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Manchu Script
The Manchu alphabet ( mnc, m=, v=manju hergen, a=manju hergen) is the alphabet used to write the now nearly-extinct Manchu language. A similar script is used today by the Xibe people, who speak a language considered either as a dialect of Manchu or a closely related, mutually intelligible language. It is written vertically from top to bottom, with columns proceeding from left to right. History ''Tongki fuka akū hergen'' According to the ' (; ), in 1599 the Jurchen leader Nurhaci decided to convert the Mongolian alphabet to make it suitable for the Manchu people. He decried the fact that while illiterate Han Chinese and Mongolians could understand their respective languages when read aloud, that was not the case for the Manchus, whose documents were recorded by Mongolian scribes. Overriding the objections of two advisors named Erdeni and G'ag'ai, he is credited with adapting the Mongolian script to Manchu. The resulting script was known as () — the "script without dot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manchu Language
Manchu (Manchu:, ) is a critically endangered East Asian Tungusic language native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China. As the traditional native language of the Manchus, it was one of the official languages of the Qing dynasty (1636–1912) of China, although today the vast majority of Manchus speak only Mandarin Chinese. Several thousand can speak Manchu as a second language through governmental primary education or free classes for adults in classrooms or online. The Manchu language enjoys high historical value for historians of China, especially for the Qing dynasty. Manchu-language texts 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. Like most Siberian languages, 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 m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diacritical Marks
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacritic'' is a noun, though it is sometimes used in an attributive sense, whereas ''diacritical'' is only an adjective. Some diacritics, such as the acute ( ◌́ ) and grave ( ◌̀ ), are often called ''accents''. Diacritics may appear above or below a letter or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters. The main use of diacritics in Latin script is to change the sound-values of the letters to which they are added. Historically, English has used the diaeresis diacritic to indicate the correct pronunciation of ambiguous words, such as "coöperate", without which the letter sequence could be misinterpreted to be pronounced . Other examples are the acute and grave accents, which can indic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uyghur Language
The Uyghur or Uighur language (; , , , or , , , , CTA: Uyğurçä; formerly known as Eastern Turki), is a Turkic language written in a Uyghur Perso-Arabic script with 8-11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur speakers are located in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, and various other countries have Uyghur-speaking expatriate communities. Uyghur is an official language of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; is widely used in both social and official spheres, as well as in print, television, and radio; and is used as a common language by other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. Uyghur belongs to the Karluk branch of the Turkic language family, which includes languages such as Uzbek. Like many other Turkic languages, Uyghur displays vowel harmony and agglutination, lacks noun classes or grammatical gender, and is a left-branching language with subject–obj ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chagatai Language
Chagatai (چغتای, ''Čaġatāy''), also known as ''Turki'', Eastern Turkic, or Chagatai Turkic (''Čaġatāy türkīsi''), is an extinct Turkic literary language that was once widely spoken across Central Asia and remained the shared literary language there until the early 20th century. It was used across a wide geographic area including parts of modern-day Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Literary Chagatai is the predecessor of the modern Karluk branch of Turkic languages, which include Uzbek and Uyghur. Turkmen, which is not within the Karluk branch but in the Oghuz branch of Turkic languages, had been heavily influenced by Chagatai for centuries. Ali-Shir Nava'i was the greatest representative of Chagatai literature. Chagatai literature is still studied in modern Uzbekistan, where the language is seen as the predecessor and the direct ancestor of modern Uzbek and the literature is regarded as part of the national heritage of Uzbekistan. Etymol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Classical Tibetan
Classical Tibetan refers to the language of any text written in Tibetic after the Old Tibetan period. Though it extends from the 12th century until the modern day, it particularly refers to the language of early canonical texts translated from other languages, especially Sanskrit. The phonology implied by Classical Tibetan orthography is very similar to the phonology of Old Tibetan, but the grammar varies greatly depending on period and geographic origin of the author. Such variation is an under-researched topic. In 816, during the reign of King Sadnalegs, literary Tibetan underwent a thorough reform aimed at standardizing the language and vocabulary of the translations being made from Sanskrit, which was one of the main influences for literary standards in what is now called Classical Tibetan. Nouns Structure of the noun phrase Nominalizing suffixes — ''pa'' or ''ba'' and ''ma'' — are required by the noun or adjective that is to be singled out; * ''po'' or ''bo'' (ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pentaglot Dictionary
The ''Pentaglot Dictionary'' (Chinese: 御製五體清文鑑, ''Yuzhi Wuti Qing Wenjian''; the term 清文, ''Qingwen'', "Qing language", was another name for the Manchu language in Chinese), also known as the ''Manchu Polyglot Dictionary'', was a dictionary of major imperial languages compiled in the late Qianlong era of the Qing dynasty (also said to be compiled in 1794). The work contains Manchu lexemes and their translations into various administrative languages such as Tibetan, Mongolian, post-classical or vernacular Chagatai (Eastern Turki, now known as Modern Uyghur since 1921) and Chinese. Title The literal meaning of the Chinese title 《御製五體清文鑑》 ''Yù zhì wǔ tǐ Qīng wén jiàn'' is "Imperially-Published Five-Script Textual Mirror of Qing", which corresponds to mnc, m=, v=han-i araha sunja hacin-i hergen kamciha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, a=han-i araha sunja haqin-i hergen kamqiha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, "dictionary of Manchu words written by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solon People
The Solon people () are a subgroup of the Ewenki (Evenk) people of northeastern Asia. They live in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Heilongjiang Province, and constitute the majority of China's Ewenki. Terminology and classification The Ewenki (also spelled Evenki) people are spread throughout the taiga forests of much of northeastern Asia, including most of Eastern Siberia and parts of Northeastern China. According to Juha Janhunen's classification, the Ewenki people found in China can be classified into three subethnic groups: * The Solon (, "Solon Ewenki") * The Oroqen * The "Manchurian Reindeer Tungus" - a small group which are known to the Chinese as the "Yakut" (, "Yakut Ewenki"). They are the only group in China engaged in reindeer herding. Another subethnic group in China's Inner Mongolia, the Khamnigan are bilingual, speaking the Ewenki language along with a Mongolian dialect. Janhunen believes that their primary ethnic affiliation is Mongolian rather th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evenki Language
Evenki (Ewenkī), formerly known as Tungus or Solon, is the largest member of the northern group of Tungusic languages, a group which also includes Even, Negidal, and the more closely related Oroqen language. The name is sometimes wrongly given as "Evenks". It is spoken by Evenks or Ewenkī(s) in Russia and China. In certain areas the influences of the Yakut and the Buryat languages are particularly strong. The influence of Russian in general is overwhelming (in 1979, 75.2% of the Evenkis spoke Russian, rising to 92.7% in 2002). Evenki children were forced to learn Russian at Soviet residential schools, and returned with a “poor ability to speak their mother tongue...". The Evenki language varies considerably among its dialects, which are divided into three large groups: the northern, the southern and the eastern dialects. These are further divided into minor dialects. A written language was created for Evenkis in the Soviet Union in 1931, first using a Latin alphabet, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qianlong Emperor
The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, born Hongli, was the fifth Emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1735 to 1796. The fourth son of the Yongzheng Emperor, he reigned officially from 11 October 1735 to 8 February 1796. In 1796, he abdicated in favour of his son, the Jiaqing Emperor, out of filial piety towards his grandfather, the Kangxi Emperor, who ruled for 61 years, so that he not officially usurp him as the longest-reigning emperor. Despite his retirement, however, the Qianlong Emperor retained ultimate power as the Emperor Emeritus until his death in 1799, making him one of the longest-reigning monarchs in history, and dying at the age of 87, one of the longest-lived. As a capable and cultured ruler inheriting a thriving empire, during his long reign, the Qing Empire reached its most splendid and prosperous era, boasting a large popul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dream Of The Red Chamber
''Dream of the Red Chamber'' (''Honglou Meng'') or ''The Story of the Stone'' (''Shitou Ji'') is a novel composed by Cao Xueqin in the middle of the 18th century. One of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, it is known for its psychological scope, and its observation of the worldview, aesthetics, life-styles, and social relations of 18th-century China. The intricate strands of its plot depict the rise and decline of a family much like Cao’s own and, by extension, of the dynasty itself. Cao depicts the power of the father over the family, but the novel is intended to be a memorial to the women he knew in his youth: friends, relatives and servants. At a more profound level, the author explores religious and philosophical questions, and the writing style includes echoes of the plays and novels of the late Ming, as well as poetry from earlier periods. Cao apparently began composing it in the 1740s and worked on it until his death in 1763 or 1764. Copies of hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thousand Character Classic
The ''Thousand Character Classic'' (), also known as the ''Thousand Character Text'', is a Chinese poem that has been used as a primer for teaching Chinese characters to children from the sixth century onward. It contains exactly one thousand characters, each used only once, arranged into 250 lines of four characters apiece and grouped into four line rhyming stanzas to make it easy to memorize. It is sung in a way similar to children learning the Latin alphabet sing an "alphabet song." Along with the ''Three Character Classic'' and the ''Hundred Family Surnames'', it has formed the basis of literacy training in traditional China. The first line is ''Tian di xuan huang'' () and the last line, ''Yan zai hu ye'' () explains the use of the grammatical particles "yan", "zai", "hu", and "ye". History There are several stories of the work's origin. One says that Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty (r. 502–549) commissioned Zhou Xingsi (, 470–521) to compose this poem for his prince ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
