When Ji Jinlu, 66, was a boy, he was unable to speak Putonghua until he went to school at age nine. Today he has hardly anyone to talk to in his native tongue.
Ji is an ethnic Manchu - a descendant of a nomadic tribe from northeastern China that became the imperial rulers of the country for more than 250 years. He is one of fewer than 100 remaining Manchus with a working grasp of the language.
Like most remaining speakers, Ji's native tongue has become rather rusty over the years as most people in his village, including his children and grandchildren, are unable to speak it.
'Even if you speak Manchu with them they don't understand,' said Ji, a farmer born and bred in remote Sanjiazi village in Heilongjiang province, where farmers grow rice and keep dairy cattle. 'And they don't want to learn anyway.'
Although there are more than 10 million people in China who are classified as ethnic Manchus - most of whom live in Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Jilin in the northeast - linguists say that Sanjiazi is the last Manchu-speaking community in China.
Even then, only three villagers - all over 80 years old - are fluent in their native language and another 15 - above 70 years old - are conversant to some degree in their mother tongue, says Professor Zhao Aping, director of the Manchu Language and Culture Research Centre at Heilongjiang University.
The traditional nomadic lifestyle Ji knew as a boy is gone forever. And the Manchu language, which is rich in hunting terms and the names of wild animals, has never seemed more irrelevant or obsolete in the lives of the villagers.