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This picture taken on May 4, 2016 shows a student of the Sanjiazi Manchu school writting Manchu during a class in Sanjiazi village, Heilongjiang province. It was the language of China's ruing Dynasty just a century ago, but now the country's only Manchu speakers are a handful of pensioners in a remote village. Locals are struggling to pass it on amid a extinction which experts forecast could lead the loss of half the word's languages by the end of the century. / AFP / NICOLAS ASFOURI / TO GO WITH AFP STORY: China-language-culture-minorities, FEATURE by Tom Hancock (Photo credit should read NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images)

This picture taken on May 4, 2016 shows a student of the Sanjiazi Manchu school writting Manchu during a class in Sanjiazi village, Heilongjiang province. It was the language of China's ruing Dynasty just a century ago, but now the country's only Manchu speakers are a handful of pensioners in a remote village. Locals are struggling to pass it on amid a extinction which experts forecast could lead the loss of half the word's languages by the end of the century. / AFP / NICOLAS ASFOURI / TO GO WITH AFP STORY: China-language-culture-minorities, FEATURE by Tom Hancock (Photo credit should read NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images)
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