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The Nanai language (also called Gold, Goldi, or Hezhen) is spoken by the Nanai people in Siberia, and to a much smaller extent in China's Heilongjiang province, where it is known as Hezhe. The language has about 1,400 speakers out of 17,000 ethnic Nanai, but most (especially the younger generations) are also fluent in Russian language or Chinese language, and mostly use one of those languages for communication.Lewis 2009 ( Nanai)
It is thought that in Russia, the Nanai language has been best preserved in the Nanai District of Khabarovsk Krai, because of the active Nanai-speaking community there, which has been active in working on the publication of books in Nanai, as well as textbooks on the language, and also because of the ethnic autonomous status of the Nanai District. According to Stolyarov's data, the worldwide Nanai population is 11,883, of whom 8,940 live in rural localities of Khabarovsk Krai. However, only 100–150 native speakers of the language remain there. The 2002 Census recorded 12,194 Nanai people who claimed to speak Russian language as well.Russian Census (2002), Table 4.3 Three ethnic Nanai villages remain, those being Dzhuen, Ulika, and Dada; in the remaining populated areas, the proportion of Nanais among local residents is much smaller.Ministry of Trade and Economic Development, 2002
Scholars in China have traditionally presented less fine-grained dialect classifications; An identified only two, Hezhen and Qile'en, the former referring to all varieties of the language spoken in Russia. He conducted his studies in Jiejinkou, Bacha, and Sipai villages in Heilongjiang; at the time of his survey in 1982, the youngest fluent speaker was 55, and the oldest 72.An 1986, pp. 1–2
The next period of studies did not begin until after a 20-year interruption, at the end of the 1940s; by then, the number of dialects had grown, and subsequent classifications distinguished as many as ten. Also, the distribution of the Nanai language had sharply narrowed; many Lower Amur River and Ussuri dialects remained unstudied. According to Sunik's classification, which emphasizes morphological and phonetic features,Sunik 1962, p23 "Nanaian language forms two groups, which are decomposed into a number of dialects".«нанайский язык образует два наречия, распадающиеся на ряд говоров»
Avrorin divided the language into three varieties: Sungari (aka Upper Amur), (Lower) Amur, and Kur-Urmi, further subdividing them into a number of dialects. The basic difference with Sunik's classification concerns the Amur and Upper Amur groups: Avrovin considered Bolon and Dzhuen under Naykhin, while separating Kur-Urmi as its own group, while Sunik viewed Kur-Urmi as a dialect.Avrovin 1955, pp. 7–8 Sem, in contrast, classified Nanai into Upper, Central, and Lower Amur groups, each divided into a number of dialects; he counted a total of ten dialects.
Among the contemporary carriers of Nanaian language (middle and lower Amur dialects), dialect levelling and mixing has occurred due to extensive population migrations and the system of teaching of Nanai language (based on the Naykhin dialect); therefore it is difficult to differentiate the dialects in contemporary language data.
In China, the Nanai (Hezhe) people use Chinese for writing. The number of speakers has been in continual decline for decades; by the 1980s, the use of the language was restricted to special situations and communication with family members.He and Wu, 2005 In an effort to reverse this decline, a text book for Hezhe schoolchildren discussing the Hezhe language was published in 2005 (in pinyin transcription).Li, 2005
The first books in the Nanai language were printed by Russian Orthodox missionaries in the late 19th century in a Cyrillic script orthography. In the 1920s–30s, after several false starts, the modern written form of the Nanai language was created by a team of Russian linguists led by Valentin Avrorin. The Nanai language uses the same alphabet as the Russian alphabet.
| A a | B в | Ꞓ є | D d | Ʒ ʒ | E e | Ə ə | F f |
| G g | H h | I i | J j | K k | L l | M m | N n |
| Ņ ņ | Ŋ ŋ | O o | P p | R r | S s | T t | U u |
| W w | Z z |
In some versions of the alphabet, the letter Ꞓ ꞓ was replaced with the usual Latin C c and meant the same sound.
The current version of the Nanai alphabet was approved in 1993. (2025). 9785874441913, Academia. ISBN 9785874441913 The modern Nanai alphabet has the following form:
| А а | Б б | В в | Г г | Д д | Е е | Ё ё | Ж ж |
| З з | И и | Й й | К к | Л л | М м | Н н | Ӈ ӈ |
| О о | П п | Р р | С с | Т т | У у | Ф ф | Х х |
| Ц ц | Ч ч | Ш ш | Щ щ | Ъ ъ | Ы ы | Ь ь | Э э |
| Ю ю | Я я |
To indicate long vowels in the educational literature, diacritics are used – macrons above the letters.
In China, where Nanai residents also live, in 1987 a reading book for Nanai schools was published with parallel text in Chinese and Nanai languages. Pinyin was used to write the Nanai text.
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| Ə ə |
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Sample text from a Bible translation published in 2002 is shown below. Bible Translation Institute: Gospel of Luke translation into Nanai language (different versions)
| + Lord's Prayer (Luke 11:2–4) ! Nanai (Cyrillic) with transliteration and English (NIV) |
The following table summarises the rules of vowel harmony.
| + Vowel harmony in NanaiAn 1986, p13-15 ! Class ! Group ! Members ! Notes |
Phonemic consonants may optionally change as follows:An 1986, p11-13
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