Endangered Languages

At present, Sanjiazi Village of Fuyu County in Heilongjiang province is one of the notable areas for the preservation of Manchu language, which is representative not only in Hei-iongjiang province bu! also in our country, even in the whole world. However, Manchu language, in that area, has a tendency of shifting from borrowing Chinese as the main body of the language to laking Chinese as their language as a whole and it has become an endangered language .Manchu language, the most representative endangered language in China, is one type of endangered languages and its declining is gradually emerging. One of the characteristics it dif-fers from non - endangered languages is that a lot of borrowed words from Chinese appeared abundantly along the process of declining. The main points are: the borrowed Chinese words have permeated into the basic word stock of oral language, not a few of which have been transformed into the borrowed words; the borrowed Chinese words in carly stage of Manchu language enriched and developed the communicative function ol the language, while those flooded into the Manchu language in its process of declining made many of the words and expressions in the original language lost and the language communication function deteriorate, which finally leads to the shifting from the use of Manchu language into that of Chinese. We know, through the researches on the borrowed Chinese words in Sanjiazi Manchu language, the bor-rowed words is an important vehicle through which we can see the changes in and between languages, and for the study on endangered languages, the borrowed words should serve as a link and should be attached enough attention.