<P> Currently, several thousand people can speak Manchu as a second language through primary education or free classes for adults . </P> <P> The Chinese Northern Mandarin dialect spoken in Beijing had a major impact on the phonology of the dialect of Manchu spoken in Beijing, and because Manchu phonology was transcribed into Chinese and European sources based on the sinicized pronunciation of Manchus from Beijing, the original authentic Manchu pronunciation is unknown to scholars . </P> <P> The Manchus of Peking (Beijing) were influenced by the Chinese dialect spoken in the area to the point where pronouncing Manchu sounds was hard for them, and they pronounced Manchu according to Chinese phonetics, whereas the Manchus of Aigun (in Heilongjiang) could both pronounce Manchu sounds properly and mimic the sinicized pronunciation of Manchus in Peking (Beijing), because they learned the Pekinese (Beijing) pronunciation from either studying in Peking or from officials sent to Aigun from Beijing, and they could tell them apart, using the Chinese influenced Pekinese pronunciation when demonstrating that they were better educated or their superior stature in society . </P> <P> Manchu phrases are all head - final . This means that the head - word of a phrase (e.g. the noun of a noun phrase, or the verb of a verb phrase) always falls at the end of the phrase . Thus, adjectives and adjectival phrases always precede the noun they modify, and the arguments to the verb always precede the verb . As a result, Manchu sentence structure is subject--object--verb (SOV). The grammars of Korean, and Mongolian bear resemblance to that of Manchu, which would, according to the now discredited Altaic hypothesis, be due to a genetic relatedness . </P>

To which of the following languages is manchu the most closely related