I have been told, in this subreddit even, that the Manchu elites went to lengths to maintain a divide between themselves and the Han majority, and thus preserve their culture and restrict large scale settlement by Chinese in Manchuria until the end of the 19th century. I would assume that would probably help keep their language at least alive but instead it seems to be deader than disco, why is this? Did they just not put much value on the linguistic aspects on Manchu identity? I understand that in China today languages like Mongolian are still pretty widely spoken with their associated ethnic groups, what was the difference between something like that and Manchu?