The Taz (

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

: Таз,

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...

Taz; Taz dialect Тазы,

Tǎzī) are a Tungusic and

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

Mandarin Chinese-speaking people who primarily live in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

. They formed in the 1890s, from intermarriages between Udege, Nanai and

. The Taz speak Russian and Northeast Mandarin, with loanwords from Udege and Nanai. According to the Russian Census of 2002, the total Taz population numbered 276. Among these: * 276 spoke Russian
* 131 were males (53 urban, 78 rural) and 145 females (57 urban, 88 rural) * 110 were urban (53 males, 57 females) and 166 rural (78 males, 88 females) In

Bashkortostan The Republic of Bashkortostan or Bashkortostan ( ba, Башҡортостан Республикаһы, Bashqortostan Respublikahy; russian: Республика Башкортостан, Respublika Bashkortostan),; russian: Респу́блик� ...

, four people identified themselves as Taz. In Khabarovsk Krai, three people identified themselves as Taz – one male and two females, all of them living in urban areas. In the 2010 Russian census the number of Taz in Russia dropped to 274. The Taz dialect is

Northeastern Mandarin Northeastern Mandarin ( or / ''Dōngběiguānhuà'' "Northeast Mandarin") is the subgroup of Mandarin varieties spoken in Northeast China with the exception of the Liaodong Peninsula and few enclaves along Amur and Ussuri rivers. The classifica ...

, with minor influence from local

Tungusic languages The Tungusic languages (also known as Manchu-Tungus and Tungus) form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered. There are approximately 75,000 native speakers of the doz ...

such as Nanai and Udege. In the 1880s (?), there were a thousand speakers, but today the overwhelming majority of fluent speakers are elderly and Russian is the primary language of the Taz people.

References

Further reading