The 38 Letters of the Manchu Script
The 38 Letters of the Manchu Script From Basic Vowels and Consonants to Special Forms Used for Chinese Loanwords
MING YE
10/2/20264 min read
The 38 Letters of the Manchu Script
From Basic Vowels and Consonants to Special Forms Used for Chinese Loanwords
By MING YE
Manchu is an alphabetic writing system in which letters are used to represent sounds. It developed from the Mongolian script and gradually evolved into a mature writing system during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, from the rise of the Later Jin into the early Qing period.
For anyone beginning to study Manchu, one of the first questions is usually very simple:
How many letters does the Manchu script have?
Under a broader system of classification that includes both the basic letters and additional forms used to transcribe Chinese and other foreign words, the Manchu script can be described as having 38 letters or letter forms. These include six vowels, together with basic consonants, special consonantal forms, and several compound forms.
The number “38,” however, should be understood as a broad pedagogical classification. The basic letters of traditional Manchu and the special forms later employed to represent sounds in Chinese and other foreign words do not all have exactly the same status or range of use.
For this reason, understanding the Manchu alphabet involves more than simply memorizing the number 38. What matters is understanding how these different forms function and when they are used.
The six basic vowels are:
a, e, i, o, u, v
The letter v is commonly used in modern Latin transliteration to represent a distinctive Manchu vowel. Different systems of Manchu romanization may use somewhat different symbols, so readers may encounter variations when consulting dictionaries, textbooks, and academic publications.
Beyond the vowels, Manchu contains a substantial group of consonants. Under the broader classification used here, these include forms such as:
b, p, c, ch, d, t, f, g, k, h, j, q, x, ng, l, m, n, r, s, sh, y, w, and others.
By combining consonants with different vowels, Manchu can form a large number of syllables.
A beginner learning Manchu, for example, does not simply memorize an isolated n. The learner proceeds to combinations such as:
na, ne, ni, no, nu, nv
As consonants combine with different vowels and appear in different positions within words, their written forms may also change.
This is one of the major differences between Manchu and modern Latin-script writing.
Manchu is a connected vertical script. A letter may have different graphic forms depending on whether it appears independently or at the beginning, middle, or end of a word.
Learning Manchu, therefore, is not simply a matter of memorizing “38 symbols.”
A learner must understand the sound represented by a letter, how that letter combines with vowels, and how its written form changes when it becomes part of a word.
This is also why traditional approaches to teaching Manchu place considerable emphasis on organized syllabic patterns and systematic spelling exercises.
Another particularly interesting feature of Manchu emerged as the language came to be used across an increasingly wide range of contexts.
During the Qing dynasty, Manchu was used not only to write the Manchu language itself. It was also employed to record large numbers of Chinese personal names, place names, official titles, and other foreign words.
The original inventory of Manchu letters could not always distinguish these foreign sounds with sufficient precision. As a result, additional graphic forms and spelling conventions came to be used for more accurate transcription.
Examples in the broader system discussed here include forms represented in Latin transcription as:
ᴇ, zh, nh
These forms occur primarily in Chinese loanwords, Chinese names, or specialized transcriptional contexts. They are not part of the ordinary spelling of every native Manchu word.
This distinction is important.
A beginner studying ordinary Manchu vocabulary will first encounter the basic vowels and consonants and learn how they combine into syllables.
Once the learner begins working with Qing archival documents, personal names, geographical names, and Manchu-Chinese transcription materials, however, additional specialized forms become increasingly important.
There are also several forms that may appear at first glance to function like individual letters but can more usefully be understood in terms of compound consonants or special syllabic structures.
Examples include:
ny, nc, ngg, ngs, nzh, lm
Their distribution is relatively limited, and some occur mainly in particular word-initial environments or in the transcription of foreign words.
Treating every one of these forms as completely equivalent to the most basic letters of the Manchu alphabet can therefore be misleading.
This helps explain why different textbooks and teaching traditions sometimes give different answers to the question:
How many letters are there in the Manchu script?
The difference does not necessarily mean that someone has simply counted incorrectly.
More often, it reflects a difference in classification—particularly whether specialized transcriptional forms, compound forms, and letters used for foreign sounds are counted as independent units.
From the perspective of learning Manchu, however, the issue is much simpler.
A beginner does not need to master every specialized form at once.
The more practical approach is to begin with the basic vowels and consonants, become familiar with their initial, medial, and final forms, proceed to regular syllabic spelling, and only then move on to specialized spellings used for Chinese loanwords, personal names, place names, and historical documents.
The real difficulty of the Manchu alphabet does not lie in the number of letters.
For readers accustomed to Chinese characters, the greater challenge is adapting to an entirely different logic of writing.
Chinese characters generally appear as visually independent square-shaped units. Manchu, by contrast, is written vertically in connected sequences. Letters join one another, and the appearance of a letter may change according to its position within the word.
This is why someone seeing Manchu for the first time may wonder:
Why does the same letter seem to look different in different places?
The answer lies in one of the fundamental characteristics of the Manchu writing system.
Once the relationship between letters, syllables, and positional forms becomes familiar, what initially appears complicated begins to reveal a highly systematic spelling structure.
The statement that “Manchu has 38 letters” can therefore serve as a useful introduction to the writing system, but it should not be treated as the final definition of the Manchu alphabet.
More important than memorizing a number is understanding that:
Manchu is an alphabetic writing system with its own spelling conventions, positional letter forms, and an expanded capacity for transcribing sounds from other languages.
Beginning with a, e, i, o, u, v, individual letters combine into syllables, syllables form words, and these seemingly unfamiliar vertical signs ultimately make up the enormous body of Manchu-language archives, rare books, inscriptions, genealogies, and literary works preserved from the Qing period.
Learning these letters is the first key to opening the world of written Manchu.
— MING YE