Manchu (Manchu: manju gisun) is a severely endangered Tungusic language spoken in Northeast China; it was the native language of the Manchus and one of the official languages of the Qing dynasty (1636–1911). Most Manchus now speak Mandarin Chinese. According to data from UNESCO, there are 10 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus. Manchu language sources have two main uses for historians of China, especially for the Qing dynasty. They supply information that is unavailable in Chinese and, when both Manchu and Chinese versions of a given text exist, they provide controls for understanding the Chinese.