Manchu Reading: The Story of the “Cold-Crying Bird”

Learning About the Manchu Language, Script, and Historical Tradition Through a Manchu Story

By MING YE

For beginners learning Manchu, reading a complete text is often more meaningful than simply memorizing individual letters, syllabic patterns, or vocabulary.

Only when we begin reading complete sentences and stories can we see how words connect with one another, how Manchu case particles, verbal endings, and syntactic structures actually function, and how a genuine sense of the language gradually develops.

The Story of the “Cold-Crying Bird” is a short text well suited to Manchu reading practice. The story itself is simple, but it contains a wide range of vocabulary relating to nature, seasons, animals, actions, and everyday expressions.

The Chinese text is presented below together with the complete original Latin-script transliteration of the Manchu text, allowing learners to compare the two while reading.

The Story of the “Cold-Crying Bird”

deyere dobi i julen

At the foot of a mountain stood a rocky cliff. There was a crevice in the cliff, and the cold-crying bird made this crevice its home. In front of the cliff flowed a river, and beside the river stood a large poplar tree. A magpie lived in the tree. The cold-crying bird and the magpie lived facing one another and became neighbors.

alin i bethe i ba de emu gvlakv bi, gvlakv de emu giyalu bi, deyere dobi ere giyalu be beye i feye yeru obume tehebi. gvlakv i juleri emu bira bi, bira i dalin de emu fulha moo bi, deyere dobi jai saksaha ishunde foronome teme adaki ohobi.

Several autumn winds blew through, the leaves fell from the trees, and winter was approaching.

guksen guksen bolori edun dame, moo i abdaha sihame, tuweri forgon de isinara hamikabi.

One day, the weather was clear. Early in the morning, the magpie flew out, searching here and there. It brought back some dry branches and grass and busily began building its nest in preparation for winter.

The cold-crying bird, however, spent the whole day flying around and playing. When it became tired, it returned home and went to sleep.

The magpie said, “Cold-crying bird, stop sleeping. The weather is so good—hurry and build your nest.”

But the cold-crying bird ignored the advice. Lying in the crevice of the cliff, it said to the magpie, “Stop making so much noise. The sunshine is so pleasant—this is the perfect time to sleep.”

emu inenggi, abka galga ojoro jakade, saksaha erdeken i deyeme tuqifi, babade baihaname, ududu olhoho mooi gargan orho be axume gajifi, ekxeme feye sahame, tuweri hetumbure de belhembi. deyere dobi elemangga xuntuhuni tule deyeme efinembi, xadaha biqi marifi amgambi. saksaha hendume, deyere dobi age, ume amgara, abka uttu sain, hvdun feye sahaqina sefi, deyere dobi tafulara be daharakv, gvlakv i giyalu i dolo dendume saksaha i baru hendume, ume jamarxara, xun elden uttu sain, tob seme amgambi kai sehe.

Winter arrived almost as soon as it was spoken of, and the bitter wind howled.

The magpie rested inside its warm nest. The cold-crying bird, however, shivered in the crevice of the cliff and cried sadly:

“Duo-luo-luo, duo-luo-luo!
The freezing wind is killing me.
Tomorrow I will build my nest.”

erin forgon geri fari, gisun gisureme tuweri forgon de isinahabi, xahvrun edun xeo seme dame, saksaha halukan feye i dolo dedume, deyere dobi gvlakv i giyalu i dolo beyebume sesukiyeme sisi xaxa akame nasame, edede adada, xahvrun edun mimbe buqebuhe seme, qimari erde inu feye sahara seme surembi.

Early the next morning, the wind had stopped and the sun was pleasantly warm.

The magpie again said to the cold-crying bird, “Take advantage of this fine weather. Hurry and build your nest.”

The cold-crying bird still refused to listen. It stretched lazily and said, “You really don’t know how to enjoy life,” before going back to sleep.

jai inenggi erde, edun nakaha, xun elden niyanqame halhvn ojoro jakade, saksaha geli deyere dobi de hendume, abka sain be nashvlame, hvdun feye sahaqina sefi, deyere dobi tafulara be daharakv, banuhvn darama be sidarame, yala banjire were jirgaqun ulhirakv kai seme gisureme amgahabi.

In the depths of winter, heavy snow fell across the land, covering the mountains and wilderness in white. The north wind roared like a lion. The river froze, and the crevice in the cliff became as cold as an ice cellar.

On this bitterly cold night, the magpie slept soundly inside its warm nest, while the cold-crying bird uttered its final mournful cry:

“Duo-luo-luo, duo-luo-luo!
The freezing wind is killing me.
Tomorrow I will build my nest.”

beikuwen tuweri i jorgon biyade, amba nimanggi labsame nimarame, alin bigan de deserepi xeyen qanggi xeyen ombi. wargi amargi edun tasha i murara gese dame, birai dolo juhenefi bime, gvlakv i giyalu i dolo xahvrun ome xuyen i adali ombi. ere gese beikuwen dobori, saksaha halukan feye i dolo hiri amgame, deyere dobi elemangga edede adada, xahvrun edun mimbe buqebuhe seme, qimari erde inu feye sahara seme dubei buqetei gosiholome surehebi.

Day broke, and sunlight spread across the earth. Perched on a branch, the magpie called out to its neighbor, the cold-crying bird.

But the poor cold-crying bird had frozen to death during the night.

abka gereke, xun elden amba na de jalume fosome. saksaha moo i gargan subehe de ilifi, ini adaki deyere dobi be hvlaqi, jilaquka deyere dobi age sikse i dobori emgeri geqeme buqebuhebi.

The story ends here.

To a beginner, the Manchu transliteration above may initially appear to be little more than a long sequence of unfamiliar Latin letters. But as vocabulary gradually accumulates, recurring words and grammatical structures begin to emerge.

For example, abka means “sky” or “heaven,” inenggi is associated with “day,” edun means “wind,” nimanggi means “snow,” bira means “river,” moo means “tree” or “wood,” feye means “nest,” and saksaha means “magpie.”

Once these words cease to exist merely as isolated dictionary entries and begin to appear within a complete story, Manchu starts to become more than something studied in textbooks. It becomes a language that can actually be read.

This is an important stage in learning any language.

From the Jurchen Languages to Written Manchu

Manchu is the traditional language of the Manchu people, and the Manchu script is one of the most important vehicles through which Manchu culture has been recorded and transmitted.

Manchu belongs to the Tungusic language family. Its formation is closely connected with the long and complex ethnic, linguistic, and historical development of Northeast China. Historical records contain a succession of names for ancient peoples of Northeast Asia, including the Sushen, Yilou, Wuji, Mohe, and Jurchen, among others. These populations were connected through complex historical relationships.

From the perspective of modern linguistics, however, it would be too simplistic to arrange all of these ancient peoples and their languages into a single, uninterrupted line of linguistic descent.

One of the historical languages most clearly related to Manchu is Jurchen.

An important distinction should nevertheless be made:

The relationship between Manchu and the Jurchen language of the Jin dynasty should not be understood simply as a direct and completely linear line of descent in the modern linguistic sense.

The immediate linguistic foundation from which Manchu developed was primarily the language spoken by the Jianzhou Jurchens during the Ming period, whereas surviving Jurchen texts from the Jin dynasty preserve written forms of an earlier Jurchen language.

Thus, rather than simply saying that “Manchu directly developed from the Jurchen language of the Jin dynasty,” it is more appropriate to understand both as belonging to closely related historical Jurchen linguistic traditions.

After the Jurchens established the Jin dynasty, they created and used their own writing system. Traditional historical sources associate the creation of the Jurchen large script with Wanyan Xiyin, while another form known as the Jurchen small script subsequently appeared.

Following the fall of the Jin dynasty and later political and cultural transformations in Northeast Asia, the Jurchen script gradually declined. By the late Ming period, the earlier Jurchen writing system had largely disappeared from practical use.

But the decline of a writing system does not mean the disappearance of the language itself.

Jurchen communities continued to communicate in their own spoken languages.

This provided the essential linguistic foundation for the later creation of the Manchu script.

1599: A New Script Begins to Record the Jurchen Language

In the twenty-seventh year of the Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty, corresponding to 1599, Nurhaci ordered Erdeni and others to adapt the Mongolian script for the purpose of recording the language spoken by the Jianzhou Jurchens.

This writing system later became known as Old Manchu, or the undotted Manchu script.

Its historical importance was considerable:

The Jurchen language once again possessed a writing system capable of systematically recording the spoken language.

Early Old Manchu, however, still had limitations in distinguishing certain sounds.

During the reign of Hong Taiji, Dahai and others further reformed the Manchu writing system. Dots and circles were introduced to distinguish letters and sounds more clearly. This reform was largely completed around 1632, the sixth year of the Tiancong reign.

The reformed system is generally known as New Manchu, the mature form of the script later used in the enormous body of Qing archival records, books, inscriptions, and official documents.

Manchu was developed on the basis of the language of the Jianzhou Jurchens and employed combinations of alphabetic letters to record speech.

This gave the Manchu writing system an important characteristic:

There is a relatively close correspondence between the written system and the sounds of the language.

Once learners become familiar with the letters, syllabic patterns, spelling conventions, and basic grammar, they can gradually move from the written script into the language itself without having to memorize thousands of independent logographic characters.

From the perspective of language learning, this remains one of the important advantages of studying written Manchu today.

From Writing a Language to Standardizing It

The existence of a writing system does not in itself mean that the process of linguistic standardization is complete.

As Manchu came to be extensively used in politics, military affairs, administration, translation, education, and documentary record-keeping during the Qing dynasty, the standardization of vocabulary, orthography, and formal language usage became increasingly important.

From the reigns of Hong Taiji and the Shunzhi Emperor through the Kangxi and Qianlong periods, the Manchu language and script underwent a long process of organization and development.

Among the most representative achievements of this process were the Imperially Commissioned Manchu Dictionary (Yuzhi Qingwen Jian, 御制清文鉴) of the Kangxi period and the later Imperially Commissioned Revised and Expanded Manchu Dictionary (Yuzhi Zengding Qingwen Jian, 御制增订清文鉴) of the Qianlong period.

The significance of these works extended far beyond that of an ordinary “dictionary” in the modern sense.

They provided important standards for the interpretation of Manchu vocabulary, standardized writing, language instruction, and formal linguistic usage.

For learners, this meant that teachers had authoritative references on which to base instruction, students had established standards they could consult, and people studying Manchu in different regions could work from a common linguistic framework.

This represented an important stage in the standardization of the language.

The Qing dynasty subsequently produced Manchu-Chinese, Manchu-Mongolian, and multilingual dictionaries. Manchu consequently functioned not only as an ethnic language but also as an important medium for translation, scholarship, and communication among different languages within the Qing world.

The Manchu Script Borrowed from Mongolian, but Manchu Is Not Mongolian

This is another point that can easily cause misunderstanding when Manchu is introduced today.

The creators of the Manchu script borrowed and adapted letters from the traditional Mongolian script. This does not, however, mean that Manchu is a form of the Mongolian language.

The historical origin of a writing system and the linguistic relationship between languages are two different questions.

English and French, for example, both use the Latin alphabet, yet they remain two distinct languages. Similarly, the Manchu and traditional Mongolian scripts have an obvious historical relationship in their graphic forms, while Manchu and Mongolian are distinct languages with different linguistic structures, basic vocabularies, and historical origins.

A person who speaks only Manchu would not automatically understand spoken Mongolian simply because the Manchu script was developed through the adaptation of Mongolian letters. The reverse is equally true.

Recognizing this distinction allows us to separate two fundamentally different questions: where a writing system came from, and what language that writing system records.

— MING YE