The Tungusic phylum is divided into two main branches, northern (Evenic or Tungus) and southern (Jurchen–Nanai). An intermediate group (Oroch–Udege) is sometimes recognized.
Name
The name Tungusic is artificial, and properly refers just to the postulated linguistic phylum (Tungusic languages). It is derived from Russian Tungus (Тунгус), a Russianexonym for the Evenks (Ewenki). English usage of Tungusic was introduced by Friedrich Max Müller in the 1850s, based on earlier use of German Tungusik by Heinrich Julius Klaproth. The alternative term Manchu–Tungus is also in use (Тунгусо-маньчжурские 'Tunguso-Manchurian').
The name Tunguska, a region of eastern Siberia bounded on the west by the Tunguska rivers and on the east by the Pacific Ocean, has its origin from the Tungus people (Evenks).[1] Russian Tungus was likely taken from East Turkictunguz (literally, 'wild pig, boar', from Old Turkic tonguz),[2] although some scholars prefer derivation from the Chinese word Donghu (東胡, 'Eastern Barbarians', cf. Tonggu通古 'Tungusic').[3] This "chance similarity in modern pronunciation led to the once widely held assumption that the Eastern Hu were Tungusic in language. However, there is little basis for this theory."[4]
History
It is generally suggested that the homeland of the Tungusic people is in northeastern Manchuria, somewhere near the Amur River region. Genetic evidence collected from the Ulchsky District suggests a date for the Micro-Altaic expansion predating 3500 BC.[5]
The Tungusic expansion into Siberia displaced the indigenous Siberian languages, which are now grouped under the term Paleosiberian. Several theories suggest that the Pannonian Avars of the Avar Khaganate in Central, East and Southeast Europe were of Tungusic origin or of partially Tungusic origin (as a ruling class).[6]
Tungusic people on the Amur river like Udeghe, Ulchi and Nanai adopted Chinese influences in their religion and clothing with Chinese dragons on ceremonial robes, scroll and spiral bird and monster mask designs, Chinese New Year, using silk and cotton, iron cooking pots, and heated homes from China.[7]
The southern Tungusic Manchu farming sedentary lifestyle was very different from the nomadic hunter gatherer forager lifestyle of their more northern Tungusic relatives like the Warka, which left the Qing state to attempt to make them sedentarize and farm like Manchus.[8][9]
During the 17th century, the Tsardom of Russia was expanding east across Siberia, and into Tungusic-speaking lands, resulting in early border skirmishes with the Qing dynasty of China, leading up to the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk. The first published description of a Tungusic people to reach beyond Russia into the rest of Europe was by the Dutch traveler Isaac Massa in 1612. He passed along information from Russian reports after his stay in Moscow.[10]
Ethnic groups
Tunguska rivers, forming the western boundary
"Tungusic" (Manchu-Tungus) peoples are divided into two main branches: northern and southern.
The southern branch is dominated by the Manchu (historically Jurchen). Qing emperors were Manchu, and the Manchu group has largely been sinicized (the Manchu language being moribund, with 20 native speakers reported as of 2007[11]).
The Sibe were possibly a Tungusic-speaking section of the (Mongolic) Shiwei and have been conquered by the expanding Manchu (Jurchen). Their language is mutually intelligible with Manchu. The Nanai (Goldi) are also derived from the Jurchen. The Orok (Ulta) are an offshoot of the Nanai. Other minor groups closely related to the Nanai are the Ulch, Oroch and Udege. The Udege live in the Primorsky Krai and Khabarovsk Krai in the Russian Federation.
The northern branch is mostly formed by the closely related ethnic groups of Evenks (Ewenki) and Evens. (Evenks and Evens are also grouped as "Evenic". Their ethnonyms are only distinguished by a different suffix - -n for Even and -nkī for Evenkī; endonymically, they even use the same adjective for themselves - ǝwǝdī, meaning "Even" in the Even language and "Evenkī" in the Evenkī language.) The Evenks live in the Evenk Autonomous Okrug of Russia in addition to many parts of eastern Siberia, especially Sakha Republic. The Evens are very closely related to the Evenks by language and culture, and they likewise inhabit various parts of eastern Siberia. People who classify themselves as Evenks in the Russian census tend to live toward the west and toward the south of eastern Siberia, whereas people who classify themselves as Evens tend to live toward the east and toward the north of eastern Siberia, with some degree of overlap in the middle (notably, in certain parts of Sakha Republic). Minor ethnic groups also in the northern branch are the Negidals and the Oroqen. The Oroqen, Solon, and Khamnigan inhabit some parts of Heilongjiang Province, Inner Mongolia, and Mongolia and may be considered as subgroups of the Evenk ethnicity, though the Solons and the Khamnigans in particular have interacted closely with Mongolic peoples (Mongol, Daur, Buryat), and they are ethnographically quite distinct from the Evenks in Russia.
Full genome analyses on Northern East Asian populations, including Tungusic peoples, revealed them to descend primarily from Ancient Northeast Asians, with varying degrees of admixture associated with agriculturalist populations from the Yellow River region. Tungusic peoples display their highest genetic affinity with Mongolic peoples, but also share varying degrees of genetic affinity with Turkic peoples, which however have significant West Eurasian admixture. Tungusic peoples display the highest genetic affinity to Ancient Northeast Asians, represented by c. 7,000 and 13,000 year old specimens.[12]
Previous studies argued for a potential shared ancestry between Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic, Koreanic, and Japonic populations via Neolithic agriculturalist societies from Northeast China (eg. the Liao civilization) as a part of the hypothetical Altaic language family. However, recent data contradicts this because while West Liao River ancestry was found among the "macro-Altaic" Koreans and Japanese, it was absent among the "micro-Altaic" Tungusic and Mongolic populations.[13]
The Manchu, the largest Tungusic-speaking population, displays increased genetic affinity with Han Chinese, and Koreans, compared to with other Tungusic peoples. The Manchu were therefore an exception to the coherent genetic structure of Tungusic-speaking populations, likely due to the large-scale population migrations and genetic admixtures with the Han Chinese in the past few hundred years.[14]
Paternal haplogroups
Tungusic peoples display primarily paternal haplogroups associated with Ancient Northeast Asians, and display high affinity to Mongolic peoples as well as other Northeastern Asian populations. Their primarily haplogroup is associated with the C-M217 clade and its subclades. The other dominant haplogroup is Haplogroup N-M231, which was found in Neolithic Northeastern Asian societies along the Liao river and widespreaded throughout Siberia. An exception are modern Manchu people which display higher frequency of Haplogroup O-M122.[15][16][17][18][19][20][21] 29/97 = 29.9% C-M86 in a sample of Mongols from northwest Mongolia,[22][23][24]
The maternal haplogroups of Tungusic peoples are primarily shared with other Northern East Asians. Maternal haplogroup diversity seems to reflect some amount of gene flow with peoples living around the Sea of Okhotsk (Koryaks, Nivkhs, Ainus, etc.) on the one hand and peoples living in Central Asia (Iranian, Turkic, Mongolic peoples) on the other.[25][26]
According to a total of 29 sample from the mtDNA studies of Xibo, Oroqen, and Hezhen from China:
^ abBalanovska, E. V.; et al. (2018). "Demographic and Genetic Portraits of the Ulchi Population". Russian Journal of Genetics. 54 (10): 1245–1253. doi:10.1134/s1022795418100046. S2CID53085396.
^Helimski, E. (2004). "Die Sprache(n) der Awaren: Die mandschu-tungusische Alternative". Proceedings of the First International Conference on Manchu-Tungus Studies. II: 59–72.
^[1]Asia in the Making of Europe, Volume III: A Century of Advance. Book 4. By Donald F. Lach
^Bradley, David. 2007. East and Southeast Asia. In R. E. Asher & Christopher Moseley (eds.), Atlas of the world’s languages, 2nd edn., 159–209. London & New York: Routledge.
^Natalia Balinova, Helen Post, Siiri Rootsi, et al. (2019), "Y-chromosomal analysis of clan structure of Kalmyks, the only European Mongol people, and their relationship to Oirat-Mongols of Inner Asia." European Journal of Human Geneticshttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41431-019-0399-0
^Sukernik, Rem I.; Volodko, Natalia V.; Mazunin, Ilya O.; Eltsov, Nikolai P.; Dryomov, Stanislav V.; Starikovskaya, Elena B. (2012). "Mitochondrial Genome Diversity in the Tubalar, Even, and Ulchi: Contribution to Prehistory of Native Siberians and Their Affinities to Native Americans". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 148 (1): 123–138. doi:10.1002/ajpa.22050. PMID22487888.
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