Manchu language
Manchu is a critically endangered Tungusic language native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China. As the traditional native language of the Manchus, it was the national language of the Qing dynasty 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 has 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 many loan words from Mongolian and Chinese. Its script is vertically written and taken from the Mongolian script. Although Manchu does not have the kind of grammatical gender found in most European languages, some gendered words in Manchu are distinguished by different stem vowels, as in ama, 'father', and eme, 'mother'.
Names
The Qing dynasty used various Mandarin Chinese expressions to refer to the Manchu language, such as "Qingwen" and "Qingyu" . The term "national" was also applied to writing in Manchu, as in Guowen, in addition to Guoyu , which was used by previous non-Han dynasties to refer to their languages and, in modern times, to the Standard Chinese language. In the Manchu-language version of the Treaty of Nerchinsk, the term "Chinese language" referred to the Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol languages, three separate language groups, not just one language.History and significance
Historical linguistics
Manchu is southern Tungusic. Whilst Northern Tungus languages such as Evenki retain traditional structure, the Chinese language is a source of major influence upon Manchu, altering its form and vocabulary.In 1635 Hong Taiji renamed the Jurchen people and Jurchen language as 'Manchu'. The Jurchen are the ancestors of the Manchu and ruled over the later Jin dynasty.
Decline of use
Manchu began as a primary language of the Qing dynasty Imperial court, but as Manchu officials 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, offering rewards to those who excelled in the language. Chinese classics and fiction were translated into Manchu and a body of Manchu literature accumulated. As the Yongzheng Emperor explained,"If some special encouragement... is not offered, the ancestral language will not be passed on and learned."Still, the use of the language among the bannermen declined throughout the 18th century. Historical records report that as early as 1776, the Qianlong Emperor was shocked to see a Manchu official, Guo'ermin, not understand what the emperor was telling him in Manchu, despite coming from the Manchu stronghold of Shengjing. By the 19th century, even the imperial court had lost fluency in the language. The Jiaqing Emperor complained that his officials were not proficient at understanding or writing Manchu.
By the end of the 19th century, the language had declined to such an extent that even at the office of the Shengjing general, the only documents written in Manchu would be the memorials wishing the emperor long life; during the same 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. Nonetheless, as late as 1906–1907, Qing education and military officials insisted that schools teach Manchu language and that the officials testing soldiers' marksmanship continue to conduct an oral examination in Manchu.
The use of the language for the official documents declined throughout Qing history as well. In particular, at the beginning of the dynasty, some documents on sensitive political and military issues were submitted in Manchu but not in Chinese. Later on, some Imperial records in Manchu continued to be produced until the last years of the dynasty. In 1912, when the Qing was overthrown, most Manchus could not speak their language, and the Beijing dialect replaced Manchu.
Use of Manchu
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 written in both Chinese and Manchu. Another limited use of the language was for voice commands in the Qing army, attested as late as 1878.Bilingual Chinese-Manchu inscriptions appeared on many things.
Manchu studies during the Qing dynasty
A Jiangsu Han Chinese named Shen Qiliang wrote books on Manchu grammar, including Guide to Qing Books and Great Qing Encyclopedia. His father was a naval officer for the Qing and his grandfather was an official of the Ming dynasty before rebels murdered him. Shen Qiliang himself fought against the Three Feudatories as part of the Qing army. He then started learning Manchu and writing books on Manchu grammar from Bordered Yellow Manchu Bannermen in 1677 after moving to Beijing. He translated the Hundred Family Names and Thousand Character Classic into Manchu and spent 25 years on the Manchu language. Shen wrote: "I am a Han. But all my life I have made a hobby of Manchu." Shen did not have to learn Manchu as part of his job because he was never an official, so he seems to have studied it voluntarily. Most Han people were not interested in learning non-Han languages, so it is not known why Shen was doing it, but he did praise Manchu writing, saying that it was simpler and clearer than Chinese.A Hangzhou Han Chinese, Chen Mingyuan, helped edit the book Introduction to the Qing language, which was co-written by a Manchu named Uge. Uge gave private Manchu language classes, which were attended by his friend Chen. Chen arranged for its printing.
Hanlin
Han Chinese at the Hanlin Academy studied the Manchu language in the Qing. The Han Chinese Hanlin graduate Qi Yunshi knew the Manchu language and wrote a book in Chinese on the frontier regions of China by translating and using the Manchu-language sources in the Grand Secretariat's archives. In 1740, Hanlin Academy expelled the Han Chinese Yuan Mei for not succeeding in his Manchu studies. Injišan, and Ortai, both Manchus, funded his work. The Han Chinese Yan Changming had the ability to read Tibetan, Oirat, and Mongolian. Han Chinese officials learned languages on the frontier regions and Manchu in order to be able to write and compile their writings on the region.A Manchu-language course over three years was required for the highest ranking Han degree holders from Hanlin but not all Han literati were required to study Manchu. Towards the end of the Qing it was pointed out that a lot of Bannermen themselves did not know Manchu anymore and that, in retrospect, "the founding emperors of the dynasty unable to coerce the country's ministers and people to learn the national writing and national speech ".
Translation between Chinese and Manchu
Chinese fiction books were translated into Manchu. Bannermen wrote fiction in the Chinese language. Huang Taiji had Chinese books translated into Manchu. Han Chinese and Manchus helped Jesuits write and translate books into Manchu and Chinese. Manchu books were published in Beijing.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 his reign which were direct translations contrasted with Manchu books translated during the Kangxi Emperor's reign which were Manchu transliterations of the Chinese characters.
The Pentaglot was based on the Yuzhi Siti Qing Wenjian, with Uyghur added as a fifth language. The four-language version of the dictionary with Tibetan was in turn based on an earlier three-language version with Manchu, Mongolian, and Chinese called the "Imperially-Published Manchu Mongol Chinese Three pronunciation explanation mirror of Qing", which was in turn based on the "Imperially-Published 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.
Studies by outsiders
A number of European scholars in the 18th century were frustrated by the difficulties in reading Chinese, with its "complicated" writing system and classical writing style. They considered Manchu translations, or parallel Manchu versions, of many Chinese documents and literary works very helpful for understanding the original Chinese. De Moyriac de Mailla benefited from the existence of the parallel Manchu text when translating the historical compendium Tongjian Gangmu. Jean Joseph Amiot, a Jesuit scholar, 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."File:Kangxi-Lugou-rebuilding-stele-text-fragment-3582.jpg|thumb|The Kangxi Emperor's stele near Lugou Bridge, with parallel Chinese and Manchu text
Study of the Manchu language by Russian sinologists started in the early 18th century, soon after the founding of the Russian Orthodox Mission in Beijing, to which most early Russian sinologists were connected. translated a number of Manchu works, such as The history of Kangxi's conquest of the Khalkha and Oirat nomads of the Great Tartary, in five parts, as well as some legal treatises and a Manchu–Chinese dictionary. In the late 1830s, Georgy M. Rozov translated from Manchu the History of the Jin Dynasty. A school to train Manchu language translators was started in Irkutsk in the 18th century, and existed for a fairly long period.
An anonymous author remarked in 1844 that the transcription of Chinese words in Manchu alphabet, available in the contemporary Chinese–Manchu 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.
In 1930, the German sinologist Erich Hauer argued forcibly that knowing Manchu allows the scholar to render Manchu personal and place names that have been "horribly mutilated" by their Chinese transliterations and to know the meanings of the names. He goes on that the Manchu translations of Chinese classics and fiction were done by experts familiar with their original meaning and with how best to express it in Manchu, such as in the Manchu translation of the Peiwen yunfu. Because Manchu is not difficult 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".