Loanwords have entered written and spoken Chinese from many sources, including ancient peoples whose descendants now speak Chinese. In addition to phonetic differences, varieties of Chinese such as Cantonese and Shanghainese often have distinct words and phrases left from their original languages which they continue to use in daily life and sometimes even in Mandarin. As a result of long-term direct relationships with northern peoples, starting from the pre-Christ period, there are many exchanges of words. In addition, there were times when northern tribes dominated China. Similarly, northern dialects include relatively greater numbers of loanwords from nearby languages such as Turkic, Mongolian, and Manchu(Tungusic).