The Manchu alphabet ( mnc, m= , v=manju hergen, a=manju hergen) is the alphabet used to write the now critically endangered

Manchu language Manchu ( ) is a critically endangered language, endangered Tungusic language native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China. As the traditional native language of the Manchu people, Manchus, it was one of the official language ...

. A similar script called Xibe script is used today by the

Xibe people The Sibe are a Tungusic-speaking East Asian ethnic group living mostly in Xinjiang, Jilin and Shenyang in Liaoning. The Sibe form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by China, and had a recorded population of 190,481 in the 2010 C ...

, whose language is considered either a dialect of Manchu or a closely related,

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...

language. It is written vertically from top to bottom, with columns proceeding from left to right.

History

''Tongki fuka akū hergen''

The

Jurchens Jurchen (, ; , ) is a term used to collectively describe a number of East Asian people, East Asian Tungusic languages, Tungusic-speaking people. They lived in northeastern China, also known as Manchuria, before the 18th century. The Jurchens wer ...

of a millennium ago became the ancestors of the Manchus when

Nurhaci Nurhaci (14 May 1559 – 30 September 1626), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizu of Qing, was the founding khan of the Jurchen people, Jurchen-led Later Jin (1616–1636), Later Jin dynasty. As the leader of the House of Aisin-Gi ...

united the

Jianzhou Jurchens The Jianzhou Jurchens () were one of the three major groups of Jurchens as identified by the Ming dynasty. Although the geographic location of the Jianzhou Jurchens changed throughout history, during the 14th century they were located south of ...

(1593–1618) and his son subsequently renamed the consolidated tribes as the "Manchu". Throughout this period, the

Jurchen language The Jurchen language ( zh, t=女真語, p=Nǚzhēn yǔ) was the Tungusic language of the Jurchen people of eastern Manchuria, the rulers of the Jin dynasty in northern China of the 12th and 13th centuries. It is ancestral to the Manchu languag ...

evolved into what we know as the

. The

Jurchen script The Jurchen script (Jurchen: ; ) was the writing system used to write the Jurchen language, the language of the Jurchen people who created the Jin Empire in northeastern China in the 12th–13th centuries. It was derived from the Khitan scrip ...

has no relation to the Manchu alphabet, as it was derived from the Khitan script, itself derived from Chinese characters. After the collapse of the Jin dynasty, the Jurchen script fell into disuse. According to the ' (; ), in 1599 the Jurchen leader

decided to convert the

Mongolian alphabet Various Mongolian writing systems have been devised for the Mongolian language over the centuries, and from a variety of scripts. The oldest and native script, called simply the Mongolian script, has been the predominant script during most of Mo ...

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 dots and circles". Aphai fulingga han chiha

''Tongki fuka sindaha hergen''

In 1632, Dahai added diacritical marks to clear up a lot of the ambiguity present in the original Mongolian script; for instance, a leading ''k'', ''g'', and ''h'' are distinguished by the placement of no diacritical mark, a dot, and a circle, respectively. This revision created the standard script, known as () — the "script with dots and circles". As a result, the Manchu alphabet contains little ambiguity. Recently discovered manuscripts from the 1620s make clear, however, that the addition of dots and circles to Manchu script began before their supposed introduction by Dahai. Dahai also added the ''tulergi hergen'' ("foreign/outer letters"): ten graphemes to facilitate Manchu to be used to write Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan loanwords. Previously, these non-Manchu sounds did not have corresponding letters in Manchu. Sounds that were transliterated included the aspirated sounds k' (Chinese pinyin: k, ), k (g, ), x (h, ); ts' (c, ); ts (ci, ); sy (si, ); dz (z, ); c'y (chi, ); j'y (zhi, ); and ž (r, ).

19th century – present

By the middle of the nineteenth century, there were three styles of writing Manchu in use: standard script (''ginggulere hergen''), semi-cursive script (''gidara hergen''), and cursive script (''lasihire hergen''). Semicursive script had less spacing between the letters, and cursive script had rounded tails. The Manchu alphabet was also used to write Chinese. The way in which this was done is explained in ''Manchu: a Textbook for Reading Documents'', which has a comparative table of romanizations of Chinese syllables written in Manchu letters,

Hànyǔ Pīnyīn Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means ' Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin'' literally ...

and

Wade–Giles Wade–Giles ( ) is a romanization system for Mandarin Chinese. It developed from the system produced by Thomas Francis Wade during the mid-19th century, and was given completed form with Herbert Giles's '' A Chinese–English Dictionary'' ...

. Using the Manchu script to transliterate Chinese words is a source of loanwords for the

Xibe language The Xibe language (, also Sibo, Sibe) is a Tungusic language spoken by members of the Sibe minority of Xinjiang, in Northwest China. Classification Sibe is conventionally viewed as a separate language within the southern group of Tungusic lan ...

. Several Chinese-Manchu dictionaries contain Chinese characters transliterated with Manchu script. The Manchu versions of the ''

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 c ...

'' and '' Dream of the Red Chamber'' are actually the Manchu transcription of all the Chinese characters. In the ''Imperial Liao-Jin-Yuan Three Histories National Language Explanation'' ( ) commissioned by the

Qianlong Emperor The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, personal name Hongli, was the fifth Emperor of China, emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China pr ...

, the Manchu alphabet is used to write Evenki (

Solon Solon (; ; BC) was an Archaic Greece#Athens, archaic History of Athens, Athenian statesman, lawmaker, political philosopher, and poet. He is one of the Seven Sages of Greece and credited with laying the foundations for Athenian democracy. ...

) words. In the '' Pentaglot Dictionary'', also commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor, the Manchu alphabet is used to transcribe Tibetan and Chagatai (related to

Uyghur Uyghur may refer to: * Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia (West China) ** Uyghur language, a Turkic language spoken primarily by the Uyghurs *** Old Uyghur language, a different Turkic language spoken in the Uyghur K ...

) words.

Alphabet

} , , , , , Used in Chinese loanwords. , - ! colspan="7" , Consonants , - , rowspan="2" , — , rowspan="2" , , , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , The dotted form is used before vowels; undotted form before consonants. A dotted final form is used in some words of chinese origin. , - , , - , — , — , , , , , The medial form is used before consonants. , - , rowspan="3" , — , rowspan="2" , , , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , The undotted medial form is used before '; dotted form before consonants. , - , , - , , , , , , Initial and medial forms are used before '. , - , rowspan="2", — , , , — , , , Used before '. , - , , , — , , , Used before '. , - , rowspan="2", — , , , — , , , Used before '. , - , , , — , , , Used before '. , - , — , , , , , , , - , — , , , — , , , , - , — , , , , , , before , , - , — , , , — , , , before , , - , rowspan="3" , — , , , — , rowspan="3" , , rowspan="3" , , Used before '. , - , — , , , Medial form is used before consonants. , - , , , — , Used before '. , - , rowspan="2" , — , , , rowspan="2" , — , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , , Used before '. , - , , , Used before '. , - , — , , , , , , Initial and final forms usually exist in foreign words. , - , — , , , , , , , - , — , , , — , , , before , , - , — , , , — , , , before , , - , — , , , — , , , , - , — , , , , , , Initial and final forms exist mostly in foreign words. , - , rowspan="2" , — , , , rowspan="2" , — , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , , rowspan="2" , First initial and medial forms are used before ';
second initial and medial forms are used before '. , - , , , - , — , , , — , , , - , , - , — , , , — , , , Used for Chinese k ʰ Used before '. , - , — , , , — , , , Used for Chinese g Used before '. , - , — , , , — , , , Used in Chinese h Used before '. , - , — , , , — , , , Used in Chinese c ͡sʰ , - , — , , , , , , Used in Chinese z ͡s , - , — , , , — , , , Used in Chinese r � , - , — , , , — , , , Used in Chinese ch ʂʰand chi/c'y ʂʰɨ, - , — , , , , , , Used in Chinese zh ʂand zhi/j'y ʂɨ

Method of teaching

Despite its alphabetic nature, the Manchu "alphabet" was traditionally taught as a

syllabary In the Linguistics, linguistic study of Written language, written languages, a syllabary is a set of grapheme, written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) mora (linguistics), morae which make up words. A symbol in a syllaba ...

to reflect its

phonotactics Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek 'voice, sound' and 'having to do with arranging') is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable struc ...

. Manchu children were taught to memorize the shapes of all the syllables in the language separately as they learned to write and say right away "''la'', ''lo''", etc., instead of saying "''l'', ''a'' — ''la''"; "''l'', ''o'' — ''lo''"; etc. As a result, the syllables contained in their syllabary do not contain all possible combinations that can be formed with their letters. They made, for instance, no such use of the consonants ''l'', ''m'', ''n'' and ''r'' as English; hence if the Manchu letters ''s'', ''m'', ''a'', ''r'' and ''t'' were joined in that order, a Manchu would not pronounce them as "smart". Today, it is still divided among experts on whether the Manchu script is alphabetic or syllabic. In China, it is considered syllabic, and Manchu is still taught in this manner, while in the West it is treated like an alphabet. The alphabetic approach is used mainly by foreigners who want to learn the language, as studying the Manchu script as a syllabary takes longer.

Twelve ''uju''

The syllables in Manchu are divided into twelve categories called ''uju'' (literally "head") based on their syllabic codas (final

phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...

s). Here lists the names of the twelve ''uju'' in their traditional order:

a, ai, ar, an, ang, ak, as, at, ab, ao, al, am.

Each ''uju'' contains syllables ending in the coda of its name. Hence, Manchu only allows nine final consonants for its closed syllables, otherwise a syllable is open with a monophthong (''a'' ''uju'') or a diphthong (''ai'' ''uju'' and ''ao'' ''uju'').The syllables in an ''uju'' are further sorted and grouped into three or two according to their similarities in pronunciation and shape. For example, ''a uju'' arranges its 131 licit syllables in the following order:

a, e, i; o, u, ū; na, ne, ni; no, nu, nū; ka, ga, ha; ko, go, ho; kū, gū, hū; ba, be, bi; bo, bu, bū; pa, pe, pi; po, pu, pū; sa, se, si; so, su, sū; ša, še, ši; šo, šu, šū; ta, da; te, de; ti, di; to, do; tu, du; la, le, li; lo, lu, lū; ma, me, mi; mo, mu, mū; ca, ce, ci; co, cu, cū; ja, je, ji; jo, ju, jū; ya, ye; yo, yu, yū; ke, ge, he; ki, gi, hi; ku, gu, hu; k'a, g'a, h'a; k'o, g'o, h'o; ra, re, ri; ro, ru, rū; fa, fe, fi; fo, fu, fū; wa, we; ts'a, ts'e, ts; ts'o, ts'u; dza, dze, dzi, dzo, dzu; ža, že, ži; žo, žu; sy, c'y, jy.

In general, while syllables in the same row resemble each other phonetically and visually, syllables in the same group (as the semicolons separate) bear greater similarities.

Punctuation

The Manchu alphabet has two kinds of punctuation: two dots (), analogous to a period; and one dot (), analogous to a comma. However, with the exception of lists of nouns being reliably punctuated by single dots, punctuation in Manchu is inconsistent, and therefore not of much use as an aid to readability. The equivalent of the question mark in Manchu script consists of some special

particles In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...

, written at the end of the question.

Unicode

The Manchu alphabet is included in the Unicode block for Mongolian.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * *

External links

Abkai — Unicode Manchu/Sibe/Daur Fonts and Keyboards

Manchu script generator (Romanization → Manchu script (also for download))

ManchuFont
— an

OpenType OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. Derived from TrueType, it retains TrueType's basic structure but adds many intricate data structures for describing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corpora ...

font for Manchu writing
Jurchen Script
{{list of writing systems Alphabets

Alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

1590s introductions 1599 beginnings Letters with final form