Middle school teachers in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang published a textbook in the Hezhe language and distributed it in time for International Children's Day, celebrated in China on June 1.

"I am afraid that nobody can completely understand the language as it has many dialects," Jing Changzhi, headmaster of Jiejinkou Hezhe Middle School in Tongjiang County, told China Daily.

The Hezhe people, one of China's smallest ethnic minority groups numbering 4,600 nationwide, are nomadic and mainly live by the Songhua, Heilong and Wusuli rivers in the counties of Tongjiang, Fuyuan and Raohe in Heilongjiang.

Their tongue, which belongs to the Manchu-Tungusic group that some linguists include in the Altaic language family, has previously had no written form, so the textbook is thought to be the first of its kind.

Only those aged above 50 can still understand and speak it, and Jing said it was no use trying to create a completely new written form as it has lost its "significance in communication."

"But it is vital to save the oral language as it carries the culture and tradition of the Hezhe from past generations," he said.

Most of the history and tradition of the Hezhe is handed down through Yimakan, a form of folk song that has nearly died out, according to Jing.

The textbook involved four years of effort, he said. "We labeled commonly used words and sentences with Chinese pinyin and characters, as all the children know Chinese."

The school has about 150 students, of whom 40 are Hezhe.

(China Daily June 6, 2005)