Though I’ve spoken at length inter alia on the poetry of Tennyson, over a ten year period, until about a decade ago, at dozens of universities in China, including Huhehot in Inner Mongolia and at the Genghis Khan 5 star Conference Centre in Ulan Bator, Mongolia (on both sides of the border, in particular re sinicization, very different mindsets ruling there among the locals nowadays!) I remain a bit of an ignoramus as to the real language situation in that neck of the woods. Nevertheless, the impact on all of Old Cathay, including Greater Mongolia, of imperial Manchu resonates with many souls there, as does the influence of Russian in more recent times and English in our time.

If I recall correctly three scripts are utilized at the Temple of Heaven, Beijing: Manchu, non-Cyrillic Mongolian and Mandarin. (Pardon my imprecise terminology.)

Though for generations a primary language of the Qing dynasty (1636-1911), neither the last emperor (Pu Yi, 1906–1967) nor his brother Pu Jie (1907-1994) spoke it; none of their relatives residing in Japan nor any one in China outside Xinjiang or academia speaks it fluently today. In spite of the edicts and efforts of Pu Yi’s imperial ancestors to encourage and later to revive the once mighty Manchu tongue a mere dozen or so part-speakers of pure Manchu reside today in Beijing, Shenyang and perhaps in some locations nearer the Bohai Sea ???

Paul