as 'barley' and 'broomcorn millet', we can argue that the word refers to the domesticated crop rather than to the wild variety of the plant because both crops are not native to the region and have been imported as domesticated crops. It is commonly assumed that broomcorn millet has been imported from the West Liao River region by the people who introduced the Zaisanovskaya culture (3200–1300 BCE) to the Russian far East (Sergusheva & Vostretsov 2009; Leipe et al. 2019; Li et al. 2020).

Whereas several agricultural terms are inherited, maritime vocabulary can often be explained as borrowed from Proto-Amuric or its descendant Nivkh. This

9The cognates Nanai *jie-kte* and Oroch *jie-kte* suggest front vocalization \**jiye-kte* in Proto-Tungusic, while Negidal *ja:kta*, Solon *jakta* and Udehe *jakta* suggest original back vocalization \**jiya-kta*. In addition to the vowel alternation in the in Oroch suffix *-kte* and *-kta*, this observation suggests that the alternation between \**jiya-kta* and \**jiye-kte* was already present at the Proto-Tungusic stage. It was probably due to assimilation with the initial front vowel in \**jiyakta*. Another example of such an alternation is found in Proto-Tungusic \**niaya-* ~ *nieye-*, which is reflected as *yaya-* or *ńaya*- 'to shamanize' in most Tungusic languages but as *leye-* 'to sing' in Manchu. Note that PTg \**ye* regularly develops in Manchu *ye*, e.g. PTg \**xeye-* 'to sink' and Ma. *eye-* 'to float, flow' (Cincius 1975/77: 440–442; Starostin et al. 2003) or PTg \**jeye* 'sharp point; blade' and Manchu *jeyen* 'sharp point; blade' (Cincius 1975/77: 282–283; Starostin et al. 2003), etc. Manchu *je* 'foxtail millet (Setaria italica); grain' is thus considered a contraction from \**jiye*. 10It is a universal tendency that consonant clusters are susceptible to variation through assimilation, metathesis or consonant loss. Consonant clusters across the Tungusic languages are no exception to this expectation. Although the reflex of the Proto-Tungusic \**rg* cluster is relatively stable in most northern Tungusic languages, we find a variety of reflexes, such as *rg*, *gg*, *yg*, *jg* and *g* in Manchuric and other southern Tungusic languages, including an occasional *j* in Nanai, Orok and Ulch, e.g., PTg \**burga-kta* 'beard, moustache' reflected in Ulch *bụja-qta*, Nanai *boja-qta*; PTg \**serge-kte* 'nose bone' in Nanai *sejurẽ*; PTg \**irge* 'brain, head' in Ulch *ije*, etc.

11Given that the expected reflex of PTg \**ü* is Udehe *i*, Udehe *uhi-* 'to sow, to plant a garden', *uhi* 'garden for cultivating plants' may represent cases of intra-Tungusic borrowing and the inherited reflex in Udihe may be *yehu-* 'to grow', given the palatal glide onset. Note however that, even if the majority reflex PTg \**ü* is *i* in Oroch, there are a few instances where PTg \**ü* is retained as *u* instead, e.g. PTg \**erün* 'time' as Oroch *erū(n)* (Cincius 1975/77: 463–464; Starostin et al. 2003), PTg \**xulbü-* 'to bind, arrange' as Oroch *ubbuna-* (Cincius 1977: 258; Starostin et al. 2003), PTg \**xegün* 'nine'as Oroch *xuju(n)* (Cincius 1975/77: 352–353; Starostin et al. 2003), PTg \**tüksa* 'house cover made of birch bark' as Oroch *tuksa* (Cincius 1975/77: 179; Starostin et al. 2003), etc. Therefore, this correspondence is included in the appended list of sound correspondences.

Table 2: The reconstruction of agricultural vocabulary in Proto-Tungusic (adapted from Robbeets et al. 2020: 765)

### Martine Robbeets & Sofia Oskolskaya

is for instance the case for ancient loanwords, such as PTg \**laamos* 'wind (from the sea)' from Proto-Amuric \**lamos* > Nivkh *lams* 'eastern wind', PTg \**kalïmV* 'whale' from Proto-Amuric \**kalïmV* 'whale' > Nivkh *kalm* (*qalm*) '(small) whale' (Janhunen 2016) and PTg \**laska* 'sea goby' from Proto-Amuric \**laskV* 'goby' > Nivkh *lask* 'a goby (of middle size).

The direction of the borrowing is verifiably from Amuric into Tungusic given that Proto-Amuric \**lamos* is derived from the simplex root \**la* 'wind', while the Tungusic parallel is not segmentable and because the initial liquid phoneme \**l*is atypical for Proto-Tungusic.

Korovina (2011) further finds that fish species that inhabit the Pacific Ocean are not well distributed across the Tungusic languages and are often borrowed from Nivkh into one or more individual daughter languages (e.g. Oroqen *lokko* 'flounder' from Nivkh *lok* 'flounder', Oroqen *la:kka* 'herring' and Orok *la:qqa* 'herring' from Nivkh *laku* 'herring', etc.). This suggests that the speakers of Proto-Tungusic were farmers, who did not acquire maritime vocabulary until they came in contact with indigenous populations on the Pacific coast, some of which might have spoken an ancestral form of Nivkh.

Except for these maritime loanwords, Proto-Tungusic borrowed only few words from Proto-Amuric. By contrast, there are several indications of Proto-Amuric substratum interference in Proto-Tungusic. The evidence comes from atypical structural features in Tungusic that are likely to have developed through imperfect learning from Proto-Amuric. Among others, these features include the development of a word-initial liquid and velar nasal sound in Tungusic, the development of a distinction between 'we (including the addressee)' and 'we (excluding the addressee)' in first-person plural pronouns, the development of a distinction between alienable and inalienable possession and the development of marking possessive relations on the head noun instead of the dependent (Robbeets 2017b).

Whether one prefers to explain the numerous structural similarities between Tungusic and other Transeurasian languages by borrowing or inheritance, it is commonly agreed that Tungusic typology is of the Transeurasian (or "Altaic") type (Robbeets 2017a). Transeurasian languages are typical dependent-marking languages, while Nivkh is – similar to Ainu, Asian North Pacific-Coast languages (e.g., Chukotko-Kamchatkan), wider Paleosiberian languages (e.g., ) and languages of the Northwest Pacific Coast (e.g., Salishan, Wakashan, Chimakuan, Athabaskan) – of the head-marking type. The features above are atypical for Tungusic and more proto-typical of Nivkh in the sense that they represent direct or indirect implicational tendencies of being of the head-marking type or that they more frequently occur in Ainu, other Asian North Pacific-Coast languages,

wider Paleosiberian languages and languages of the Northwest Pacific Coast than in languages of the Transeurasian type.

These linguistic observations thus suggest a situation of language shift whereby some ancestral speakers of Proto-Amuric abandoned their own language and adopted the Proto-Tunguisic target language.

### **5.2 Archaeology**

Is our association of Proto-Tungusic with incoming millet farmers who imposed their language on local fishers speaking Proto-Amuric supported by the archaeological record?

During the Middle to Late Hongshan periods (4000–3000 BC), the cultivation of broomcorn and foxtail millet dispersed from the West Liao River basin in North East China to the Primorye (Maritime) province of the Russian Far East (Sergusheva & Vostretsov 2009; Leipe et al. 2019; Li et al. 2020). The introduction of millet farming in the Primorye was combined with the adoption of Northeast Chinese material culture such as cord-marked pottery, spindle whorls and stone agricultural tools, especially mortars, pestles and constricted-waist hoes (Nelson et al. 2020; Li et al. 2020) and led to the establishment of the Zaisanovskaya culture (3200–1300 BCE). The linguistically inferred time depth in the beginning of the first millennium AD corresponds to the break-up time when Proto-Tungusic separated into its primary branches and thus ceased to exist, but it does not inform us about when the ancestral language arrived in the region or started to exist there. Considering Bayesian inference of the time depth of the split between Tungusic and Mongolo-Turkic at 3300 BC (Robbeets & Bouckaert 2018), it is inviting to associate the arrival of Proto-Tungusic in the Russian Far East with the beginning of the Zaisanovskaya culture (Mallory et al. 2019; Wang & Robbeets 2020; Cui et al. 2020; Li et al. 2020).

Observing the high productivity of rice vis-à-vis millets, archaeobotanists argue that rice tends to be spread more easily through cultural diffusion, while millets are more frequently spread by population migration (Fuller & Qin 2009; Stevens & Fuller 2017). This is explained by the fact that wet rice cultivation can absorb population increase through intensification of land use, while the increased production of millet tends to occur through the agricultural colonisation of new land. The assumption of actual population movements from the West Liao River Basin to the Primorye in the fourth millennium BC is further supported by increases in population density (Peterson et al. 2010; Miyamoto 2014; Drennan et al. 2017; Leipe et al. 2019).

### Martine Robbeets & Sofia Oskolskaya

Population migration and cultural diffusion are expected to yield different linguistic outcomes (Thomason & Kaufman 1988). In the first case, when human populations move into new areas along with their language and culture, language shift is frequently observed: local speakers abandon their own language in favour of the incoming target language. Due to imperfect learning, the abandoned language may leave some traces in the structure of the target language, a phenomenon called "substratum interference" (Van Coetsem 2000; Johanson 2002; Winford 2013). Nevertheless, the newly adopted language is genealogically related to the ancestral language of the migrants. By contrast, in the case of cultural diffusion, when certain elements of language and culture move into new areas without the intervention of a migrating population, local speakers frequently maintain their own language but borrow certain words from the model language. The assumption of language shift, whereby a part of the Proto-Amuric speakers abandoned their native language and shifted to the Proto-Tungusic target language is thus in line with a scenario of population migration. Therefore, the archaeological and linguistic observations converge in suggesting that the spread of the Proto-Tungusic farmers was driven by population migration.

At the end of the third century AD, there was a sharp cooling of the climate, which led to a worsening of the conditions for agriculture. This provided the impetus for a gradual migration of millet farmers to coastal regions across most of the Primorye. Based on archaeobotanical data (Yanuševič et al. 1990), it appears that the coastal groups ceased to cultivate millets and wheat and returned to a subsistence strategy of hunting and fishing. If this event can be associated with the separation between Manchuric and Tungusic languages, as suggested by 31% of trees in the Bayesian phylogenetic analysis in Oskolskaya et al. (2022), it would explain why southern Tungusic populations on the Lower Amur such as the Nanai, Oroch and Udehe people were traditionally predominantly fishers and gatherers, rather than farmers.

Hudson (2020) proposed further details of later northern Tungusic expansions. The Evenki are widely distributed hunter-gatherers who also herd domesticated reindeer. According to Anderson (1999: 142) and Zgusta (2015: 166), they first herded wild reindeer around Lake Baikal then moved north ca. AD 1000, reaching the Arctic ocean by the 17th century. The Even probably separated from the Evenki in medieval times (Pakendorf 2007: 15–16), matching the separation estimated at 556 years ago in our Bayesian analysis (Figure 4). They further expanded with reindeer from 17th century onwards, mirroring the separation between Even and Negidal estimated at 393 years ago. Probably due to Russian colonial expansion, the Oroqen and Solon moved south from the Amur in the 17th century, mirroring the estimate of 405 years ago.

### **5.3 Genetics**

The first applications of genetics to the study of human prehistory involved mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal DNA. Whereas mitochondrial DNA is passed down along the maternal line from mother to daughter to granddaughter (and from mother to son but not passed on from sons to their offspring), Y-chromosomal DNA goes along the paternal line from father to son to grandson. Sequencing the chemical building blocks of uniparental DNA from diverse people around the world and comparing the mutations across these sequences, geneticists can reconstruct family trees of maternal and paternal relationship. However, since mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal DNA represent only a tiny proportion of the human genome and provide information on only one out of very numerous ancestors, they shed light on only a limited slice of human prehistory. In fact, our entire genome contains information about many diverse ancestors, not just the two whose lineages can be traced with mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal DNA. The recently acquired ability to sequence the whole genome – meaning, the entire genome analyzed at once instead of just small stretches of it such as mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal DNA – has given us access to richer information recorded into all 23 chromosomes of our genome and representing a multitude of ancestors. Whole genome analysis means a revolution in the study of the human past because it allows us to go beyond the tiny slice of the past sampled by our mtDNA and Y-chromosomal DNA. As recent genome-wide analyses of Tungusic speakers (Pugach et al. 2016; Siska et al. 2017; Wang et al. 2021; Wang & Robbeets 2020) are expected to tell a richer story than previous studies about their mtDNA (Starikovskaya et al. 2005; Sukernik et al. 2012; Duggan et al. 2013) and Y-chromosomal DNA (Malyarchuk et al. 2010; Duggan et al. 2013), we here focus our report on genome-wide analyses.

The Principal Component Analysis in Figure 7 visualizes the genetic distance between contemporary speakers of Tungusic languages and other present-day East Asian populations. In addition, it plots ancient genomes from the Devil's cave in the Southern Primorye dating back to the fifth and sixth millennium BC and from the Ust'-lda site near Lake Baikal dating back to the fourth and third millennium BC onto the contemporary Tungusic-speaking populations.

The contemporary Tungusic speakers in the Amur River Basin, such as the Hezhen, Nanai, Negidal, Oroqen and Ulch are genetically most similar to ancient genomes from the Southern Primorye dating back to the fifth and sixth millennium BC (Siska et al. 2017; Wang et al. 2021; Wang & Robbeets 2020). This is also true for the Nivkh people on Sakhalin island, even if their language is not of a Tungusic descent. The Xibe people in Xinjiang are shifted towards Han Chi-

nese populations due to Chinese influence but they are still very similar to the Amur Tungusic populations and close to the Devil's Gate genome. Whereas some Eastern Evenki are similar to the Amur Tungusic populations, Baikal Evenki and Even populations are shifted towards West Eurasians, such as the Uyghur Turkic populations on the PCA. Wang & Robbeets (2020) estimate that they have about 14% to 35% West Eurasian related ancestry, but that their admixture is a very recent event, going back less than 200 years in time. The ancient genomes from the Ust'-lda site near Lake Baikal dating back to the fourth and third millennium BC show that they derive a large amount of Devil's Gate related Amur-like ancestry and also have some admixture from West Eurasians. Their genetic profile is similar to Even people.

Figure 7: Principal Component Analysis of East Asian populations, projecting ancient Devil's Gate and Ust'-lda genomes onto the present-day speakers of Tungusic languages (adapted from Wang & Robbeets 2020)

This genome-wide perspective is corroborated by analyses of mitochondial and Y-chromosomal DNA. In the maternal line, there are only faint traces of a

genetic relationship between Tungusic-speaking populations in the Amur region, such as Negidal, Ulch and Udeghe and northern Tungusic populations, such as Even and Evenki, due to drift and admixture (Duggan et al. 2013). Nevertheless, the shared haplotypes found in these populations might be retentions from an earlier shared ancestral Tungusic population. Mitochondrial haplogroup frequencies show a cluster of Tungusic-speaking populations in the Amur region with Nivkh populations. The clustering of Even speakers with speakers of Yukaghir is seen as an implication of recent northward expansions of northern Tungusic speakers (Sukernik et al. 2012).

Tungusic speakers are further associated with the Y chromosomal haplogroup C3-M217, which is prevalent in Evenki and Even, as well as in other Tungusic speaking populations in the Amur River Basin including Oroqen, Ulch, Negidal, Udehe and Nanai (Malyarchuk et al. 2010; Duggan et al. 2013). This haplogroup is further well distributed among contemporary Mongolic and Nivkh-speaking populations and has been recovered in human remains of the Boisman culture (4825–2470 BC) in the Russian Far East (Yan et al. 2014; Wang et al. 2021).

It thus appears that both northern and southern Tungusic speaking populations share a proportion of their ancestry, which we refer to as the "Amur" genome. Mongolic and Turkic-speaking populations share a part of this "Amur" ancestry in spite of their increasing admixture with people of Western Eurasian ancestry from the first millennium BC onwards. (Jeong et al. 2018, 2019). Combined with recent analyses of ancient genomes from the West Liao River Basin (Ning et al. 2020), these results suggest that the Amur gene pool has long occupied the region from the Baikal to the West Liao River to the Russian Far East, at least for the last 10 000 years.

Since the Nivkh and the Tungusic-speaking populations share the same Amur ancestry, there are no traces of genetic admixture indicating population migration at the time of the agricultural dispersals. The long-term genetic continuity in the Amur basin is commonly used to argue against population migration and to support demic diffusion of agriculture into the Amur area (Siska et al. 2017). However, this conclusion does not take into account the increase in population density at the time of the agricultural expansions discussed in §5.2, which supports an alternative possibility that the incoming farmers may have shared an Amur-like genetic profile with the local populations (Cui et al. 2020; Wang & Robbeets 2020; Jeong et al. 2020; Li et al. 2020). Given the vast geographical reach of the Amur genetic profile, including the West Liao River region as well as the Russian Far East, a genetic admixture between Proto-Tungusic incoming farmers and Proto-Amuric local fishers would have led to an admixture of two

### Martine Robbeets & Sofia Oskolskaya

similar Amur genomes, like mixing two white paints together. Therefore, population migration and admixture are not expected to be visible in the genome. Bringing the archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence together thus leaves room for agriculture-driven population migration and language shift spreading Proto-Tungusic to the Russian Far East in the Neolithic.

### **6 Conclusion**

Quantitative methods, such as the Bayesian approach adopted in Oskolskaya et al. (2022), have much to offer: they can infer an internal family structure, calculate the statistical robustness of the proposed branches, estimate an absolute time depth within credible intervals without assuming a constant rate of change and help us to determine the location of the original homeland. Nevertheless, Bayesian results should be interpreted with caution, as they are dependent on the quality of the data input and the plausibility of the calibrations. Besides, they are limited in their abilities because even if they can infer information about the time and space of linguistic dispersals, they do not inform us about the natural and cultural environment of the ancient speakers: they can tell us where and when ancestral speech communities were located, but not why these people moved. In order to provide a better understanding of causalities in linguistic prehistory, we need to reinstate comparative historical linguistic tradition and, together with archaeology and genetics, integrate it into a holistic approach. In this paper, we attempted to take such an approach for the dispersal of Proto-Tungusic in time and space.

Combining the power of traditional comparative historical linguistics and computational phylogenetics, we used the recent Bayesian analysis provided by Oskolskaya et al. (2022) to quantify the likelihood of previously proposed classifications. We found that two classifications, namely the revised North-South classification (Figure 2b) and the Manchu-Tungusic classification (Figure 2b) were statistically robust, while other proposals could be excluded. Since we expressed the disagreement among different authors with regard to the exact configuration of the Tungusic tree in terms of probability, we were able to provide a quantitative basis to the ongoing discussions.

Chronologically, we estimated the break-up of Proto-Tungusic in the beginning of the first millennium AD and situated the homeland geographically in the area around or to the north of Lake Khanka.

Triangulating the linguistic evidence for Proto-Tungusic with evidence from archaeology and genetics, we argued for a language shift around 3300 BC, whereby some ancestral speakers of Proto-Amuric in the Russian Far East abandoned

their own language and adopted the Proto-Tungusic target language. The dispersal of Proto-Tungusic from the Liao River basin to the area around lake Khanka was probably caused by the expansion of millet agriculture and driven by population migration. The separation of the Manchuric branch, which may represent the first split in the family, can be associated with a return to hunting and fishing, in part because the conditions for agriculture worsened through climate change.

### **Abbreviations**

PTg Proto-Tungusic

### **Acknowledgements**

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No 646612) granted to Martine Robbeets. We thank Patryk Czerwinski, Elena Klyachko and Matthew Miller for their help in collecting lexical data from the field and Ezequiel Koile for his advice on Bayesian methodology.

### **Appendix A Reconstruction of basic sound inventories for Proto-Tungusic**

Table 3: Reconstruction of the basic consonant inventory of Proto-Tungusic (Robbeets 2020, supplementary files)

Table 4: Reconstruction of the basic vowel inventory of Proto-Tungusic (Robbeets 2020, supplementary files)

### **References**

suggest links between subsistence changes and human migration. *Nature Communications* 11(1). 1–9.

when? In Martine Robbeets & Alexander Savelyev (eds.), *The Oxford guide to the Transeurasian languages*, 753–771. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

## **Chapter 9**

## **Historical language contact between Sibe and Khorchin**

### Veronika Zikmundová

Charles University

The Sibe of Xinjiang have been recognized as speakers of a Manchu variety by linguists. However, for the Sibe speakers themselves, the situation is more complicated. For certain reasons, the Sibe often present themselves as a group whose historical origins are different from the Manchus. Several mentions occur in historical sources about Sibe being vassals to the Khorchin Mongols before "becoming Manchus". This has been used among the arguments for the non-Manchu identity of the Sibe.

In recent years, academic discussion has focused on the ethnic identity of the Manchus, and, to a lesser extent, also on the position of the Sibe in relation to the Manchus. In this paper I try to select out features of possible Khorchin, i.e. eastern Mongolian, origin, in Sibe which may have come from direct language contact. I discuss several morphological features of Mongolic origin which seem not to be shared by other Manchu varieties, and one remarkable Sibe feature of Khorchin origin (the emphatic prefix *me-*). In addition, I mention the existence of lexical evidence of direct contact which is found in more conservative layers of Sibe vocabulary. Another question concerns the significance of this evidence for imagining the Sibe history. The linguistic situation in central Manchuria during the period concerned (15th–16th centuries) suggests that if the shared features indeed come from this period, they may rather be remnants of an extinct linguistic environment characterized by intense Mongolic-Tungusic contacts than of bilateral contact between two distinct groups – Khorchins and Sibe.

Veronika Zikmundová. 2022. Historical language contact between Sibe and Khorchin. In Andreas Hölzl & Thomas E. Payne (eds.), *Tungusic languages: Past and present*, 295–329. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI: 10 . 5281 / zenodo.7053375

### Veronika Zikmundová

### **1 Overview**

Central Manchuria has been the home of many Mongolic- and Jurchenic-speaking1 communities and the site of multiple and multi-layer contacts between these groups for several centuries.2 During the period of the Yuan and Ming rule, namely between the 14th and 16th centuries, many demographic shifts happened which were probably followed by important changes in the linguistic situation, such as the growth of Mongolic influence in the area. These shifts supposedly resulted in new, both massive and small-scale, Jurchenic-Mongolic language contacts (cf. Janhunen 1996: 97). Most of these contact events are little, if at all, documented. However, in 20th century China, one of these little documented events received particular attention and different interpretations. This was the historical fact of the (probably) Jurchenic-speaking Sibe being vassals of the Khorchin Mongols. The present article is concerned with this contact event, its contexts and interpretations.

Modern Sibe is a Jurchenic diaspora language which has often been classified as an oral variety of Manchu. It is related to the other oral Manchu varieties which have been discovered in Manchuria during the 20th century. Sibe is spoken by 10,000–20,000 individuals in several localities close to the north-western border of China, detached by some 4000 kilometers from their original homeland in Manchuria.3 Khorchin, an eastern (Manchurian) variety of Mongolian, currently has about a million speakers who inhabit a large area of eastern Inner Mongolia, Jilin and Heilongjiang.

In the 16th and early 17th century (before the Qing administrative re-organization of Manchuria), most Jurchenic-speaking communities were grouped into several Jurchen tribal confederacies.4 Historical sources relate that in the same

1The term *Jurchenic* was coined by Janhunen (1996: 154) as a term comprising both the documented Jurchen varieties and other, undocumented southern Tungusic languages whose existence Janhunen thus suggests. It seems convenient to use this term to refer to the branch of Tungusic languages which includes the extinct Jurchen varieties and their successor languages – written Manchu and several spoken Manchu varieties. These have been known under the names of Alchuka, Bala, Lalin, Aihui, Sanjiazi, Yibuqi and Sibe. Another little documented language, the Manchu Kyakala, has recently been suggested as belonging to this branch (Hölzl & Hölzl 2019).

2 Janhunen (1996: 96–110) describes the setting of Manchuria during the Ming and Qing rule with several case studies of migrations and contact events, which show the ethnic and linguistic complexity in the area and enable us to estimate analogous, insufficiently documented migrations and language contact events.

3 For descriptions of spoken Sibe see, for example, Norman (1974), Jang (2008), Zikmundová (2013), Kogura (2018).

4 For an overview of the pre-Qing organization of the Jurchen tribes see, for example, Janhunen (1996: 98–100).

### 9 Historical language contact between Sibe and Khorchin

period, the Sibe were subject to the Mongolic Khorchin tribe and only in the 1690s were united with the rest of Jurchenic speakers (see §3.1). Linguistically, modern Sibe and modern Khorchin share certain features which may have originated at the time of their mutual contact during the Ming dynasty.

This article is an attempt to examine these similarities in their socio-linguistic and historical contexts and suggest an interpretation of their significance for Sibe studies. Further, I take the narrative of the historical Sibe-Khorchin contact and the search for possible linguistic evidence about it as a starting point for an attempt to outline some important traits of the linguistic situation in Central Manchuria before the 18th century.

First, in §3, the historical context of the supposed Sibe-Khorchin language contact is summarized and the political and socio-linguistic background of modern Sibe historioghraphy is mentioned. I suggest that the period of historically documented pre-Qing contacts between the Sibe and the Khorchins has been assigned particular importance in the argumentation for ethnic origins distinct from those of the Manchus. In §4, the actual parallels in phonetics and morphology are listed. These are based, for the most part, on fieldwork data. Here I only mention features which Sibe shares with Khorchin and which are either not attested, or are marginal, in the other documented Manchu varieties. §5 gives examples of Mongolic loanwords in Sibe which are not documented in the other Manchu varietes. Some of them are Mongolic in general while others belong exclusively to the cultural sphere of the Manchurian Mongols. In the concluding part I discuss what these shared features can tell us about the linguistic situation in pre-Qing central Manchuria.

I suppose that the selected features may have resulted from a direct Mongolic influence on Sibe which was more intensive than the general Mongolic influence to which other Manchu varieties were exposed. However, concerning further interpretations of these shared features, they can be attributed both to pre-Manchu contact with Khorchin and to later contact with other Mongolic languages – Daur, Jungarian Chakhar and Öölöd. Independent internal developments cannot be ruled out either. Most importantly, in the light of historical data, it seems more plausible to interpret the shared features as remnants of a generally more Mongolic-influenced Jurchenic milieu which was otherwise lost due to language standardization, than as a proof of the historical Sibe-Khorchin contact.

### **2 Methodology**

In search for the Sibe-Khorchin analogies, mainly corpora of Sibe and Khorchin fieldwork data were used. The Sibe part of these data, collected by myself in

### Veronika Zikmundová

the Xinjiang Sibe communities mainly with the purpose of grammar description, comes from the period between 1993 and 2009. The Khorchin part5 was collected between 2004–2015 both by the local consultant Bai Xiaomei and by myself. The Khorchin data were not elicited with the purpose of grammar description and therefore do not cover the whole Khorchin grammar which leaves some room for as yet undiscovered shared grammatical features. Additionally, if not stated otherwise, I use Khalkha Mongolian and Sanjiazi Manchu6 data from my own fieldwork collections.

Distinctions between Sibe and written Manchu have been described, above all, by Jang Taeho (2008). During my work on Sibe grammar description I tried to systematically note features which not only distinguished Sibe from written Manchu, but which seemed likely to be of Mongolic origin. I subsequently searched for these features in the materials of Khorchin on one hand, and in other spoken Manchu materials on the other. I selected those features which are shared with Khorchin and, at the same time, either not attested or – compared to Sibe – marginal in the oral Manchurian varieties of Manchu.

In order to draw a plausible interpretation of the selected shared features I attempted to systematize the available information about the linguistic history of the area concerned and align the historical mentions of pre-Qing Sibe and Khorchin with more general patterns of developments in Ming Central Manchuria. Further, it seemed to be important to assess the value of the official Sibe historiography and its accent on the non-Jurchen origins of the Sibe for the interpretation of the Sibe-Khorchin contact history. Fortunately, recently published works such as Zhuangsheng (2019) and Sárközi (2019) offer a much-needed insight into the motivation of the indigenous Sibe historiography.

### **3 The historical and socio-linguistic background of the Sibe-Khorchin language contact**

Below I give basic data about the two languages involved in the supposed language contact episode, including some historical facts that pertain to the general linguistic situation in the area and time concerned. I also note the socio-historical contexts of the official self-presentation of the modern Sibe people as a group of non-Jurchen origin.

5The Khorchin data comprise approximately 10 hours of lengthy interviews on historical and cultural topics.

6The village of Sanjiazi (Fuyu county) is one of the last locations in Heilongjiang where a form of Manchu is still spoken by several elderly individuals.

### 9 Historical language contact between Sibe and Khorchin

### **3.1 Sibe**

At present, two groups of people in China at two different locations are officially recognized as members of the Sibe ethnic group. The larger of these groups inhabits certain areas in Northeastern China (Manchuria) and are speakers of Mandarin. The smaller group of Sibe7 , some 30,000 individuals, live in the most faraway corner of China – the Ili valley on the border with Kazakhstan. These Sibe are not only more-or-less fluent speakers of a Manchu variety, but also preservers of a specific Manchurian culture. This paper is concerned with the latter – Xinjiang or Jungarian – Sibe8 group.

Comparative data from other living or recently extinct Manchu varieties (e.g. Wang 2005; Zhao 1989; Mu 1985, 1986a,b, 1987, 1988; Hölzl & Hölzl 2019) allow Sibe to be classified as one of the Bannermen Manchu9 varieties together with Sanjiazi Manchu, Aihui Manchu, Yibuqi Manchu and Lalin/Jing Manchu. Historically, these varieties, in contrast to other modern Jurchenic languages, seem to have been forms of a standard spoken language used in Manchu military garrisons. Knowledge of written Manchu, which was widespread in the Manchurian garrisons as well as in the Xinjiang Sibe enclaves, is probably responsible for the relatively little diversity among all Bannermen Manchu varieties. Most of the differences between Sibe and written Manchu (cf. Jang 2008) are in fact shared by Sanjiazi, Aihui and Yibuqi and may therefore be interpreted in terms of differences between the spoken language on one hand and the written form on the other, rather similar to the difference between written (Classical) Mongolian and the modern spoken forms of Mongolian. Furthermore, similar to the situation in Mongolian, it may be assumed that, besides reflecting an earlier shape of the spoken language, some of the features in written Manchu may be orthographic conventions rather than of records of the actual pronunciation.10

7The ancestors of this group were moved from Manchuria to Xinjiang in 1764 as soldiers of the Manchu army with the task of manning the frontier garrisons on the border with Russia. For detailed accounts of the history of the Xinjiang Sibe see, for example, Sárközi (2019) or Zhuangsheng (2019).

8The term *Jungarian Sibe* is employed by Janhunen (1996: 49).

9Cf. e.g. Zhao (1989). Chinese authors use the term *Qiren Manyu* 'Bannermen Manchu' to distinguish the standard Manchu language from the varieties used in communities of Manchu/Jurchen civilians whose language was not subject to so intensive standardization, such as Alchuka or Bala.

10An example of this – the difference between the notation and the actual pronunciation of the Manchu past tense forms – was analysed by Kubo Tomoyuki in his lecture (Charles University Oct 4 2019). It should also be noted that the Manchu writing system, similar to the Mongolian script, ignores most allophones of the spoken forms.

### Veronika Zikmundová

This homogeneity of the Bannermen Manchu varieties notwithstanding, several distinctions exist between Sibe on the one hand and the other Manchu varieties on the other. These distinctions comprise phonetic, morphosyntactic and lexical features. Some of these features are likely to have originated in contact with Mongolic languages.

### **3.1.1 The historical background of the Sibe**

The Sibe are first found in Central Manchuria, in the areas of Qiqihar and historical Bedune (the modern Fuyu city). The first substantial evidence about them is a note about the inclusion of the Sibe into the Manchu military system in 1692, found in the Records of Girin (Zhuangsheng 2019: 51; Sárközi 2019: 8). In noting this event, the source gives the retrospective detail that Sibe and Gūwalca11 had been Khorchin vassals. The transfer of Sibe and Gūwalca from the Khorchin under direct Manchu administration was mediated by the Second Neichi Toyin12 , in whose biography the description of the event is given (Ujeed 2013: 232–233). This is the historical base of the narrative about the Sibe vassalage to the Khorchin. Except for these accounts, other brief mentions confirm the relationship of the Sibe and Gūwalca to the Khorchin (Gorelova 2002: 35) – namely the account of the battle of Gure (1593) when Sibe and Gūwalca fought together with the Khorchins and the Hūlun Jurchens against Nurhaci, and a mention of the Sibe and Gūwalca as Khorchin vassals in the biography of the all-important Buddhist missionary to the Khorchin, the First Neichi Toyin (between 1636 and 1653, cf. Heissig 1980: 36).

Especially the account of the Battle of Gure places the Sibe into the context of the Hūlun Jurchens, about who Crossley (2006: 65) writes: "The majority of Hūluns were Jurchen in origin but by the late 1500s spoke a distinct dialect, with a much larger portion of Mongolian loan-words, and among them were found a very high incidence of Mongolian names, marriage into Mongolian-speaking lineages (either Khorchin or Kharachin), and extensive acculturation with the Khorchin or Kharachin populations generally." The Khorchin and Kharachin were, in their majority, descendants of the Ujiyed and Uriangkhan Mongols respectively (see below).

11The Gūwalca (known as *Khuulchin* in Mongolian sources, cf. Ujeed 2013: 232–233) are mentioned together with the Sibe in the early Qing period. By the 19th century they have disappeared, possibly due to merger with the Sibe. Their language is not documented at all but they are generally considered to be linguistically related to the Sibe (Zhuangsheng, p.c. August 2019).

12For a detailed description of the activities of the Second Neichi Toyin (1671–1703), a successor and re-incarnation of the famous Buddhist missionary to the eastern Mongols, the First Neichi Toyin, see Ujeed (2013).

### 9 Historical language contact between Sibe and Khorchin

Consequently, the Sibe, together with the Gūwalca, were probably involved in the intensive contact processes on the borders between the Mongolic- and Tungusic-dominated parts of Manchuria (Janhunen 1996: 98–99). The historical accounts of the event of incorporation of the Sibe and the Gūwalca into the Manchu banners state that these two groups were related to the Jurchens. These people, whatever their political status was, can thus probably be taken as representatives of Jurchenic groups of the Mongolic-influenced area. They were acculturated by Mongols who, in their turn, were linguistically and culturally Tungusic-influenced, and themselves were, in part, Mongolized Tungusic speakers (see below). Interestingly, Crossley (2006: 65)13 notes that "the Jurchens of Nurgaci's time used the word *Mongol* (*monggo*) for the Hūluns", which could have likewise influenced the traditional self-perception of the Sibe14. In 1636– 1638, the Sibe, together with the Gūwalca, the Daur and possibly other originally Hūlun groups (cf. Crossley 2006: 69–70), were incorporated into the newly created Mongol Eight Banners, to be transferred to the Manchu Eight Banners in 1692.

While the abovementioned historical sources confirm the fact that the Sibe were Khorchin subjects, they do not give details about this relationship and its duration. It is, however, clear that Sibe lived in a Mongolic-influenced environment for two or three centuries before becoming Manchu bannermen. After becoming Manchu army soldiers, they were divided into several groups and relocated into several military garrisons in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia (Gorelova 2002: 36). There they were organized into the Sibe banners. Initially, the Gūwalca had their own banners but later were probably merged into the Sibe banners (Zhuangsheng, p.c. August 2019), in this way disappearing from history. In different garrisons the Sibe came into contact with different – Tungusic and Mongolic – speakers. As Manchu bannermen they probably participated in the processes described by Atwood (2005: 9–12), and others. These processes involved, on one hand, intensive merging which resulted in the common millieu of Manchu bannermen, also known as Qizu, literally 'Banner ethnic group', in the beginning of the 20th century, cf. Chengzhi (2021). High prestige of Standard Manchu was one of several important traits of this milieu. On the other hand, identification with particular banners created the notions of Sibe, Solon, Daur and other groups based on administrative affiliation rather than origin and language. Thus "Sibe"

13Crossley (2006: 65) quotes the source *Huangqing kaiguo fanglüe* 3.3a. written by Agui et al. For a brief description of the ethnic setting of Central Manchuria in late Ming based on contemporary sources see Crossley (2006: 64–66).

14This tradition of viewing the Jurchenic groups of central Manchuria as Mongols may also stand behind the appellation "Sibege Mongols" for a sinicized group of Manchurian Sibe mentioned in Lattimore (1935: 225–227).

### Veronika Zikmundová

in the Qing period largely referred to people affiliated with the Sibe banners which could include people of different linguistic background. The thus constituted Sibe identity was distinct from that of the Manchus and rather close to that of the Daur, Solon and Butha (cf. Elliott 2001: 85). In 1764, 1000 individual soldiers were picked up from different Sibe banners (Sárközi 2019: 9) and with their families were transferred to their present location in Xinjiang. Closer study of these developments leads historians to question the continuity between the pre-Qing Sibe and the modern Sibe in Xinjiang (e.g. Chengzhi 2012: 257–268).

During the Qing period Sibe came into close contact with other Mongolic groups, such as the Daur, the Chakhar or the Öölöd. Nevertheless, Standard Manchu became their first language. Throughout the Qing rule and until modern times, Sibe have been known for their solid Manchu skills (Zhuangsheng 2019: 51).

### **3.1.2 The socio-linguistic background of the narrative about the non-Jurchenic origins of the Sibe and of the Sibe-Khorchin contacts**

In the beginning of the 20th century, the fact that the Sibe people in the vicinity of *Ghulja* (Mongolian *Ili hot*, Chinese *Yining shi*) spoke Manchu had been widely recognized by the speakers themselves (e.g. Donjina 1989; Porter 2018: 10–12), as well as by foreign travelers and researchers (e.g. Kałużyński 1987). Historical sources confirm that Sibe spoke Manchu as at least one of their languages during the whole Qing era (Zhuangsheng 2019: 51). However, in 1990, when I visited the Xinjiang Sibe community for the first time, any relationship to Manchus was generally denied in the official discourse among Sibe intellectuals. The language of the Sibe was called *Sibe*. Moreover, several of my Sibe consultants were suggesting that Sibe originally spoke a Mongolic or Mongolic-related language. The remarkable difference between the written Manchu language (known by many in the older generation of Sibe) and spoken Sibe15 was mentioned in support of this idea. Sibe was presented as a language on its own, distinct from Manchu. Publications influential in Sibe society described Sibe culture without the Manchu context and studies of Sibe history argued for an ethnic origin distinct from that of the Manchus.16

15This difference involves not only features which seem to reflect diachronic processes such as vowel reduction or consonant weakening, but also features which call for other interpretations such as dialectal variation (namely in lexicon and morphology). In the 1990s the Sibe were generally not aware that many of these distinctions were shared by the oral varieties of Manchuria.

16The basic comprehensive description of Sibe folk culture is *Xibozu minsu – Sibe uksurai an tacin* (He & Tong 1989), the main description of Sibe ethnic history was *Xibozu jianshi/Sibe uksurai šolokon suduri* (Wu et al. 1985).

### 9 Historical language contact between Sibe and Khorchin

As Zhuangsheng (2019: 58–70) has shown, this narrative came into being at the beginning of the 20th century and became essential in the context of the creation of the 55 ethnic minorities during the 1970s. Evidence for a distinct origin and a history as an ethnic group of its own was required in order to be officially recognized as an ethnic minority and enjoy the advantages associated with this status. Another reason why the Sibe strongly denied common origins with the Manchus was the persecution of ethnic Manchus which started in Republican China and continued into the PRC period. Zhuangsheng (2019: 58–71) describes how the Sibe intellectuals worked on collecting historical evidence for writing a *Sibe history*. He concludes (2019: 71–72) that Sibe as a political or ethnic entity indeed occur in historical sources since early 17th century. However, the whole narrative about their relationship to the presumably Mongolic-related Xianbei and their early history since the 3rd century17 was made up without any historical basis, and with very little background in oral tradition. This narrative has become part of the modern Sibe identity.

### **3.1.3 A story of a "different original language": The case of the** *jivš* **language**

The story of the extinct *jivš* language is an example of a detail from Sibe oral tradition that became an important part of the Sibe "ethnic narrative" and (linguistic) self-consciousness as a non-Manchu group.18

17The official Sibe history uses several unclear mentions found in oral tradition to argue that the ethnonym *Sibe* is related to the name of the Xianbei, a presumably nomadic group from western Manchuria which ruled over the Mongolian grasslands in the 2nd century. The Xianbei language has been most often interpreted as Mongolic (e.g. Janhunen 2010: 281). This hypothetical Xianbei connection of the Sibe has been used in support of the argumentation for a non-Jurchen origin of the Sibe.

18As for the possible identity of this enigmatic language, the Inner Mongolian linguist Otgonchecheg suggested a connection to the Chipchin (Bargu: *šivšin*), an exonym used for the Old Bargu (a Buryat-related Mongolic group) during the Qing. Otgonchecheg, who did fieldwork in Chabchal in order to collect data of the *jivš* language, did not publish her research due to the lack of evidence. From a historical point of view it is plausible that a group of Chipchin Bargu bannermen was incorporated into the Sibe banners. However, the Sibe scholar Su Deshan (1984), based on his fieldwork in the Fifth banner, maintains that the term *jivš gisun* referred merely to a layer of Khorchin loanwords which was thicker in some groups of Sibe than in others. Su Deshan, following a "folk" explanation, interprets the word *jivš* as 'double, additional' and the term *jivš gisun* as 'additional words, synonyms'. Small pieces of evidence from more recent fieldwork (Guo Junxiao, Chengzhi, p.c. September 2020) suggest that the notion of *jivš gisun* is still remembered in the Fifth banner, currently pointing to a mixture of Mongolian loanwords and Literary Manchu expressions which are marginal, though not entirely unknown, among the rest of the Chabchal speakers. Guo Junxiao, a Sibe speaker (p.c. 2020) describes *jivš gisun* as a group of "unfamiliar, Mongolian-sounding words" while the unpublished data collected by Chengzhi (2020) include lexical items such as *saxaxuri* 'whitish' (< written Manchu *sahahūri*) and *xurdun* 'quick' (< written Mongol *qurdun*, Khorchin *xurden*, vs. Sibe *xudun*, written Manchu *hūdun*).

### Veronika Zikmundová

The inhabitants of the Fifth banner, one of the eight administrative units of Chabchal, speak Sibe with a (for a native speaker) remarkably different pronunciation. The difference supposedly consists of lesser reduction and generally greater closeness to written Manchu. Sibe speakers from other banners often quote the example of the written Manchu word *aliyaha* 'waited' which is pronounced as *aliaxa* in the Fifth banner but *alixe* in the rest of Chabchal. Oral tradition explains this by saying that Sibe of the Fifth banner were originally speakers of a different language and therefore were taught Standard Manchu as a new language. This caused their pronunciation in the spoken language being closer to the literary language. Oral tradition calls their original language *jivš gisun* 'the *jivš* language' (written form *jibsi gisun*), and holds that it had disappeared by the end of the 19th century. Different 'folk' hypotheses exist about this language, such as that *jivš gisun* was a "Mongol language, perhaps something like Khorchin or Daur" or that it was a "secret language which consisted of repeating every word twice." (fieldwork data February 1995). Moreover, now and then a statement is heard or read that *jivš gisun* was the original language of the Sibe.

Whatever the historical roots of the *jivš* case, it has become part of the popular narrative of Sibe indentity. Even today the statement about *jivš* as the original language of the Sibe, attributed to a source called "minjian" (folk), is repeated on Sibe social media,19 which testifies to its lasting popularity.

### **3.2 Khorchin**

Khorchin Mongol, spoken by close to a million of speakers and thus being the largest and most influential Mongolian dialect after Khalkha, is less researched than Sibe. The Khorchin speech community differs from most other Mongolian speech communities in that it has a long tradition of sedentary or semi-sedentary life-style. Two important descriptions of Khorchin are Bayančogtu (2002) and Caidengduoerji (2014), the latter being an unpublished dissertation.20

At present, Khorchin is spoken over a large territory in Inner Mongolia and the neighboring provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang. The locations with the greatest concentration of speakers are the administrative unit of Tongliao City and the Hinggan League in Inner Mongolia. The varieties spoken in these two areas

19*musei te gisuremaha gisun oci manju gisun inu, musei da gisun oci jibsi gisun, manju gisun waka* 'the language we speak now is Manchu, but our original language is the Jibsi language, not Manchu'. (E.g. http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog\_4aa943a1010008yv.html. Last access 28.10.2020.)

20Other studies and materials of Khorchin include, for example, Brosig (2014a,b) and Yamakoshi (2015).

### 9 Historical language contact between Sibe and Khorchin

slightly differ from each other. Khorchin is close to two other large eastern Mongolian varieties – Kharachin and Baarin – and the three, including a number of their sub-varieties, share some important differences from the rest of Mongolian. The Tongliao variety, in particular, is hardly intelligible to speakers of most other modern Mongolian languages.

However, the available descriptions of Khorchin present a picture of a rather regular variety of modern Mongolian and do not give sufficient explanation for the mutual unintelligibility with standard varieties such as Khalkha.

In my observation, two main factors may be responsible for the surface difference of Tongliao Khorchin from other modern Mongolian varieties. First, Khorchin retains, with certain exceptions such as the loss of the vowel *ö*, the general phonological structure that goes back to Proto-Mongolic (e.g. Janhunen 2003b: 4). However, extensive processes on the phonetic level such as consonant weakening, vowel shifts and vowel reduction fundamentally change its shape in speech. Second, Khorchin in most rural areas is profoundly influenced by Chinese with which it has been in close contact for several centuries. Chinese influence is mostly manifested in syntax (e.g. paratactic constructions instead of chains of clauses connected by non-finite verbal forms, which are typical for most other modern Mongolian languages) and vocabulary. Depending on the topic and circumstances, the speech of a Khorchin speaker may consist of about fifty percent of words of Chinese origin. These features are not readily seen in the descriptions but are important for shaping the performance of Khorchin speakers which then radically differs from the speech of, for example, a Khalkha speaker.

### **3.2.1 Historical background of the Khorchin**

The Khorchin population seems to have initially been composed of two main elements. The first, the most important according to Khorchin historians, and the one which gave the group its name and proclaimed identity, is the Mongol noble lineage descended from Khasar and their subjects. In the 13th century Khasar, the younger brother of Genghis Khan, was granted the lands around Lake Hulun and the Ergune river as an appanage, hence approximately the area of the modern administrative unit of Hulunbuir.21 During the Ming dynasty, probably in connection to the period of internal conflicts in Mongolia (Caidengduoerji 2014: 29), the main part of the Khorchins crossed the Khingan mountains to the east and

21It is often difficult to establish the precise location of the lands of particular nomadic peoples in this period. In the case of the Khasar lineage, however, archaeologists have interpreted at least two important sites in the Ergune valley as towns built by Khasar's descendants (e.g. Kradin 2018: 227–227).

### Veronika Zikmundová

settled in the Nonni valley where they became the overlords of the local Mongol population. The local Mongols, the second important – and probably more numerous – element in the composition of Khorchins, were the Ujiyed of the Fuyu Guard22 (Atwood 2004: 306). The Fuyu guard was one of the Three Guards – administrative units in Manchuria loosely controlled by the Chinese (Ming) court. The population of the Three Guards was referred to as either Mongol or Uriangkhan, but comprised, besides Mongols, groups of Tungusic origin.23 Therefore, in imagining the linguistic situation during the Ming, it seems important that the population of the Three guards, which later24 "became the ancestors of many eastern Inner Mongolian peoples" (Atwood 2004: 35), was probably largely homogenous in terms of language and culture25 which contained elements of Tungusic origin (Crossley 2006: 82). In addition to this picture, the Three Guards were geographically close to the former Khitan territories, and their settlement in the area probably goes back to times when Khitans still existed as a distinct entity. Therefore a certain Khitan influence on Khorchin cannot be excluded.

Consequently, the remarkable features shared by the eastern Mongolian dialects – Khorchin, Kharachin and Baarin – may in fact have originated in the language of the Three Guard Mongols who have been continually exposed to local Manchurian influences since as early as the Yuan period.

Since the 15th century the Khorchins often intermarried with Jurchens (Crossley 2006: 65). Since their arrival they started migrating from the Nonni valley southwards, into their present territory in the Liao valley. According to a contemporary account of a Korean observer, they were "dressed in furs, with their felt yurts on wagons, moving their herds toward appropriate pastures. Many, he noted, were also agricultural and would sow fields in the spring to which they

22The Fuyu guard, situated close to the present Qiqihar in the Nonni valley, was one of the three "loose rein" guards (the Fuyu guard of the Ujiyed people, the Taining guard of the Ongniuts and the Döyin guard of the Uriangkhan) established in Manchuria by the Ming. The "Guards" were groups of former subjects of the Yuan empire who were identified as Mongols and after the fall of the Yuan rule became tributaries of the new Ming dynasty (Atwood 2004: 536).

23Crossley (2006: 64) refers to the Ming authors Xiao Daheng and Ye Xianggao for a definition of "Mongols" in the Ming era, concluding that: "[...] some Mongolian-speaking communities were not nomadic but agricultural; many groups who migrated with "Mongols" were speakers of Turkic or Tungusic languages; many living among the Mongols were Han or the descendants of Han, who had been taken by the hundreds of thousands by eastern Mongol raiders in northern China."

24For the detailed descriptions of the migrations of the Three Guards and their mixing with other Mongols see Atwood (2004: 304, 410).

25The Three Guard Mongols were mostly sedentary and practiced agriculture (Atwood 2004: 535).

### 9 Historical language contact between Sibe and Khorchin

expected to return in the fall to reap a meager crop of wheat or millet." (Crossley 2006: 66). During the Qing period the Khorchins took over the Liao valley and thanks to their alliance with the Manchus politically dominated the area. At the same time groups of outsiders settled on this territory and were integrated and assimilated by the Khorchins (Caidengduoerji 2014: 37). These immigrants were both large groups of Manchus and Chinese and smaller groups or individuals of other ethnic origin such as Sibe, Ewenki, or Koreans. In the beginning of the 20th century the Khorchin area became one of the main targets of the Qing New Policies, which involved an unrestricted immigration of Han Chinese and further sedentarization of the local Mongols. Even during the 20th century, however, many immigrants kept adopting the Khorchin language and culture.

### **4 Evidence of Sibe-Khorchin contacts**

In this section I list some shared features of modern Sibe and modern Khorchin, which may have resulted from mutual contacts between the ancestors of the two modern groups. These features, in my opinion, indeed point in the direction of direct contact of some kind. Historically and linguistically, these features remain open to different interpretations. When taking into consideration the available evidence about "ethnic" and "linguistic" mobility in Manchuria, especially within the Eight Banners,26 it is rather clear that it is impossible to entirely separate the

26In Qing-time Manchuria large-scale migrations and resettlements are documented, such as the abovementioned resettlement of Sibe, Khorchin migrations, or the massive Daur and Solon migration into the Qiqihar area in the 17th century. In addition, evidence of countless shifts of small groups and individuals among the Qing garrisons is scattered across historical sources. Another factor important for linguistic developments are frequent intermarriages among members of different banners which were supported by the strict rules of exogamy in Tungusicspeaking groups. Among these, intermarriages between Sibe and Manchu bannermen seem to have been common (He Rongwei, p.c. June 2020). Intermarriages between Khorchin and Manchu speakers are generally known to have been frequent (Shuangshan, p.c. August 2015). If we take the longest-surviving "banner society" – that of Hulun Buir – as a model for the linguistic situation in the Manchurian Banner communities, we may assume that not only many bilingual couples lived in the Banners but most of the bannermen were, to a certain degree, familiar with other languages. The supposed constant language contact between the Sibe and Manchu bannermen and the Khorchins rules out the possibility of independent developments of these languages and any clear-cut evidence for the earlier direct contacts between the Sibe and the Khorchin.

It also needs to be taken into account that the available data of spoken Manchurian Manchu represent tiny pieces of a once broad continuum of local varieties, and that much of the data available were collected from semi-speakers and rememberers, and thus cannot supply a complete picture of Manchurian Manchu.

### Veronika Zikmundová

linguistic developments in Sibe from the other Manchu varieties. However, the features listed below are central and massive in Sibe while, if attested, marginal in Manchurian Manchu.

### **4.1 Manchu influence on Khorchin?**

For obvious reasons – namely the absence of any Sibe data before the 20th century – any specifically Sibe influence on Khorchin cannot be determined. In the context of the historical developments described above, strong influence of Manchurian Tungusic varieties might be expected. Quite surprisingly, however, little influence is seen on the lexical level. While Chinese loanwords form a significant part of the Khorchin vocabulary, Manchu loanwords do not seem to excess several tens. Words used in everyday life such as *lah* for the brick bed (Chin. *kang*) from Manchu *nahan* or kinship terms such as *eme* for mother (Manchu *eme*) have been noted by native linguists (Bayančoγtu 2002: 25). Some Manchu loanwords are connected to shamanic practices, such as *samaan* 'shaman' from Manchu *saman*, *sarg* 'home altar' from Manchu *sarha* or the verb *magsi-* 'to perform shamanic dance' from Manchu *maksi-* 'to dance.' On the level of morphology and morphosyntax, the general typological similarity of Manchu and Mongolian makes it difficult to single out instances of mutual influence.

The small number of Jurchenic loanwords in general may, at least partly, be attributed to the standardization forces during the Qing dynasty which affected Mongolian (proper)27 speakers not less than Manchu speakers. In spite of the fact that the Mongolian script was invented before the Yuan times, it became widely used only since the 16th century with the spread of Buddhism, accompanied by translations of literary works into Classical Mongolian. At the same time, original compositions of didactic and other character were written and read in Mongolian-speaking societies. The influence of Classical Mongolian could have brought the vocabulary of the (politically) Mongol groups of Manchuria closer to other Mongolian varieties (Crossley 2006: 83).

In terms of contact features, research into phonetic peculiarities of Khorchin and their relationship to the language environment of Manchuria may prove more rewarding. It seems worthwhile to analyze Khorchin phonetic and phonological differences from other Mongolian varieties in the context of other eastern Mongolic idioms (Baarin, Buryat, Daur), in the context of Manchu varieties, Manchurian Mandarin and possibly even the of language of the Korean minority of China.

27In contrast to Mongolian proper, the Mongolic Daur langauge was not affected by standardization, instead borrowing many Manchu words.

### 9 Historical language contact between Sibe and Khorchin

Below I just note two features which are similarly typical for Sibe among Manchu varieties as for Khorchin among Mongol dialects and may therefore be added among the candidates for results of direct Sibe-Khorchin language contact.

### **4.2 Shared phonetic developments in Khorchin and Sibe**

Generally speaking, Sibe and Khorchin are phonetically strikingly similar, which seems to be caused for the most part by the Manchurian influence on Khorchin. For example, Khorchin is perhaps the only Mongolian variety where the intervocalic cluster *ŋg* is pronounced as syllable-initial [ŋ], as in [moŋol] 'Mongol'. Still, however, two of the shared features may be interpreted as results of phonetic processes that Manchurian Manchu has avoided.

### **4.2.1 Change of closing diphthongs into opening diphthongs**

In Sibe, the equivalent of the written Manchu diphthong *ai* is often pronounced as *iä*, e.g. written Manchu *bayimbi*28 [pajmbi] vs. Sibe *biäm* [pjɛm] 'to look for', etc. This is valid for approximately half of the reflections of the written Manchu *ai*. The rest either remains as *äi*/*ai* or is monophthongized. Some instances of retention of the closing diphthong are in the word-initial position (e.g. written Manchu *ai*, Sibe *ai* 'what'), others come after uvulars (e.g. written Manchu *kaicambi*, Sibe *qaicem*/*qacim* 'to shout'), or apparently belong to a more literary style (e.g. written Manchu *saikan*, Sibe *saiken* 'beautiful'). In other cases such as the written Manchu *baita*, Sibe *bäit* there is no immediately apparent reason. The "reversal" also took place in a few cases of the closing diphthong oi (e.g. written Manchu *boihon*, Sibe *bioxun* 'dust'). These changes fit into the context of the overall phonetic tendencies in Sibe (vowel raising and fronting, e.g. written Manchu *omimbi*, Sibe *eimim*/*iemim* 'to drink').

In contrast to Sibe, in the spoken Manchurian varieties of Sanjiazi, Aihui and Yibuqi monophthongization of the written Manchu diphthongs occurs (e.g. written Manchu *sain*, Sanjiazi *sän* 'good'), but there are no cases of "reversal" of the diphthongs.

Unlike Manchurian Manchu but quite similarly to Sibe, Khorchin has a strong tendency towards vowel fronting and raising (Janhunen 2012: 60–61). Closing diphthongs of written Mongol (which are either retained or monophthongized in the central Mongolian varieties such as Khalkha) are, at least in some Khorchin varieties, almost regularly reversed, e.g. written Khalkha *naim*, Khorchin

28Unlike the pronunciation in spoken varieties, academic pronunciation of written Manchu unpacks the diphthong.

### Veronika Zikmundová

*nie:m* 'eight' or written Khalkha *meiren*, Khorchin *mie:rin* (title of an official). The reversal may involve change of vowel quality such as written Khalkha *xoit*, Khorchin *xie:t* 'north'.

Janhunen (2012: 45) notes that the tendency towards vowel fronting is seen in Mongolian in general but this process has been most complete in the eastern dialects including Khorchin. Similarly, reversal of diphthongs occasionally happens in other Mongolian varieties but has become regular in Khorchin. The described feature of Sibe may therefore be interpreted as a diachronic change that happened during the period of influence of the eastern Mongolian phonetic environment but was halted when the Sibe left this particular environment.

### **4.2.2 Dissimilation of the cluster** *čx*

There is another phonetic development that occurs in Sibe and Khorchin but is found neither in other Manchu varieties, nor in any other Mongolian variety. In spoken Sibe the consonant clusters *čk* and *čx*, which result from vowel elision, often change into the sequence *šk*, e.g. written Manchu *tacikū*, Sibe *tačqu*/*tašqu* 'school' or written Manchu *tacihabi*, Sibe *tačxei*/*tašqei* 'studied'. The dissimilated forms are used in quick and less careful speech, while the careful pronunciation retains the original consonants. In Khorchin, the cluster *čx* in the Mongolian deverbal suffix *-čix-*/*-čx-* (quick or intensive action) in quick speech is sometimes dissimilated in a similar way. e.g. *yavšgen*/*yavčxen* cf. written Khalkha *yavčixna* 'will leave'. While this may be just a parallel development, it certainly contributes to the similarity of the two languages.

### **4.3 Potential Khorchin influence on Sibe grammar**

In the next part I list those features of Sibe grammar which have analogies in Khorchin and are not shared by, or are marginal in, the other oral Manchu varieties.

### **4.3.1 The emphatic prefix** *mV-* **(used with deictics)**

### <IP_ADDRESS> The prefix *mV-* in Sibe

Sibe has the element *me-*/*mu-* which is added to the beginning of some deictic expressions. Generally it adds emphasis to the deictics and is possibly best translated as 'just, exactly', sometimes 'the very'. Its use is often analogous to the Chinese particle *jiù* 'just, exactly', sometimes also 'the same'.

The prefix is at least partly productive. Below I list forms encountered in my fieldwork material with examples:

9 Historical language contact between Sibe and Khorchin

	- (1) *mere* just.this *jilgan* sound *mim-be* 1sg-acc *eme* one *diower* night *amxe-we-xa-qv.* sleep-caus-ptcp.pfv-neg 'It was exactly this thing which did not let me sleep the whole night.'
	- (2) *metere* just.that *baite-we* matter-acc *giser-maie.* speak-prog 'This is exactly what I am speaking about; I am speaking about the same thing.'
	- (3) *min-i* 1sg-gen *uwe=da* fate=foc *merange.* just.like.this 'This is exactly what my fate is (I cannot change it).'
	- (4) *meterange=da* Just.like.that=foc *are!* write.imp 'Write it exactly in that way!/ Just write it in that way!'
	- (5) *bilxa=ni* neck=3sg.poss *meske* just.this.much *ma.* thick 'His neck is just this thick. (This form is usually used when demonstrating the degree of something with a gesture.)'

The form *mere* 'exactly this' is further used as means of emphasis with different types of expressions, both with deictics (6) and with other words (7), (8). In this case it rather adds emphasis to the whole sentence than to its determinandum.

### Veronika Zikmundová

This feature is very likely borrowed from Khorchin, where the element *m(V)-* has an analogous function.

### <IP_ADDRESS> The prefix *mV-* in Khorchin

According to Bayančoγtu (2002: 148–151), in Khorchin this prefix is fully productive with demostratives. In his description the author gives a list of more than 120 possible forms. Below I give examples from my fieldwork material:

	- (9) *Tongliao-nii* Tongliao-gen *laajii-gii* waste-acc *men* just.this *dotor* inside *avšir-č.baina.* bring-prs.prog 'It is (exactly) inside this (fence) they are bringing the waste from Tongliao.'
	- (10) *meter* just.that *modon.eel* pn *šii.* emph 'It was that very Modon eel.'
	- (11) *huu* all *miim* just.like.this *miim* just.like.this *budun.* thick 'They were all just this thick.' (showing)'

9 Historical language contact between Sibe and Khorchin

	- (12) *mitiim* just.like.that *sanaa-tai* idea-com *ir-jee.* come-pst 'I came exactly with this idea in mind (I came exactly for this purpose).'
	- (13) *mengeed* just.in.this.way *neg* one *tangs* row *mod* tree *ux-jee.* die-pst 'And in this very way the whole row of trees died.'
	- (14) *metgej* just.in.this.way *or-j* enter-cvb.ipfv *ir-sen* come-ptcp.pfv *šdee.* emph 'This is the very road we took on the way here.'
	- (15) *mudii* just.this.much *gonjgoil-son.* be.oblong-ptcp.pfv '(Its shape was) oblong, this long (showing).'
	- (16) *nienie-nii* grandmother-gen *ug* original *suugaal* seat *ger* home *bol* top *mende-gu* just.here-nmlzr *ii?* q 'Grandmother, are you originally from this very place?'

The forms listed above are mostly found in eastern Mongolian dialects, even though in recent years they started being occasionally used by speakers of other Inner Mongolian varieties. The word *meter*, which is also used as a filler, is so prominent that Mongols in some other parts of Inner Mongolia used to mock Khorchin soldiers by calling them *Meteruud* 'the Meters'.

### Veronika Zikmundová

This element *mV-* has most probably evolved from the Mongolian emphatic pronoun *mön* (written Mongol 'the same, just this', Poppe (2006: 51), Proto-Mongolic 'the very, the same', Janhunen (2003b: 20). In modern Mongolian proper it has been mostly used as an (often emphatic) copula, e.g.

(17) *bi* 1sg *Dorj* Dorj *mön.* cop 'I am (indeed) Dorj.'

and as an emphatic particle, e.g.

(18) *Ulaanbaatar* Ulaanbaatar *utaa-güi* smog-priv *bol* top *mön* ptc *goyo.* nice 'It would be really nice if Ulaanbaatar was without smog.'

While combining the particle *mön* with deictics is occasionally found in many of the modern Mongol varieties (e.g. Khalkha *mön ter xün* 'that very person'), its grammaticalization into a kind of prefix has only taken place in Khorchin and the adjacent eastern Mongolian varieties. In other spoken Manchu varieties mainly the form *meter* is attested (Wang 2005: 155) but seems to be marginal compared to its massive use in Sibe. Another interesting question is that of the Sibe word *menjang* 'indeed, truly' which is used in positions corresponding to the use of the word *mön* in Mongolian. This expression is attested in written Manchu in the form *mujangga*. No plausible Jurchen etymology for this word seems to be at hand, therefore a connection to the Mongolian form *mön* may be considered. In the whole, the above-mentioned Sibe set of emphatic deictic expressions is one of the candidates for a proof of direct and intensive contact between the ancestors of modern Khorchin and Sibe.

### **4.3.2 Replacement of personal pronouns with demostratives**

Grammars of written Manchu give the 3rd person pronouns as *i* (3sg) and *ce* (3pl) which are regularly inflected for case. In Manchu texts, especially in the more "natural" ones such as historical narratives the demonstrative plural forms *ese* 'these' (singular *ere* 'this') and *tese* 'those' (singular *tere* 'that') are used more frequently than *ce*. As plural forms29 they are generally reserved for human or human-like beings, thus being in fact personal pronouns. In the oral Manchu varieties (Sanjiazi, Aihui and Yibuqi) the 3rd person plural pronoun *ce* has been

29In Manchu only nouns denoting people, deities or ghosts are marked for number.

### 9 Historical language contact between Sibe and Khorchin

completely replaced by an oral form of *tese* (Wang 2005: 52 *tetse*, Zhao 1989: 123 *ts'etse*, etc.). A form derived from the 3rd person singular pronoun *i* is, however, attested in all three varieties: Sanjiazi: *yin*, Aihui *i* (Wang 2005: 52), Yibuqi *ji* (Zhao 1989: 189). These forms are noted as used along with the demonstrative *tere*/*tele* 'that'.

In Mongolic, already in the Middle Mongol period the Proto-Mongolic 3rd person pronouns *i* (singular) and *a* (plural) have been generally replaced by the demonstratives *ene*/*tere* for singular and *ede*/*tede* for plural (Rybatzki 2003: 72).

In Sibe the 3rd person pronouns are not attested at all, even though knowledge of the literary language and thus also of the forms *i* and *ce* was widespread till the 20th century.

Hence, the tendency towards replacement of 3rd person pronouns by demonstratives exists not only in Mongolic, but also in Manchu. Systematic usage of personal pronouns in written Manchu may be regarded as a conservative feature and is being abandoned in less canonical Manchu writing. The process, however, is on half-way in Manchurian Manchu while it has been completed in Sibe.

Admittedly, this is a cross-linguistically common process and does not tell anything about the Khorchin-Sibe contacts. However, it is still possible that a direct influence of a Mongolic vernacular on Sibe has accelerated the change that was already underway in the spoken Manchu varieties – the complete loss of the Manchu pronominal form and its replacement with demonstratives which are, moreover, almost homophonous in Monglian and Manchu.

### **4.3.3 Possessive clitics and Sibe phrasal possession**

Sibe has a system of possessive clitics which resemble the Mongolian possessive clitics and do not occur in any other Manchu variety. Their function is similar, specifically, to Khorchin. Much in the same way as in most modern Mongolian languages including Khorchin, the 3rd person possessive clitic functions as a definite marker or a topicalizer (cf. Hölzl 2017).

Furthermore, Sibe uses the 3rd person possessive clitic to express possession in a way which resembles the prototypical Tungusic head-marked possessive phrases (cf. Gorelova 2002: 45).

### <IP_ADDRESS> Phrasal possession and definite marking in Manchu

In written Manchu the principal way to express possession and association is marking on the dependent which then takes the genitive (or genitive-instrumental) suffix, e.g. *min-i bithe* [1sg-gen book] 'my book'; *morin-i uju* [horse-gen

### Veronika Zikmundová

head] 'horse's head' or 'horse head'; *tacikū-i sefu* [school-gen teacher] 'teacher of the school/school teacher'. Written Manchu has no possessive clitics.

In the spoken Manchurian varieties possession may be dependent-marked, which is obligatory if the possessor is a pronoun. In other cases juxtaposition is common. However, while no possessive clitics are attested in the available materials, Sanjiazi uses the genitive marker *-ning* (< written Manchu marker of independent definite form *=ningge*) as a possessive and definite marker in the same way as Sibe uses the 3rd person possessive clitic *=ni*, e.g.

(19) *ame-ning* father-3sg.poss *yawe-xei.* go-pst 'His father/the father left.'

### <IP_ADDRESS> Possessive markers in Mongolian

Most Mongolian varieties have a set of possessive markers which go back to reconstructed genitive forms of the Proto-Mongolic personal pronouns (Table 1).

Table 1: Proto-Mongolic personal pronouns (Janhunen 2003b: 18)

While in some Mongol varieties such as Buryat and Oirat these pronouns have been grammaticalized into possessive suffixes, others, like Khalkha and Khorchin, use slightly modified forms of the 1st and 2nd person possessive pronouns as clitics. Since the 3rd person possessive pronouns have been replaced by demonstratives, the system of possessive clitics has been supplemented with a "neutralized reflex of the original pronominal genitives" (Janhunen 2003a: 92) – the form *ni*. Consequently, the Khalkha possessive clitics are the ones shown in Table 2.

In Khalkha, all the enclitics are alternatively used to express possession along with the basic dependent-marked noun phrases. The choice of a clitic instead of a pronoun in genitive form may have semantic, stylistic or modality reasons, e.g. *min-ii eej* [1sg-gen mother] 'my mother (neutral)' vs. *eej=miny* [mother=2sg.poss] 'my mother (expressing emotional attachment)'. The enclitics may be used instead of pronominal genitives in all functions of the latter, i.e.

### 9 Historical language contact between Sibe and Khorchin

Table 2: Khalkha possessive enclitics, possessive pronouns and personal pronouns (Svantesson 2003: 164)

possession, association, whole-part relationship (cf. Dixon 2010: 262). They also determine postpositions or indicate the agent in relative clauses. In Khorchin the frequency of clitics slightly differs from other Mongolian varieties: the 3rd person enclitic *=ni* [en] is frequent, closely followed by the 2nd person singular enclitic *šini* [ʃin]. In contrast, the rest, 1st person and 2nd person plural enclitics, are rare.

Examples of possessive enclitics in Khorchin:

In most modern Mongol varieties, possessive clitics are used in functions whose common denominator is probably best described as definiteness (Janhunen: "deictic determinants connected with the category of definiteness"). In some cases they "refer to the discourse situation" (Janhunen 2003a: 93). The 3rd person and 2nd person singular possessive clitics are the most common in this function. In Khorchin, only the latter two seem to be used as definite markers, e.g.:

(22) 3rd person possessive enclitic *=ni* (22) *ter* that *olson* bamboo *yum=ni* thing=def *ertnii,* ancient, *uldsen=ni* the.rest=def *bol* top *suulernii.* later 'The one made of bamboo is ancient, the rest of them is more recent.'

317

### Veronika Zikmundová

(23) 2nd person singular possessive clitic *=šini* (23) *ter* that *uise-d=šini* times-dat.loc=def *iim* such *terg* cart *gue.* neg.ex 'In those times there were no such carts.'

### <IP_ADDRESS> Sibe possessive clitics

In Sibe a set of possessive clitics exists which for the 1st and 2nd persons are almost identical with possessive pronouns. In the 3rd person the form *ni* is used which can be interpreted either as having evolved from the Manchu 3rd person possessive pronoun *ini* or as a Mongolian borrowing. However, while the 3rd person clitic is frequent and the 2nd person singular clitic occurs sporadically, the rest of the forms is rather rare.

Table 3: Possessive enclitics in Sibe

Examples of possessive clitics in Sibe:

In Sibe only the 3rd person possessive clitic is used as a definite marker, e.g.

(26) *nane=ni* person=def *ji-xe* come-ptcp.pfv *na?* q 'Has the person arrived?'

Besides the function of definite marker the Sibe marker *ni* is also used as a kind of topic marker, e.g.

9 Historical language contact between Sibe and Khorchin

(27) *Tana=ni* Tana=top *terang* such *baite* matter *icxia-qu.* arrange-neg 'Tana would not do such things. (As for Tana, she would not do such things.)'

<IP_ADDRESS> The case of 'head-marked' possession in Sibe

In Sibe, the Manchu-type marking on the dependent is obligatory when the possessor is referred to by a pronoun, e.g. *sin-i bo* [2sg-gen house] 'your house'. In other cases it is used alternatively with simple juxtaposition (e.g. *tašqu sewe* [school teacher] 'teacher of the school/school teacher'), the latter being more frequent. However, the head of possessive phrases is very often (additionally) marked by the 3rd person possessive clitic *=ni*. In such cases the clitic may be interpreted either as a topic marker (28) or/and as emphasizing definiteness (29), the boundaries between the two meanings being rather vague.

This type of constructions, which has no correspondence in any Manchu variety, is so frequent and remarkable in Sibe that it resembles the head-marked possessive phrases in the non-Jurchenic Tungusic languages. In contrast to the latter, however, the marker *=ni* is always optional in Sibe.

While such type of phrases occurs neither in written Manchu nor in the Manchurian oral varieties, in Mongolian we find structurally similar constructions. Possessive phrases often have additional marking on the head which at the same time implies greater definiteness, e.g.

(30) Khalkha

*Ganaa.g-iin* Ganaa-gen *eej=ni* mother=3sg.poss *emch.* doctor 'Ganaa's mother is a doctor.'

In Mongolian, simple juxtaposition is marginal in expressing possession which makes 'head-marked' possessive constructions of the Sibe type rare. However, constructions with similar structure still occur:

Veronika Zikmundová

(31) Khalkha *eej* mother *bie=ni* body=3sg.poss *muu* bad *baina.* cop 'Mother is sick (literally: Mother her body is bad).'

The existence of possessive clitics in Sibe constitutes a remarkable typological difference from written Manchu. The clitics are formed and used in a way that is almost identical with that of Khorchin. On the first sight, 'head-marked' possession does not exist in Mongolian. In fact, however, structurally similar possessive phrases occur in colloquial Mongolian. No such possessive phrases seem to have been attested in any other Manchu variety.

### **4.3.4 The limiting clitic** *=li*

In Sibe, the main means for expressing limitation is the clitic *=li*. 30 It can follow any sentence member, e.g.

In most modern Mongolic languages including Khalkha and Khorchin the clitic *lV* (< Classical Mongolian *la*/*le*) is used in much the same way, but typically does not determine the predicate, e.g.

(36) Khalkha *bi=l* 1sg=lim *yav-na.* go-npst 'Only I will go.'

30The Mongolic origin of the Sibe limitation marker was suggested by Norikazu Kogura (2020).

(37) *neg=l* one=lim *xun* person *ir-sen.* come-pst 'Only one person arrived.'

In written Manchu, postpositions such as *-i teile*, e.g. *emu niyalma-i teile* 'only one person', are used as means of postnominal31 limitation, and no clitic with similar meaning seems to be attested. Likewise, any similar clitic does not seem to be attested in the Manchurian spoken Manchu varieties, wherefore the Sibe clitic *=li* is likely to be a borrowing from a Mongolic language.

### **4.4 Absence of the Manchu directional (itive and ventive) suffixes** *-nV-* **and** *-nji-*

Written Manchu has a large set of deverbal suffixes, most of which have lost their productivity in the spoken varieties. However, in Sanjiazi, Aihui and Yibuqi two of the deverbal suffixes are highly productive – the suffix *-nji-* 'to come to do something' and *-nV-* 'to go to do something', e.g. written Manchu *ala-na-ha*, Sanjiazi *ale-na-xe* 'went to tell'.

In Sibe these suffixes have completely lost their productivity. Instead, multiverb expressions are used to convey similar meanings, e.g. *ale-me gene-xei* [tellcvb.ipfv go-pst] 'went to tell', or *gene-me ale-xei* [go-cvb.ipfv tell-pst] 'went and told.'

Mongolian has no directional deverbal suffixes and the meanings 'go to do' and 'come to do' are expressed by multiverb constructions, e.g. *hele-heer ir-sen* [tell-cvb.purp come-pst].

Multiverb constructions are frequent and preferred in many languages in the area. A tendency towards replacing deverbal suffixes by multiverb chains in Sibe is not surprising. Perhaps more surprising is the retention of productivity of the deverbal suffix in Manchurian Manchu. Still, however, the different developments may have been prompted by the different language environment.

31Besides postnominally used expressions, both Manchu varieties and Mongolian employ adverbs to express limitation. These adverbs (e.g. written Manchu *damu*, Sibe *dame*, Khalkha Mongolian *zövxön*) usually stand in the beginning of a sentence, and always come before the noun which they determine, e.g. written Manchu *damu emu niyalma* 'only one person', Mongolian *zövxön neg xün* 'only one person'. These adverbs are often used together with postnominal limitation as means of emphasis, e.g. written Manchu *damu emu niyalma-i teile* 'only one person', Khalkha *zövxön neg l xün* 'only one person'.

Veronika Zikmundová

### **5 Lexical borrowings**

In addition to the possibly contact-induced features in Sibe grammar, there is a small-scale but interesting evidence of direct contacts with Mongolic languages in the Sibe lexicon.

The vocabulary of modern spoken Sibe is almost identical with that of written Manchu, the main difference being a larger number of Chinese loanwords. In addition, several Russian, Uyghur and Kazakh loanwords are used. Although colloquial Sibe contains a large amount of Mongolian loanwords, most of them are also found in written Manchu and therefore do not testify to any specific Sibe-Mongolian contacts.32

Several lexical items such as *kurwo* for 'bridge' (written Manchu *doohan*) from Mongolian *xöörög* (written Mongol *kögerge*) 'bridge' seem to be restricted to Sibe.

While the modern colloquial language hardly yields any lexical evidence of Sibe-Mongolic contact, in more archaic layers of the lexicon there exist Mongolian loanwords related to Buddhism, shamanism and what may be called "folk religion" which are not found in other Manchu varieties. Some of these terms are still in use while others are only found in written sources.

### **5.1 Buddhist terminology and the language of Buddhist monks**

Historical sources mention the adoption of Tibetan Buddhism by the Sibe during the period of their vassalage to the Khorchins. Until the 1930s a Buddhist monastery existed in Chabchal with approximately fourty monks. The language of recitation was Classical Mongolian. The language of the monks contained many Mongolian Buddhist terms for which nowadays Manchu words or Chinese loanwords are used. Examples of such pairs are *sumu* (< written Mongol *süme*) vs. *miao* (< Chinese *miao*) 'Buddhist temple, monastery', or *burkan baksi* (< written Mongol *burqan bagsi*) vs. *fišk* (Manchu *fucihi*33) 'Buddha'. However, judging,

32In general, any search for lexical borrowings is complicated by the nature of Manchu-Mongolian language contacts which involved not only interactions of spoken varieties, but also the sphere of written translations between Manchu and Mongol, which were often done by native speakers of Mongolic varieties. There exist many bilingual texts written in the form of interlinear translations. The Manchu parts of these bilingual texts usually contain a greater portion of Mongol(ic) loanwords than other types of Manchu texts, which are mostly synonyms to original Manchu words or Chinese loanwords. Once used in written documents, these Mongolic loanwords also entered Manchu dictionaries, even though their actual use may have been limited.

33The Manchu word *fucihi* has been interpreted as a borrowing from Korean by Vovin (2006: 259).

### 9 Historical language contact between Sibe and Khorchin

among others, from the recording of recitation of a Buddhist text by a Sibe monk (Zhuangsheng 2018), the local Oirat Mongol tradition of Mongolian recitation preserved among the Öölöds of Ili should also be considered as a possible source of the use of Mongolian in Sibe Buddhist tradition.

### **5.2 Shamanic terminology**

Modern Sibe in Xinjiang consider shamanic traditions to be their 'original' religion. In the construction of their ethnic culture, 'shamanism' is assigned key importance. Several influential publications give detailed and normative descriptions of the pantheon, system of rituals and main types of ritualists considered to belong to the concept of 'shamanism'.34 The descriptions were accomplished based on fieldwork among family members of shamans, accounts of eyewitnesses and texts written by shamans since the 19th century. These texts, intended as handbooks for shaman disciples and containing mostly invocation texts with few comments and explanations, are the main source of Mongolic loanwords which seem to be found exclusively in Sibe (cf. Zikmundová 2013).

The so far indentified Mongolic loanwords in Sibe shamanic texts are the following:

34For descriptions of Sibe shamanic traditions see e.g. Sárközi & Somfai-Kara (2013) or Harris (2005).

35'ghost disease', Sibe *yivaxen niungku*, Khorchin *ad uvšin*, is a term for a specific type of spirit possession occuring mainly in women (cf. Zikmundová 2013)

All but one of the above Mongolic loanwords pertain to a single type of shamanic ritual – healing a certain type of spirit possession. The ritual was apparently borrowed by Sibe from the eastern Mongols, most probably Khorchins, where it existed in several elaborated variants until the Cultural Revolution. The original Mongolian ritual, known as *andai*, is unique for Khorchins and their immediate neighbors. The Sibe version of the ritual is simplified and shortened.

### **6 Conclusions: The "reality" of Sibe-Khorchin contacts**

For reasons that may be called political, the ethnic history of the Sibe – speakers of a Manchu (Tungusic-Jurchenic) variety – has been a much discussed topic in China. As part of the official narrative, the pre-Qing contacts of the Sibe with Khorchin Mongols are being mentioned – a fact recorded by a few brief notes in historical documents. The Sibe are said to have been vassals of the Khorchins before the 1690s. After 1764, when the ancestors of modern Sibe speakers were moved to Xinjiang, no more contacts between Sibe and Khorchin Mongols took place. The Sibe-Khorchin contact narrative has been used, together with popular views with some background in oral tradition, to argue for a non-Jurchen, possibly Mongol-related origin of the Sibe. It has gradually become part of the self-consciousness of modern Xinjiang Sibe. The question has also triggered academic discussion on this topic.

In this paper I tried to select shared features in Sibe and Khorchin which are not, or marginally, documented in other varieties of spoken Manchu and therefore may testify to a specific contact history. Since no diachronic data for either Sibe or Khorchin are available, modern spoken Sibe and modern Khorchin materials were used. Additionally, lexical data from a written source are mentioned that testify to certain cultural exchange between the Sibe and the Khorchins.

The collected features mostly apply to morphology and one of them, the emphatic prefix *me-* is typical for spoken Sibe and eastern Mongolian. The latter, together with the shared shamanic terminology, and possibly also the shared phonetic features, seem to testify to a direct and lively linguistic and cultural exchange between the Sibe and the ancestors of modern Khorchin. The rest of the mentioned analogies have less clear implications: Being more or less typical for all modern Mongolic languages, they may be features of a linguistic area where multiple Mongolic and Tungusic languages influenced each other.

A short overview of historical facts with connection to the linguistic situation in the Qiqihar region during the Ming is given as a broader context of the documented Sibe-Khorchin contacts. These facts show that the main contact language

of the Sibe was not the language of the Khorchins which arrived from the Mongolian plateau in the mid-16th century but rather the language of the Ujiyed. The Ujiyed were a Mongolized Tungusic group whose presence in the Qiqihar region dates back to early Ming, or even Yuan, times. Together with two other groups – the Uriangkhan and the Ongniud – these local Mongols may have already spoken a disctinct dialect with "eastern" features when the Khorchins arrived and merged with them. The described shared morphological features and lexical borrowings, however scanty, seem to point towards a Mongolic influence that was stronger and longer-lasting on the ancestor of modern Sibe than on the ancestors of the other spoken Manchu varieties. In this context, another important and rather early Mongolic contact language of the Sibe – the Daur – needs to be examined in the future.

Another question posed in this paper is the significance of the shared linguistic features in imagining Sibe history. The areas around modern Qiqihar and Fuyu, where the Sibe lived, were bordering the homeland of the Hūlun Jurchens who are thought to have spoken a Mongolic-influenced Jurchen variety during the Ming period. The whole area was controlled by the Mongolized Ujiyed and the Hūlun Jurchens were even referred to as Mongols by other Jurchens. This suggests an image of the Sibe as linguistic representatives of this broader Mongolicinfluenced Jurchenic community.

The linguistic developments of Sibe during the Qing period fall out of the scope of this paper. It is, however, important to mention that the period of linguistic diversity during the Ming was effectively ended by the subsequent standardization processes, which, for the Sibe, begun with their incorporation into the Manchu Eight Banners in 1692. The latter affected both Mongolic and Jurchenic languages. Introduction of Buddhism to the Khorchin Mongols, accompanied by spread of literature in general, brought about literacy in Classical Mongolian. For the Jurchenic part, standardization efforts of the Manchu ruling strata is a generally acknowledged fact. Both Literary Mongolian and Classical Manchu enjoyed high prestige. Spread of Classical Mongolian may be one of the factors that brought Khorchin vocabulary and grammar closer to the central Mongolian varieties. The local Jurchenic varieties probably became extinct after the incorporation of the speakers, including Sibe, into the Manchu military units where their spoken varieties were gradually replaced by forms of Standard Manchu.

The question remains whether the described features of Mongolic origin in Sibe may be considered remains of traditional diglossia in a standard Manchu language and an older, Mongolic-influenced Jurchenic variety. Information received from Sibe speakers (e.g. Guo Qing, p.c. August 2009) suggests that in the colloquial language of some elderly speakers Mongolic synonyms to Manchu

### Veronika Zikmundová

lexemes are frequent and some of them seem not to be found in Manchu dictionaries, such as the verb *amere-* 'to rest, to sleep' (cf. written Manchu *erge-*, Sibe *erxe-*, Khorchin *amer-* 'to rest, to sleep'). It is worth mentioning that most of the studies of Sibe were conducted on the basis of material gathered from speakers with high level of literacy in Manchu. Any research of the reported non-standard features has not yet been conducted.

### **Abbreviations**

### **Acknowledgements**

I am indebted to Bai Xiaomei, then a student at the Inner Mongolian National University of Tongliao, for the collection of narratives in the Khorchin Northern Banner in 2015. I am grateful to Andreas Hölzl for the idea on §4.2.1. I further thank Andreas Hölzl, Benjamin Brosig, two anonymous reviewers and Jichang Lulu for their helpful suggestions and comments.