Manchu language

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 ocial languages
of the Qing dynasty (16361911). 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.* [4]

nary, spelt in the following manner: Ma (7467) -a (8084)

gan (2834) ( m n) Man; choo (1303) a
(11767) ( zh w) chu; Manchu.* [6]

2 Teaching
Mongols learnt their script as a syllabary, dividing the
syllables into twelve dierent classes,* [7]* [8] based on
the nal phonemes of the syllables, all of which ended
in vowels.* [9]* [10] The Manchus followed the same syllabic method when learning Manchu script, also with syllables divided into twelve dierent classes based on the
nals phonemes of the syllables. Today, the opinion on
whether it is alphabet or syllabic in nature is still split between dierent experts. In China, it is considered syllabic
and Manchu is still taught in this manner. The alphabetic
approach is used mainly by foreigners who want to learn
the language. Studying Manchu script as a syllabary takes
a longer time.* [11]* [12]

Like most originally Central Asian languages such as Turkic and Mongolian, Manchu is an agglutinative language
that demonstrates limited vowel harmony. It has been
demonstrated that it is derived mainly from the Jurchen
language though there are many loan words from Mongolian and Chinese. Its script is vertically written and taken
from the Mongolian alphabet (which in turn derives from
Aramaic via Uyghur and Sogdian). Although Manchu
does not have the kind of grammatical gender that many
Indo-European languages do, some gendered words in
Manchu are distinguished by dierent stem vowels, as in
ama fathervs. eme mother.

Despite the alphabetic nature of its script, Manchu was

not taught phoneme by phoneme per letter like western
languages are; Manchu children were taught to memorize
all the syllables in the Manchu language separately as they
learned to write, like Chinese characters. Manchus when
learning, instead of saying I, a---la; I, o---lo; &c., were
taught at once to say la, lo, &c. Many more syllables than
are contained in their syllabary might have been formed
with their letters, but they were not accustomed to arrange
them otherwise. They made, for instance, no such use of
the consonants I, m, n, and r, as westerners do; hence if
the Manchu letters s, m, a, r, t, are joined in that order
a Manchu would not able to pronounce them as English
speaking people pronounce the word smart.* [13]

Writing system

The Manchu language uses the Manchu script, which

was derived from the traditional Mongol script, which
in turn is based on the vertically written pre-Islamic
Uyghur script. Manchu is usually romanized according
to the system devised by Paul Georg von Mllendor in
his Manchu grammar. Its ancestor, Jurchen, used the
Jurchen script, which is derived from the Khitan script,
which in turn was derived from Han characters. There is
no relation between the Jurchen script and the Manchu
script
Chinese Characters can also be used to transliterate
Manchu.* [5] All the Manchu vowels, and the syllables
commencing with a consonant, are represented by single
Chinese characters, as are also the syllables terminating
in i, n, ng, and o; but those ending in r, k, s, t, p, I, m, are
expressed by the union of the sounds of two characters,
there being no Mandarin syllables terminating with these
consonants. Thus the Manchu syllable am is expressed by
the Chinese characters a-muh (8084, 7800) ( a m),
and the word Manchu is, in the imperial Manchu dictio-

3 Names
The Qing dynasty referred to the Manchu language in various Chinese titles such as Qingwen,* [14] or
QingyuQing
(
language) and Guoyu na(
tional language),* [15] which was used by previous nonHan dynasties to refer to their languages. Thenational
was also applied to the Manchu writing as in Guowen
in addition to Guoyu .* [16] In the Manchu language version of the Treaty of Nerchinsk, the termChinese language(Dulimbai gurun i bithe) referred to all
three Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol languages, not just
1

HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE

one language.* [17] Guoyu now refers to Standard Chinese.

History and signicance

Plaque at the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, in both Chinese

(left, qin qng mn) and Manchu (right, kiyan cing men)

Ocial designation for China in Manchu, reads vertically to the

next word to the right: Dulimbai gurun.

not be passed on and learned.* [19] Still, the use of the

language among the bannermen was in decline throughout the 1700s. Historical records report that as early as
1776, the Qianlong Emperor was shocked to see a high
Manchu ocial, Guo'ermin, not understand what the emperor was telling him in Manchu, despite coming from the
Manchu stronghold of Shengjing (now Shenyang).* [20]
By the 19th century even the imperial court had lost uency in the language. The Jiaqing Emperor (reigned 1796
to 1820) complained about his ocials being good neither at understanding nor writing Manchu.* [19]
By the end of the 19th century the language was so moribund that even at the oce of the Shengjing (Shenyang)
general, the only documents written in Manchu (rather
than Chinese) would be the memorials wishing the emperor long life; at the same time period, the archives of
the Hulan banner detachment in Heilongjiang show that
only 1% of the bannermen could read Manchu, and no
more than 0.2% could speak it.* [19] Nonetheless, as late
as 19061907 Qing education and military ocials inA symbol of the Manchu people
sisted that schools teach Manchu language, and that the
In 1635 Hong Taiji renamed the Jurchen people and ocials testing soldiers' marksmanship continue to conJurchen language as Manchu.
duct an oral examination in Manchu.* [21]
Manchu began as a primary language of the Qing dynasty
Imperial court, but as Manchu ocials became increasingly sinicized, many started losing the language. Trying to preserve the Manchu identity, the imperial government instituted Manchu language classes and examinations for the bannermen, oering rewards to those who
excelled in the language. Chinese classics and ction
were translated into Manchu, and a body of Manchu literature accumulated. * [18] As the Yongzheng Emperor
(reigned 17221735) explained, If some special encouragement is not oered, the ancestral language will

The use of the language for the ocial documents declined throughout the Qing history as well. Especially
at the beginning of the dynasty, some documents on
sensitive political and military issues were submitted in
Manchu but not in Chinese.* [22] Later on, some Imperial records in Manchu continued to be produced until the
last years of the dynasty,* [19] which was overthrown in
1912. A large number of Manchu documents remain in
the archives, important for the study of Qing-era China.
Today, written Manchu can still be seen on architecture
inside the Forbidden City, whose historical signs are writ-

4.3

Current situation

ten in both Chinese and Manchu.

Another limited use of the language was for voice commands in the Qing army, attested as late as 1878.* [19]

4.1

Studies of Manchu in Qing China

The Qianlong Emperor commissioned projects such as

new Manchu dictionaries, both monolingual and multilingual like the Pentaglot. Among his directives were
to eliminate directly borrowed loanwords from Chinese
and replace them with calque translations which were
put into new Manchu dictionaries. This showed in the
titles of Manchu translations of Chinese works during
The Kangxi Emperor's stele near Lugou Bridge, with parallel Chihis reign which were direct translations contrasted with
nese and Manchu text
Manchu books translated during the Kangxi Emperor's
reign which were Manchu transliterations of the Chinese
characters.
the Great Tartary, in ve parts (
The Pentaglot was based on the Yuzhi Siti Qing Wenjian
(Imperially-Published Four-Script , ,
Textual Mirror of Qing), with Uyghur added as fth ), as well as some legal treatises and a
language.* [23] The four language version of the dictio- ManchuChinese dictionary. In the late 1830s, Georgy
the Manchu the History of the
nary with Tibetan was in turn based on an earlier three M. Rozov translated from
*
Jin
(Jurchen)
Dynasty.
[27]
A school to train Manchu
language version with Manchu, Mongolian, and Chinese
language
translators
was
started
in Irkutsk in the 18th
called the (
century,
and
existed
for
a
fairly
long
period.* [27]
Imperially-Published Manchu Mongol Chinese Three
pronunciation explanation mirror of Qing), which was
in turn based on the (ImperiallyPublished Revised and Enlarged mirror of Qing) in
Manchu and Chinese, which used both Manchu script to
transcribe Chinese words and Chinese characters to transcribe Manchu words with fanqie.* [24]

4.2

European scholarship

A European author remarked in 1844 that the transcription of Chinese words in Manchu alphabet, available
in the contemporary ChineseManchu dictionaries, was
more useful for learning the pronunciation of Chinese
words than the inconsistent romanizations used at the
time by the writers transcribing Chinese words in English
or French books.* [25]
In 1930, the German sinologist Eric Hauer argued
forcibly that knowing Manchu allows the scholar to render Manchu personal and place names that have been
horribly mutilatedby their Chinese transliterations and
to know the meanings of the names. He goes on that
because the Manchu translations of Chinese classics and
ction were done by experts familiar with their original
meaning and with how best to express it in Manchu, for
instance, the Manchu translation of the Peiwen yunfu
or the language of dicult Chinese novels. Because
Manchu is not dicult to learn, it enables the student
of Sinology to use the Manchu versions of the classics .
. . in order to verify the meaning of the Chinese text.
*
[28]

A number of European scholars in the 18th century,

frustrated by the diculties in reading Chinese, with its
complicated writing system and the classical writing style,
considered Manchu translations, or parallel Manchu versions, of many Chinese documents and literary works as
a great help to understanding them. Among them was
de Moyriac de Mailla (16691748), who beneted from
the existence of the parallel Manchu text when translating the historical compendium Tongjian Gangmu (Tungchien Kang-mu;); Amiot (17181793) consulted Manchu translations of Chinese works as well, and
wrote that the Manchu language would open an easy
entrance to penetrate into the labyrinth of Chinese literature of all ages.* [25]
4.3 Current situation
Study of the Manchu language by Russian sinologists
started in the early 18th century, soon after founding of Currently, very few native Manchu speakers remain;
the Russian Orthodox Mission in Beijing, to which most in what used to be Manchuria virtually no one speaks
of early Russian sinologists were connected.* [26] Illar- the language, the entire area having been completely
ion Kalinovich Rossokhin (Razsokhin) (died 1761) trans- sinicized. As of 2007, the last native speakers of the lanlated a number of Manchu works, such as The history of guage were thought to be 18 octogenarian residents of the
Kangxi's conquest of the Khalkha and Oirat nomads of village of Sanjiazi (Manchu:

6 GRAMMAR

5.1 Beijing dialect of Manchu

This section is about the dialect of Manchu spoken in
Beijing. For the Northern Mandarin dialect spoken in
Beijing, see Beijing dialect.
Many of the Manchu words are now pronounced with
some Chinese peculiarities of pronunciation, so k before
i and e=ch', g before i and e=ch, h and s before i=hs, etc.
Banjin Inenggiand Manchu linguistic activity by the govern- H before a, o, u, , is the guttural Scotch or German ch.
ment and students in Changchun, 2011
A Manchu Grammar: With Analysed Texts, Paul Georg
von Mllendor, p. 1.* [40]
The Chinese Northern Mandarin dialect spoken in Bei; Mllendor: ilan boo; Abkai: ilan bou), in Fuyu
jing had a major impact on the phonology of the dialect of
*
County, in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang Province. [29] A few
Manchu spoken in Beijing, and because Manchu phonolspeakers also remain in Dawujia village in Aihui District
ogy was transcribed into Chinese and European sources
of Heihe Prefecture.
based on the sinied pronunciation of Manchus from BeiThe modern custodians of the language are the Xibe (or jing, the original authentic Manchu pronunciation is unSibe) who live near the Ili valley in Xinjiang and were known to scholars.* [41]* [42]
moved there by the Qianlong Emperor in 1764. ModThe Manchus of Peking (Beijing) were inuenced by the
ern Xibe is very close to Manchu, although there are a
Chinese dialect spoken in the area to the point where
few slight dierences in writing and pronunciation. Xibe
pronouncing Manchu sounds was hard for them, and
is taught as a second language by the Ili Teachers' Colthey pronounced Manchu according to Chinese phonetlege (Yili Normal College) in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous
ics, whereas the Manchus of Aigun (in Heilongjiang)
Prefecture of northern Xinjiang. Occasional television
could both pronounce Manchu sounds properly and mimbroadcasts in Xibe language are made in Qapqal Xibe
ick the sinied pronunciation of Manchus in Peking (BeiAutonomous County, and about 1,300 copies of the
jing), because they learned the Pekinese (Beijing) proworld's only newspaper in Xibe language, Qapqal News,
nunciation from either studying in Peking or from oappear twice a week.
cials sent to Aigun from Beijing, and they could tell them
In recent years, with the help of the governments in apart, using the Chinese inuenced Pekinese pronunciaLiaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, many schools started tion when demonstrating that they were better educated
to have Manchu classes.* [30]* [31]* [32] Various re- or their superior stature in society.* [43]* [44]
gional governments around China have taken to teaching Manchu in more recent times; it was reported that
Heilongjiang University Manchu language research cen6 Grammar
ter in no.74, Xuefu Road, Harbin, listed Manchu as an
academic major. It is taught there as a tool for reading
Qing Dynasty archival documents.* [33] The Wall Street 6.1 Syntax
Journal reported in 2009 that the language is oered (as
elective) in one university, one public middle school, and Manchu phrases are all head-nal. This means that the
a few private schools.* [33]
head-word of a phrase (e.g. the noun of a noun phrase,
There are some groups of Manchu language enthusi- or the verb of a verb phrase) always falls at the end of the
asts in Beijing and elsewhere in Eastern China who try phrase. Thus, adjectives and adjectival phrases always
to revive the language of their ancestors using available precede the noun they modify, and the arguments to the
dictionaries and textbooks, and even occasional visits to verb always precede the verb. As a result, Manchu senQapqal, where the related Xibe language is spoken na- tence structure is subjectobjectverb (SOV). The gramtively.* [33] There are also other Manchu volunteers in mars of Japanese, Korean, and Turkish bear resemblance
many places of China who freely teach Manchu in the to that of Manchu, which would, according to the Altaic
desire to rescue the language.* [34]* [35]* [36]* [37] Thou- hypothesis, be due to a genetic relatedness.
sands of non-Manchu speakers have learned the language Manchu uses a small number of case-marking particles
through these measures.* [38]* [39]
that are similar to those found in Japanese, but also has
a separate class of true postpositions. Case-markers and
postpositions can be used together, as in the following
sentence:

Dialects
bi tere niyalma+i emgi gene+he

6.2

Manchu cases

5
nominative used for the subject of a sentence, no
overt marking

I that person+GEN with go+PAST

I went with that person
In this example, the postposition emgi,with, requires
its nominal argument to have the genitive case, and so we
have the genitive case-marker i between the noun niyalma
and the postposition.
Manchu also makes extensive use of converb structures,
and has an inventory of converbial suxes that indicate
the relationship between the subordinate verb and the nite verb that follows it. For example, given the following
two sentences (which have nite verbs):

that woman house ABL go.out+PAST.FINITE

That woman came out of the house.
tere sargan hoton de gene+he
that woman town DAT go+PAST.FINITE
That woman went to town.
These two sentences can be combined into a single sentence using converbs, which will relate the rst action to
the second. For example,
tere sargan boo ci tuci+, hoton de gene+he
ABL
DAT

That woman, having come out of the house,

went to town.
tere sargan boo ci tuci+me, hoton de gene+he
that
woman
house
go.out+IMPERFECT.CONVERB,
DAT go+PAST.FINITE

ABL
town

That woman, coming out of the house, went to

town.
tere sargan boo ci tuci+cibe, hoton de gene+he
that
woman
house
go.out+CONCESSIVE.CONVERB,
DAT go+PAST.FINITE

ABL
town

That woman, though she came out of the house,

went to town.

6.2

tere ba+i niyalma suk+be glha+0 ara+mbi

that place+GEN people skin+ACC boot
make+IMPERFECT.FINITE

tere sargan boo ci tuci+ke

that
woman
house
go.out+PAST.CONVERB,
town
go+PAST.FINITE

accusative used for the direct object of a sentence,

marked by the particle be. Direct objects can sometimes also take the nominative. It is commonly felt
that the marked accusative has a denite sense, like
using a denite article in English. There are, however, sentences in Classical Manchu that use the accusative and the non-subject nominative for dierent thematic functions, e.g.:

Manchu cases

Manchu has six cases, though one of them occurs only

occasionally in Classical Manchu. The cases are marked
by particles that can be written either with the noun to
which they apply or separately. The particles do not obey
the rule of vowel harmony, yet they are also not truly postpositions.

The people of that place make boots out of skin

(lit. make skin into boots).
In this example,bootsandskinare separately marked
with the two forms, and they have dierent thematic relationships to the verb. In other cases, however, it seems
the two forms can be used interchangeably.
genitive-instrumental used to indicate possession
or means by which something is accomplished. It
is marked by the particle i or its allomorph ni that is
used after a word ending in -ng. For instance, abka-i
cira (the emperor's countenance, literally the face
of heaven) vs. wang-ni moo (the king's tree).
dative-locative used to indicate location, time,
place, or indirect object, it is marked by the particle de. In the modern spoken Manchu dialect of the
Sibe (Xibe), this particle is normally used to mark
the locative, but not the dative.
ablative used to indicate the origin of an action
or the basis for a comparison, it is marked by the
particle ci. In the modern spoken Manchu dialect
of the Sibe (Xibe), this particle is used to mark the
dative.
prolative used to indicate the origin of an action, it
is marked by the particle deri. This case is used infrequently in Classical Manchu. In the modern spoken Manchu dialect of the Sibe (Xibe), this particle
is used to mark the ablative.
Less used cases:
initiative used to indicate the starting point of an
action. sux -deri
terminative used to indicate the ending point of an
action. sux -tala/-tele/-tolo
indef. allative used to indicate 'to a place, to a situation' when it is unknown whether the action reaches
exactly to the place/situation or around/near it. sufx -si

7 PHONOLOGY
indef. locative used to indicate 'at a place, in a situation' when it is unknown whether the action happens exactly at the place/situation or around/near it.
sux -la/-le/-lo

Manchu, but it was certainly found in the southern dialect

that became the basis for the written language. It is also
apparent that the open-syllable tendency of the Manchu
language had been growing ever stronger for the several
hundred years since written records of Manchu were rst
indef. ablative used to indicate 'from a place, from produced: consonant clusters that had appeared in older
a situation' when it is unknown whether the action is forms, such as abka and abtara-mbi ('to yell'), were gradreally from the exact place/situation or around/near ually simplied, and the words began to be written as aga
it. sux -tin
or aha (in this form meaning 'rain') and atara-mbi ('to
cause a commotion').
distributive used to indicate every one of something. sux -dari
formal used to indicate a simile
( as/like). sux 7.1 Consonants
-gese
Phonemes:
identical used to indicate that something is the
same as something else. sux -ali/-eli/-oli (appar1. romanized as ni
ently derived from the word adali, meaningsame
2. romanized as ng
)
orientative used to indicate facing/toward
(something/an action), showing only position and
tendency, not movement in. sux -ru
revertive used to indicatebackwardoragainst
(something)". From the root 'ca' (see cargi, coro,
cashu-n, etc.) sux -ca/-ce/-co
translative used to indicate change in the quality/form of sth. sux -ri
in. accusative used to indicate that the touch of
the verb on the object is not surely complete. sux
-a/-e/-o/-ya/-ye/-yo
In addition, there were some suxes, such as the primarily adjective-forming sux -ngga/-ngge/-nggo, that appear to have originally been case markers (in the case of
-ngga, a genitive case marker), but which had already lost
their productivity and become fossilized in certain lexemes by the time of the earliest written records of the
Manchu language: e.g. agangga pertaining to rainas
in agangga sara (an umbrella), derived from Manchu aga
(rain).

Phonology

Written Manchu was close to being called anopen syllablelanguage because the only consonant that came regularly at the end of native words was /n/, similar to the situation in Beijing Mandarin, Northeastern Mandarin, Jilu
Mandarin and Japanese. This resulted in almost all native words ending in a vowel. In some words, there were
vowels that were separated by consonant clusters, as in
the words ilha ('ower') and abka ('heaven'); however,
in most words, the vowels were separated from one another by only single consonants. This open syllable structure might not have been found in all varieties of spoken

3. romanized as c, ch, or q before /i/ or /y/, in

which it is pronounced as [t].
4. romanized as j. Pronounced as [t] before /i/ or
/y/.
5. romanized as , , sh; or x. Pronounced as []
before /i/.
6. romanized as h
7. romanized as y
8. romanised as k and g. /k/ and /k/ are pronounced [q] and [q] respectively before /a/, //, and
//.
9. romanized as p and b respectively.
10. romanized as t and d respectively.
Manchu has twenty consonants, shown in the table using
the usual transcription conventions (and the IPA values of
the consonants where they dier). The consonant /p/ was
rare and found mostly in loanwords and onomatopoeiae,
such as pak pik ('pow pow'). Historically, many ps appear
to have occurred in ancient forms of the language; however, they had been changed over time to f. The phoneme
// was also found mostly in Chinese loanwords and onomatopoeiae and there was no Manchu letter to represent
it; it was written as a digraph nk using the Manchu letters
for n and k. The palatal nasal consonant, [], is usually
transcribed with a digraph, ni, and has thus often
been considered a phonemic sequence of /n/ followed by
/j/ though work in Tungusic historical linguistics suggests
that the Manchu palatal nasal, like Spanish "" ([]) has
a very long history as a single segment.

Early Western descriptions of Manchu phonology, particularly those made by speakers of languages such as
French, in which the primary contrast between band
p, dand t, or gand kis truly one of

7.4

Vowel harmony

presence vs. lack of voicing (rather than lack of vs. presence of aspiration, or lenis vs. fortis), labelled Manchu
b as soft p, Manchu d as soft t, and Manchu g
as soft k, whereas Manchu p was hard p, t was
hard t, and k was hard k. This suggests that the
phonological contrast between the so-called voiced series
(b, d, g, j) and the voiceless series (p, t, k, c) in Manchu
as it was spoken during the early modern era was actually
one of aspiration and/or tenseness, as in Mandarin.

have been pronounced as such, as they never occurred

in native words. Among these, was the symbol for the
high unrounded vowel (customarily romanized with a y)
found in words such as sy (Buddhist temple) and Sycuwan
(Sichuan). Chinese aricates were also represented with
consonant symbols that were only used with loanwords
such as in the case of dzengse (orange) (Chinese: chngzi)
and tsun (inch) (Chinese: cn). In addition to the vocabulary that was borrowed from Chinese, the Manchu lanThe /s/ of the Manchu language is peculiar in that many guage also had a large amount of loanwords from other
languages such as Mongolian, for example the words
speakers habitually aricated it, pronouncing it like [ts]
morin (horse) and temen (camel).
in some or all contexts.
Some scholars analyse the velar (or palatal?) consonants and the uvular consonants as two separate sets of 7.4 Vowel harmony
phonemes. They were distinguished in spelling, but this
may have been merely a carryover from earlier alphabets. The vowel harmony found in the Manchu language was
traditionally described in terms of the philosophy of the
I Ching. Syllables with front vowels were described as
7.2 Vowels
being as "yin" syllables whereas syllables with back vowels were called "yang" syllables. The reasoning behind
this was that the language had a kind of sound symbolu
i
ism where front vowels represented feminine objects or
ideas and the back vowels represented masculine objects

or ideas. As a result, there were a number of word pairs in

the language in which changing the vowels also changed
the gender of the word. For example, the dierence be

tween the words hehe (woman) and haha (man) or eme

(mother) and ama (father) was essentially a contrast between the front vowel, [e], of the feminine and the back
vowel, [a], of the masculine counterpart.

8 In popular culture
*

Vowels of Manchu. [45]

In this vowel system, theneutralvowels (i and u) were

free to occur in a word with any other vowel or vowels.
The lone front vowel (e, but generally pronounced like
Mandarin [] ) never occurred in a word with either of the
regular back vowels (o and a). The relatively rare vowel
transcribed (possibly pronounced []) was usually found
as a back vowel; however, in some cases, it was found
occurring along with the front vowel e. Much disputation
exists over the exact pronunciation of . Erich Hauer, a
German sinologist and Manchurist, proposes that it was
pronounced as a front rounded vowel initially, but a back
unrounded vowel medially.* [46] William Austin suggests
that it was a mid-central rounded vowel.* [47] The modern
Shibe (Xibe) pronounce it identically to u.

7.3

Loanwords

Remarkably Manchu was able to absorb a large number of nonnative sounds into the language from Chinese.
There were special symbols used to represent the vowels of Chinese loanwords. These sounds are believed to

The Manchu language was spoken in the Korean lm War

of the Arrows. Ryu Seung-ryong, cast in the role of Jyushinta, and Moon Chae-won, who played Choi Ja-in, speak
Manchu often in the lm. It was also spoken in the lm
Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, in which it was called
Tartar.
In Anthony Trollope's novel The Way We Live Now, the
Chinese Emperor, who speaks only Manchu, must eat
silently at a state dinner given in his honor in London,
as nobody at the table is able to interpret Manchu into
English, only Manchu into Chinese.

9 Further reading
Learning texts of historical interest
Paul Georg von Mllendor (1892). A Manchu
grammar: with analysed texts. Printed at the American Presbyterian mission press. p. 52. Retrieved 1
March 2012.

10
A. Wylie (1855). Translation of the Ts'ing wan k'e
mung, a Chinese Grammar of the Manchu Tartar
Language; with introductory notes on Manchu Literature: (translated by A. Wylie.). Mission Press.
Retrieved 1 March 2012.
Thomas Taylor Meadows (1849). Translations from
the Manchu: with the original texts, prefaced by
an essay on the language. Canton: Press of S.W.
Williams. pp. 54http://www.endangeredlanguages.
com/lang/1205/guide/6302. Retrieved 10 February
2012.

For readers of Chinese

Liu, Jingxian; Zhao, Aping; Zhao, Jinchun (1997).
(General Theory of Manchu Language Research). Heilongjiang Korean Nationalty
Publishing House. ISBN 9787538907650.
Ji, Yonghai (2011). (Manchu Grammar). Minzu University of China Press. ISBN
9787811089677.
Aisin Gioro, Yingsheng (2004). (Divers
Knowledges of Manchu language). Wenyuan Publishing House. ISBN 7-80060-008-4.
Literature
von Mllendor, P. G. (1890). Contributor Royal
Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. China
Branch. Essay on Manchu Literature. Journal
of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society for
the Year ..., Volumes 24-25. The Branch: 145. Retrieved 24 April 2014. horizontal tab character in
|others= at position 12 (help)
Wade, Thomas Francis; Cambridge University Library (1898). A catalog of the Wade collection of
Chinese and Manchu books in the library of the University of Cambridge. Compiled by Herbert Allen
Giles. University Press. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
Cite uses deprecated parameter |coauthors= (help);
horizontal tab character in |others= at position 12
(help)
Cambridge University Library (1898). A Catalogue of the Collection of Chinese and Manchu Books
Given to the University of Cambridge. The University Press. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
Great Britain. India Oce. Library (1872).
Descriptive catalogue of the Chinese, Japanese, and
Manchu books. Compiled by James Summers.
Printed by order of the Secretary of state for India
in council. Retrieved 24 April 2014. horizontal tab
character in |others= at position 12 (help)

REFERENCES

Klaproth, Heinrich Julius (1822). Verzeichniss der

chinesischen und mandshuischen Bcher und Handschriften der K. Bibliothek zu Berlin (in German).
PARIS: IN DER KNIGLICHEN DRUCKEREL.
Retrieved 30 December 2012.

10 References
Gorelova, Liliya M. 2002. Manchu Grammar. Brill
Academic Publishers ISBN 90-04-12307-5
Elliott, Mark (2013). Why Study Manchu?".
Manchu Studies Group.
Fletcher, Joseph (1973), Manchu Sources, in
Leslie Donald, Colin Mackerras and Wang Gungwu,
Essays on the Sources for Chinese History, Canberra:
ANU Press
Haenisch, Erich. 1961. Mandschu-Grammatik.
Leipzig: Veb Verlag Enzyklopdie (German)
Hauer, Erich (1930). Why the Sinologue Should
Study Manchu(PDF). Journal of the North China
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 61: 156164.
Li, Gertraude Roth (2000). Manchu: A Textbook
for Reading Documents. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawai`i Press. ISBN 0824822064.
Erling von Mende. 2015. In Defence of
Nian Gengyao, Or: What to Do About Sources
on Manchu Language Incompetence?. Central Asiatic Journal 58 (1-2). Harrassowitz Verlag: 5987. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13173/
centasiaj.58.1-2.0059.
Mllendor, Paul Georg von. 1892. A Manchu
Grammar: With Analysed Texts. Shanghai.* [48]
Norman, Jerry. 1974.Structure of Sibe Morphology, Central Asian Journal.
Norman, Jerry. 1978. A Concise ManchuEnglish
Lexicon, University of Washington Press, Seattle.
Norman, Jerry. 2013. A Comprehensive Manchu
English Dictionary, Harvard University Press (Asia
Center), Cambridge ISBN 9780674072138.
Ramsey, S. Robert. 1987. The Languages of China.
Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey
ISBN 0-691-06694-9
Tulisow, Jerzy. 2000. Jzyk mandurski ( The
Manchu language ), coll. Jzyki Azjii i Afryki
( The languages of Asia and Africa ), Dialog,
Warsaw, 192 p. ISBN 83-88238-53-1 (Polish)
Kane, Daniel. 1997. Language Death and Language Revivalism the Case of Manchu. Central
Asiatic Journal 41 (2). Harrassowitz Verlag: 231
49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41928113.

10.1

10.1

Footnotes

Footnotes

[1] Manchu language at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)

[2] UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
27 October 2015.
[3] Hammarstrm, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath,
Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). Manchu.
Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science
of Human History.
[4] Fletcher (1973), p. 141.
[5] Asiatic journal and monthly miscellany. London: Wm. H.
Allen & Co. MayAugust 1837. p. 197.

[19] Edward J. M. Rhoads, Manchus & Han: Ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and Early Republican China, 18611928. University of Washington Press,
2000. Pages 5254. ISBN 0-295-98040-0. Partially
available on Google Books
[20] Yu Hsiao-jung, Manchu Rule over China and the Attriion
of the Manchu Language Archived June 19, 2013, at the
Wayback Machine.
[21] Rhoads (2000), p. 95.
[22] Manchu Language Lives Mostly in Archives, by Davind
Lague. The New York Times, March 17, 2007

[6] Asiatic journal and monthly miscellany. London: Wm. H.

Allen & Co. MayAugust 1837. p. 198.

[23] Yong, Heming; Peng, Jing (2008). Chinese Lexicography

: A History from 1046 BC to AD 1911: A History from
1046 BC to AD 1911. Oxford University Press. p. 398.
ISBN 0191561673. Retrieved 24 April 2014.

[7] Translation of the Ts'ing wan k'e mung, a Chinese Grammar of the Manchu Tartar Language; with introductory
notes on Manchu Literature: (translated by A. Wylie.).
Mission Press. 1855. pp. xxvii.

[24] Yong, Heming; Peng, Jing (2008). Chinese Lexicography

: A History from 1046 BC to AD 1911: A History from
1046 BC to AD 1911. Oxford University Press. p. 397.
ISBN 0191561673. Retrieved 24 April 2014.

[8] Shou-p'ing Wu Ko (1855). Translation (by A. Wylie)

of the Ts'ing wan k'e mung, a Chinese grammar of the
Manchu Tartar language (by Woo Kh Show-ping, revised
and ed. by Ching Ming-yuen Pei-ho) with intr. notes on
Manchu literature. pp. xxvii.

[25] Anonymous, Considerations on the language of communication between the Chinese and European governments, in The Chinese Repository, vol XIII, June 1844,
no. 6, pp. 281300. Available on Google Books. Modern
reprint exists, ISBN 1-4021-5630-8

[9] Chinggeltei. (1963) A Grammar of the Mongol Language.

New York, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. p. 15.

[26] Liliya M. Gorelova, Manchu Grammar.Brill, Leiden,

2002. ISBN 90-04-12307-5

[10] http://www.dartmouth.edu/~{}qing/WEB/DAHAI.html
[11] Gertraude Roth Li (2000). Manchu: a textbook for reading documents. University of Hawaii Press. p. 16. ISBN
0824822064. Retrieved 25 March 2012. Alphabet: Some
scholars consider the Manchu script to be a syllabic one.
[12] Gertraude Roth Li (2010). Manchu: A Textbook for Reading Documents (Second Edition) (2 ed.). Natl Foreign Lg
Resource Ctr. p. 16. ISBN 0980045959. Retrieved
1 March 2012. Alphabet: Some scholars consider the
Manchu script to be a syllabic one. Others see it as having
an alphabet with individual letters, some of which dier
according to their position within a word. Thus, whereas
Denis Sinor aruged in favor of a syllabic theory,30 Louis
Ligeti preferred to consider the Manchu script and alphabetical one.31()
[13] Meadows 1849, p. 3.
[14] Saarela 2014, p. 169.
[15] Elliot 2006, p. 38.
[16] Rhoads 2000, p. 109.
[17] Zhao, Gang (January 2006). Reinventing China:
Imperial Qing Ideology and the Rise of Modern Chinese National Identity in the Early Twentieth Century (PDF). 32 (Number 1). Sage Publications: 12.
doi:10.1177/0097700405282349. JSTOR 20062627.
Archived from the original on 25 March 2014. Retrieved
23 May 2014.
[18] von Mllendor (1890).

[27] . (The History of the Jin (Jurchen) Dynasty) Russian Academy of Sciences, Siberian
Branch. Novosibirsk, 1998. 2 ISBN 5-7803-0037-2.
Editor's preface (Russian)
[28] Hauer (1930), p. 162-163.
[29] Chinese Village Struggles to Save Dying Language, By
David Lague. The New York Times, March 18, 2007
[30] Liaoning News: 29 Manchu Teachers of Huanren, Benxi
Are Now On Duty (simplied Chinese)
[31] China News: A High School Opens Manchu Class in
Liaoning (simplied Chinese)
[32] Sina Education: Manchu Class Comes Into A Middle
School Class of Jilin For the First Time (simplied Chinese)
[33] Ian Johnson (2009-10-05), In China, the Forgotten
Manchu Seek to Rekindle Their Glory, The Wall Street
Journal, retrieved 2009-10-05
[34] China Nationality Newspaper: the Rescue of Manchu
Language (simplied Chinese)
[35] iFeng: Jin Biao's 10-Year Dream of Manchu Language
(traditional Chinese)
[36] Shenyang Daily: Young Man Teaches Manchu For Free
To Rescue the Language (simplied Chinese)
[37] Beijing Evening News: the Worry of Manchu language
(simplied Chinese) Archived May 13, 2013, at the
Wayback Machine.

10

11

[38] Northeastern News: Don't let Manchu language and

scripts become a sealed book (simplied Chinese)
[39] Beijing Evening News: 1980s Generation's Rescue Plan
of Manchu Language (simplied Chinese) Archived May
13, 2013, at the Wayback Machine.
[40] Mllendor, Paul Georg von (1892). A Manchu Grammar: With Analysed Texts (reprint ed.). Shanghai: Printed
at the American Presbyterian mission Press. p. 1.
Archived from the original on Oct 26, 2007. Retrieved
1 April 2013.
[41] Gorelova, Liliya M., ed. (2002). Manchu Grammar, Part
8. Volume 7 of Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section
8 Uralic and Central Asian Studies. Brill. p. 77. ISBN
9004123075. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
[42] Cahiers de linguistique: Asie orientale, Volumes 31-32.
Contributor Ecole des hautes tudes en sciences sociales.
Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie orientale.
Ecole des hautes tudes en sciences sociales, Centre de
recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie orientale. 2002. p.
208. Retrieved 25 August 2014. horizontal tab character in |others= at position 12 (help)
[43] SHIROKOGOROFF, S. M. (August 1929). Reading
and Transliteration of Manchu Lit.. Archives polonaises
d'etudes orientales, Volumes 8-10. Contributors Polskie
Towarzystwo Orientalistyczne, Polska Akademia Nauk.
Komitet Nauk Orientalistycznych. Pastwowe Wydawn.
Naukowe. p. 122. Retrieved 25 August 2014. horizontal
tab character in |others= at position 13 (help); Check date
values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
[44] SHIROKOGOROFF, S. M. (August 1929). Reading
and Transliteration of Manchu Lit.. Rocznik orientalistyczny, Volumes 9-10. Contributors Polskie Towarzystwo
Orientalistyczne, Polska Akademia Nauk. Komitet Nauk
Orientalistycznych, Polska Akademia Nauk. Zakad Orientalistyki. p. 122. Retrieved 25 August 2014. horizontal
tab character in |others= at position 13 (help); Check date
values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
[45] Tawney, Brian. Reading Jakdan's Poetry: An Exploration of Literary Manchu Phonology. AM Thesis (Harvard, RSEA).
[46] Li (2000), p. 17.
[47] Austin, William M., The Phonemics and Morphophonemese of Manchu, in American Studies in Altaic
Linguistics, p. 17, Nicholas Poppe (ed.), Indiana University Publications, Vol. 13 of the Uralic and Altaic Series,
Bloomington IN 1962
[48] Wikisource copy

11

External links

Manchu Swadesh vocabulary list of basic words

(from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)
Abkai Unicode Manchu/Sibe/Daur Fonts and
Keyboards

EXTERNAL LINKS

Manchu language Gospel of Mark

Manchu alphabet and language at Omniglot
Manchu Test Page
ManchuChineseEnglish Lexicon
online ManchuChinese, ManchuJapanese lexicon
(Chinese)
anaku Manchu Script Creator (Chinese)
A Dying Language
Contrast In Manchu Vowel Systems
Lament for a dying language
Manchu Word Of The Day, Open Source Manchu
English dictionary
Manju Nikan Inggiri Gisun i Buleku Bithe
(ManchuChineseEnglish dictionary)
Manchu language guide
The Manchu Studies Group
Tawney, Brian. Reading Jakdan's Poetry: An Exploration of Literary Manchu Phonology. AM
Thesis (Harvard, RSEA).

11

12

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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Ran, Bumm13, Enzino, Burschik, A-giau, 4pq1injbok, Rich Farmbrough, Wikiacc, MuDavid, Bennylin, Kwamikagami, Caeruleancentaur, Anthony Appleyard, Tabor, Sl, Abstrakt, Garzo, Angr, Woohookitty, Mr Tan, CWH, StradivariusTV, Cbdorsett, Stevey7788, Wrh2,
TaivoLinguist, FlaBot, Gelo71, RobertG, GnuDoyng, Hottentot, Spudtater, Le Anh-Huy, Bgwhite, Vmenkov, Wavelength, JWB, RussBot,
Ksyrie, Aeusoes1, Manchurian Tiger, CaliforniaAliBaba, Maunus, Intershark, Aremisasling, Tropylium, Kungfuadam, Whlee, Junyi, Sassisch, SmackBot, WilliamThweatt, K1234567890y, Od Mishehu, Strabismus, Lds, Kintetsubualo, Khepidjemwa'atnefru, Xaosux, Peter
Isotalo, Hmains, Btawney, TheLeopard, Da Vynci, Rassilon, Adamv88, JorisvS, NongBot~enwiki, Hvn0413, Ft1~enwiki, Languagegeek
Chris, Norm mit, Zbooo, JoeBot, Bruinfan12, Bubbha, Ko'oy, Szfski, Godardesque, Safalra, FilipeS, Cydebot, Thijs!bot, Ante Aikio, Atechi, Bobblehead, CharlotteWebb, Niohe, Alfalfahotshots, G Purevdorj, Glacierfairy, Salgueiro~enwiki, Mutt Lunker, MacCandy, Barefact,
David Cat, SwiftBot, Avicennasis, Yunfeng, BYF, Ebizur, ASDFGH, Amban, DarKnEs5 WaRr0r, Dispenser, Thg250, Mjb1981, Balthazarduju, 4point, Aminullah, Goldman60, ACSE, VolkovBot, Aesopos, JhsBot, Akerbeltz, Erkin2008, Cnilep, Hinomaru shonen, Master of
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Yjfstorehouse, Iritakamas, Hoshi.sasori, Helpful Pixie Bot, BG19bot, Rund Van, Orartu, VJ98, AdventurousSquirrel, Kenkrugler, BattyBot,
Justincheng12345-bot, olon, Basemetal, Dylanvt, Mogism, OBCPO1, Rajmaan, Great Brightstar, Tranxlatorjon, Jodosma, Abrahamic
Faiths, Iwsfutcmd, Mother earth F3CF, Onuphriate, Monkbot, The 51st Division, Dre200Q, KasparBot, GSS-1987, InternetArchiveBot,
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