Portal:Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia

Altaic languages
Altaic is a proposed language family that is held by its proponents to include the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and possibly the Japonic language families and the Korean language isolate. These languages are spoken in a wide arc stretching from northeast Asia through Central Asia to Anatolia and eastern Europe (Turks, Kalmyks). The group is named after the Altai Mountains, a mountain range in Central Asia.

Turkish

 * İstiklâl Marşı

Uyghur

 * Uighur romanization table

Manchu

 * A Manchu Grammar with Analysed Texts, by P. G. von Möllendorff (1892)

Ainu

 * An Ainu–English–Japanese Dictionary (1905), by John Batchelor
 * Aino Folk-Tales (1888), by Basil Hall Chamberlain

Japanese

 * See also Japanese Wikisource

Japanese is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic (or Japanese-Ryukyuan) language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists.

Language

 * An Elementary Grammar of the Japanese Language (1888), by Tatui Baba
 * A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary
 * "English-Chinese-Japanese Lexicon of Bibliographical, Cataloguing and Library Terms" (1944), by Harold Allison Mattice.
 * "The nature of the Japanese language, and its possible improvements", by Joseph Edkins, in Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 1: 96–110.
 * "Has Japanese an affinity with Aryan languages", by William George Aston, in Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 2: 223–231.
 * Rōmaji or Rōmazi (1940), by Edwin Oldfather Reischauer
 * Rōmaji or Rōmazi (1940), by Edwin Oldfather Reischauer

Literature

 * See Portal:Japanese literature

Korean

 * See also Korean Wikisource

Korean is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, the system being currently called Hangul.


 * ALA-LC Romanization Tables: Korean Romanization and Word Division, 2009 by The Library of Congress
 * Baekbeomilji, 1947 by Kim Gu, translated by Wikisource

Chinese

 * See also Chinese Wikisource and Min Nan Wikisource

Chinese, or the Sinitic language(s), is a language family consisting of languages which are mostly mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese (depending on classification scheme), of which the most spoken, by far, is Mandarin (about 850 million), followed by Wu (90 million), Cantonese (Yue) (70 million) and Min (50 million). Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and the Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms and some degree of intelligibility.

Language



 * Chinese Without a Teacher, 1922 by Herbert Allen Giles
 * Essays on the Chinese Language, 1889 by Thomas Watters
 * A progressive course of colloquial Chinese, 1903 by Thomas Francis Wade
 * Chinese Dialogues, Questions, and Familiar Sentences, Literally Rendered (1863), by Walter Henry Medhurst (1796-1857), revised by Walter Henry Medhurst (1822-1885)
 * Synoptical Studies in Chinese Character, 1874 by Herbert Allen Giles
 * The Chinese Speaker. Readings in Modern Mandarin, 1916 by Evan Morgan

Cantonese (Yue)

 * Phrase Book in the Canton Dialect, 1888 by T. L. Stedman and Lee Kwai Pan

Fujian (Quan-Zhang, Hokkien)

 * Excellent Ancient Adages, Together with Notes on the Writings of Chinese Romanized in the Hokkien Dialect, 1890 by Cheah Toon Hoon

Chaozhou (Teochew)

 * A Chinese and English vocabulary, in the Tie-chiu dialect, 1883 by Josiah Goddard
 * First Lessons in the Tie-chiw Dialect, 1841 by William Dean

Shantou (Swatow)

 * Handbook of the Swatow Dialect, 1877 by Herbert Allen Giles
 * Elementary Lessons In The Swatow Dialect, 1881 by John Campbell Gibson
 * English-Chinese Vocabulary of the Vernacular Or Spoken Language of Swatow, 1883 by Rudolf Lechler, Samuel Wells Williams, William Duffus
 * Handbook of the Swatow Vernacular, 1886 by Lim Hiong Seng
 * Dictionary of the Swatow dialect, 1883 by Adele Marion Fielde
 * Primary Lessons in Swatow Grammar, 1884 by William Ashmore

Fuzhou (Foochow, Hokchew)

 * The Chinese Language Spoken at Fuh Chau, 1856 by Moses Clark White
 * Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect, 1929 by R. S. Maclay, C. C. Baldwin and Samuel H. Leger
 * An English-Chinese Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect, 1905 by T. B. Adam
 * A Manual of the Foochow Dialect In Twenty Lessons, by C. M. S. and A. E. Champness

Hakka

 * Easy Sentences in the Hakka Dialect, 1881 by James Dyer Ball

Literature

 * See Portal:Chinese literature
 * See also Portal:Chinese classics

Vietnamese

 * Studies in Vietnamese (Annamese) Grammar, 1951 by Murray Barnson Emeneau

Burmese
The Burmese language is the official language of Burma. Burmese is the native language of the Bamar and related sub-ethnic groups of the Bamar, as well as that of some ethnic minorities in Burma like the Mon.


 * Grammatical Notices of the Burmese Language, 1842 by Adoniram Judson
 * Grammar of the Burmese Language, 1883 by Adoniram Judson

Thai

 * See Portal:Thai language
 * See also Thai Wikisource

Dravidian languages
The Dravidian languages are a language family spoken mainly in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and overseas in other countries such as Malaysia and Singapore. The most populous Dravidian languages are Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam.


 * See Portal:Dravidian languages and literature