Editing Xianbei (section)

== Language ==
{{see also|Para-Mongolic languages}}
{{Infobox language
| name             = Xianbei
| familycolor      = Altaic
| altname          = Serbi
| states           = Xianbei
| ethnicity        = Xianbei
| region           = [[Mongolian–Manchurian grassland]]
| era              = {{c.|3rd century BC|3rd century AD}}
| fam1             = [[Serbi–Mongolic languages|Serbi–Mongolic]]?
| fam2             = [[Para-Mongolic languages|Para-Mongolic]]?<ref name="Shimunek2017">{{cite book|last=Shimunek |first=Andrew |title=Languages of Ancient Southern Mongolia and North China: a Historical-Comparative Study of the Serbi or Xianbei Branch of the Serbi-Mongolic Language Family, with an Analysis of Northeastern Frontier Chinese and Old Tibetan Phonology |publisher=Harrassowitz Verlag |publication-place=[[Wiesbaden]] |year=2017 |isbn=978-3-447-10855-3 |oclc=993110372}}</ref>
| iso3             = none
| glotto           = none
}}
[[File:Tomb of Li Xian, panel 1.jpg|thumb|upright|Painting of the Tuoba-Xianbei [[Northern Zhou]] general [[Li Xian (Northern Zhou general)|Li Xian]] (504–569 AD)]]
The Xianbei are thought to have spoken [[Mongolic languages|Mongolic]] or [[Para-Mongolic]] languages, with early and substantial [[Turkic languages|Turkic]] influences, as Claus Schönig asserts:
{{blockquote|The Xianbei derived from the context of the [[Donghu people|Donghu]], who are likely to have contained the linguistic ancestors of the [[Mongols]]. Later branches and descendants of the Xianbei include the [[Tuoba|Tabghach]] and [[Khitan people|Khitan]], who seem to have been linguistically Para-Mongolic. [...] Opinions differ widely as to what the linguistic impact of the Xianbei period was. Some scholars (like Clauson) have preferred to regard the Xianbei and Tabghach (Tuoba) as Turks, with the implication that the entire layer of early Turkic borrowings in Mongolic would have been received from the Xianbei, rather than from the Xiongnu. However, since the Mongolic (or Para-Mongolic) identity of the Xianbei is increasingly obvious in the light of recent progress in [[Khitan language|Khitan]] studies, it is more reasonable to assume (with Doerfer) that the flow of linguistic influence from Turkic into Mongolic was at least partly reversed during the Xianbei period, yielding the first identifiable layer of Mongolic (or Para-Mongolic) loanwords in Turkic.{{sfn|Janhunen|2006||pp=405–6}}}}

It is also possible that the Xianbei spoke more than one language.<ref name="Holcombe Xianbei in Chinese History">{{cite journal |first=Charles |last=Holcombe |title=The Xianbei in Chinese History |journal=Early Medieval China |volume=2013 |year=2013 |issue=19 |pages=1–38 [pp. 4–5] |doi=10.1179/1529910413Z.0000000006 |s2cid=162191498 }}</ref><ref name = "Shimunek2018">Shimunek, Andrew. [https://www.academia.edu/37176756 "Early Serbi-Mongolic-Tungusic lexical contact: Jurchen numerals from the 室韦 Shirwi (Shih-wei) in North China"]. Philology of the Grasslands: Essays in Mongolic, Turkic, and Tungusic Studies, Edited by Ákos Bertalan Apatóczky et al. (Leiden: Brill). Retrieved 22 September 2019. quote: "Asdemonstrated by Ratchnevsky (1966: 231), the Shirwi confederation was a multiethnic, multilingual confederation of Tungusic-speaking Mo-ho 靺鞨 people (i.e. ancestors of the Jurchen), the Meng-wa 蒙瓦 ~ Meng-wu 蒙兀, whom Pelliot (1928) and others have shown were Proto-Mongolic speakers, and other groups. The dominant group among the Shirwi undoubtedly were ethnolinguistic descendants of the Serbi (鮮卑 Hsien-pei), and spoke a language closely related to Kitan and more distantly related to Mongolic."</ref><ref name = "Xu173179">Xu Elina-Qian (2005). ''Historical Development of the Pre-Dynastic Khitan''. University of Helsinki. p. 173-179</ref><ref name = "Golden2013p47"/>

However, there are no remaining works written in Xianbei, which are thought to have been written using [[Chinese characters]]. Only a few words remain, such as 啊干 'elder brother'.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Vovin |first=Alexander |title=Old Turkic Kinship Terms in Early Middle Chinese (co-athoured with David McCraw) |url=https://www.academia.edu/4208086}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Vovın |first1=Alexander |last2=Mccraw |first2=David |date=2011 |title=Eski Orta Çincedeki Eski Türkçe Akrabalık Terimleri |url=https://tdkbelleten.gov.tr/eng/abstarct/871/eng |journal=Yearbook of Turkic Studies - Belleten |volume=59 |issue=1 |pages=105–116 |issn=0564-5050}}</ref>