World Language Map

Tungusic languages map

13 Tungusic languages are on the map, most of them in Russia and China. It divides into 3 main branches, the largest being Northeastern Tungusic (8 languages). The best-known members include Xibe, Evenki and Even. Only this family is drawn; tap the map to list every language at a spot.

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The filter only changes what is drawn. Tap the map to list every language at a spot, whichever family is shown. You can also pick any family from its own page.

Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

The Tungusic family at a glance

  • 13languages
  • 9drawn as areas
  • 4shown as points
  • 3main branches

Colours on the map mark the ten largest families; this page’s filter shows Tungusic alone. Areas are generalisations from published atlases and overlap with the areas of other families.

Biggest Tungusic languages

By approximate speaker counts from Wikidata, each with its source and year on its own page.

  1. Where is Xibe spoken? (about 30,000 speakers)
  2. Where is Evenki spoken? (about 16,000 speakers)
  3. Where is Even spoken? (about 5,660 speakers)
  4. Where is Nanai spoken? (about 1,390 speakers)
  5. Where is Oroqen spoken? (about 1,200 speakers)
  6. Where is Ulch spoken? (about 154 speakers)
  7. Where is Udihe spoken? (about 103 speakers)
  8. Where is Negidal spoken? (about 74 speakers)
  9. Where is Orok spoken? (about 47 speakers)
  10. Where is Manchu spoken? (about 20 speakers)

Branches of Tungusic

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Northeastern Tungusic (8)
  • Central-Western Tungusic (3)
  • Manchu-Jurchen (2)

Where Tungusic languages are spoken

Countries with the most Tungusic languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

All 13 Tungusic languages, A to Z

Questions about Tungusic languages

How many Tungusic languages are there?

13 living Tungusic languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 3 main branches, the biggest being Northeastern Tungusic (8 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Tungusic languages spoken?

Russia (12), China (7), Mongolia (1), Japan (1) and Kazakhstan (1) have the most Tungusic languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Tungusic languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: Xibe (about 30,000), Evenki (about 16,000) and Even (about 5,660). These figures differ between sources and years.

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