What Is the Relationship Between Manchu and Jurchen Scripts?

From the Jurchen Writing Systems of the Jin Dynasty to the Manchu Script of the Qing Dynasty

By MING YE

When studying Manchu history and the Manchu language, one question frequently arises: What exactly is the relationship between the Manchu script and the Jurchen script?

This question can easily lead to misunderstandings because the Manchus had clear historical connections with the earlier Jurchen peoples, while the Manchu and Jurchen languages were also closely related.

If the ancestors of the Manchus were connected to the Jurchens, does that mean the Manchu script used during the Qing dynasty evolved from the Jurchen writing system of the Jin dynasty?

The answer is more complicated than it might first appear.

Manchu and Jurchen writing have historical and linguistic connections, but they do not belong to the same direct line of script development.

The Jurchen script was developed in the twelfth century under the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty. The Manchu script, by contrast, was created in the late sixteenth century on the basis of traditional Mongolian writing.

Both writing systems were used to record languages belonging to different historical stages of the Jurchen–Manchu linguistic tradition. However, their origins, structures, and historical circumstances were significantly different.

To understand this distinction, we must examine the establishment of the Jin dynasty, the creation of Jurchen writing, and the development of the Manchu script under Nurhaci.

When Was the Jurchen Script Created?

The emergence of Jurchen writing was closely connected to the establishment of the Jin dynasty in the twelfth century.

In 1115, Wanyan Aguda founded the Jin dynasty.

The ruling elite of the Jin dynasty came from Jurchen society. As the state developed and expanded its territory, it faced increasingly complex administrative, military, and diplomatic responsibilities.

During the early Jin period, Khitan and Chinese writing systems were already in use.

However, developing a writing system capable of recording the Jurchen language also held considerable political and administrative significance for the Jurchen ruling elite.

According to historical sources such as the History of Jin (Jin Shi), the creation of Jurchen writing began during the early years of the dynasty.

Traditional historical accounts associate the creation of the Jurchen large script with Wanyan Xiyin and generally date its official introduction to 1119.

A form known as the Jurchen small script subsequently appeared, with historical accounts connecting its development to the reign of Emperor Xizong of Jin.

Jurchen writing therefore predates the creation of the Manchu script in 1599 by nearly five centuries.

However, the term Jurchen script does not refer to an alphabet identical to Manchu. It refers to the writing systems used to record the Jurchen language during the Jin dynasty and related later historical periods.

What Is the Difference Between the Jurchen Large Script and Small Script?

According to traditional historical records, the Jin dynasty used forms of writing known as the Jurchen large script and Jurchen small script.

The creation of the Jurchen large script is generally associated with Wanyan Xiyin.

Its structure was influenced by existing writing traditions in Northeast Asia, particularly the Khitan and Chinese writing systems.

Surviving evidence indicates that the Jurchen large script was not an alphabet composed of continuously connected letters like the later Manchu script.

Instead, it used numerous distinct written characters, and its method of representing language differed from that of the Manchu alphabetic system.

The situation concerning the Jurchen small script is more complicated.

Although historical sources preserve references to its creation, questions remain concerning its precise appearance, extent of use, and relationship to surviving Jurchen inscriptions and other written materials.

Modern researchers cannot simply assume that the historical labels large script and small script correspond to two fully reconstructed, clearly differentiated writing systems supported by extensive surviving evidence.

It is therefore important to distinguish between what historical documents report and what modern epigraphic and linguistic research can directly establish.

What Did the Jurchen Script Look Like?

When Jin dynasty Jurchen writing is placed beside Qing dynasty Manchu writing, the most immediate impression may be that the two look very different.

Many characters in surviving Jurchen inscriptions have relatively independent, block-like forms.

Their appearance reflects connections with the broader East Asian writing traditions in which Chinese characters and Khitan scripts developed.

Qing dynasty Manchu, on the other hand, uses a vertically arranged alphabetic writing system.

Its letters extend along a vertical axis and generally connect within words.

The visual structures of the two scripts are therefore noticeably different.

However, this difference does not mean that the languages they recorded were unrelated.

The visual appearance of a writing system and the historical relationship between languages are separate questions.

A language may be written using entirely different scripts at different periods while maintaining linguistic continuity.

The relationship between Jin dynasty Jurchen writing and Qing dynasty Manchu should be understood from this perspective.

Were Jurchen and Manchu the Same Language?

This is one of the most important questions in understanding the relationship between the two scripts.

Jin dynasty Jurchen writing was primarily used to record the Jurchen language of its time.

Qing dynasty Manchu writing was used to record Manchu.

Both Jurchen and Manchu belong to the Tungusic language family and share a close historical linguistic relationship.

In linguistic research, the Jurchen language of the Jin dynasty is generally regarded as an earlier linguistic form closely related to later Manchu.

By comparing surviving Jurchen-language materials with Manchu vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammatical forms, researchers can investigate the historical relationship between the two.

However, it would be inaccurate to treat twelfth-century Jurchen and the standardized written Manchu of the seventeenth century as completely unchanged forms of a single language.

Over several centuries, languages can undergo changes in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.

They can also be influenced by neighboring languages.

Furthermore, the surviving evidence for Jin dynasty Jurchen is limited in quantity and interpretation. Researchers cannot examine it through the same extensive documentary record available for Qing dynasty Manchu.

A more accurate conclusion is therefore:

Jurchen and Manchu share a close historical linguistic relationship, and Jin dynasty Jurchen is an important source for studying the earlier history of Manchu. However, the two should not be treated as entirely identical linguistic forms.

Why Did the Jurchen Script Not Develop Directly into the Manchu Script?

If Jurchen and Manchu were closely related languages, why did the Manchus not simply revive the Jin dynasty Jurchen writing system in the late sixteenth century?

The first factor is the long historical interval between the two periods.

The Jin dynasty fell in 1234.

Over the following centuries, Jurchen society experienced substantial political changes, while different Jurchen communities lived under different political authorities and cultural conditions.

The use of Jin dynasty Jurchen writing gradually declined.

Although materials relating to Jurchen writing did not disappear immediately after the fall of the Jin dynasty, the old script was no longer a commonly used administrative writing system among Nurhaci's ruling groups by the late sixteenth century.

Second, the political environment of Nurhaci's time differed considerably from that of the early Jin dynasty.

Mongolian writing already played a practical role in political communication across Northeast Asia.

For an emerging political organization that needed to establish written administrative procedures, adapting an existing writing system offered practical advantages.

According to Qing historical sources, Nurhaci instructed Erdeni, Gagai, and others in 1599 to create a Manchu writing system based on Mongolian script.

This was not a process of reorganizing and continuing the Jin dynasty Jurchen script.

Instead, it involved developing a new writing system using a different script as its foundation.

There is therefore no established direct line of letterform descent from the Jin dynasty Jurchen script to Qing dynasty Manchu writing.

Which Writing System Did Manchu Actually Develop From?

The most direct source of Manchu writing was traditional Mongolian script.

Traditional Mongolian writing, in turn, was historically connected to the earlier Old Uyghur script.

In the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci's ruling group adopted Mongolian letterforms and its vertical writing direction to record the Jurchen language of the period.

The early writing system created in 1599 later became known as the undotted Manchu script, or Old Manchu.

As the Later Jin state developed, limitations in the early script's ability to distinguish certain sounds and maintain consistent spelling became increasingly apparent.

Around 1632, Dahai participated in reforms that introduced or standardized distinguishing marks, including dots and circles, allowing some previously ambiguous letters to represent Manchu sounds more accurately.

The reformed writing system is generally known as the dotted Manchu script, or New Manchu.

This development helped establish the foundation of standardized Manchu writing during the Qing dynasty.

Therefore, when discussing the historical origin of its letterforms, Manchu has a more direct relationship with traditional Mongolian writing than with the Jurchen script of the Jin dynasty.

The Manchu language continued a historical linguistic tradition closely related to Jurchen, while the Manchu writing system primarily inherited its structure from Mongolian script.

These two historical relationships must not be confused.

Did the Jurchen Language Disappear When the Jurchen Script Declined?

The decline of a writing system should not automatically be equated with the disappearance of the language it once recorded.

When a script falls out of widespread use, the people who used it do not necessarily stop speaking their language.

Jurchen communities continued to exist after the fall of the Jin dynasty.

Different Jurchen groups experienced migration, political integration, and linguistic change over subsequent centuries.

Through these developments, some Jurchen communities became part of the political and social formations later associated with the Manchus.

The Manchu language also developed over this long historical period into the forms subsequently recorded in Manchu-language documents.

However, the centuries between the Jin and Qing dynasties should not be described as a completely unchanged or uninterrupted single line of linguistic development.

Different Jurchen communities may have followed different linguistic paths.

What modern scholarship can establish is the important historical linguistic relationship between Jin dynasty Jurchen and later Manchu, rather than the assumption that every historical variety of Jurchen developed into Qing-period Manchu in exactly the same way.

Can Scholars Still Read the Jurchen Script Today?

The Jurchen script is not an entirely undeciphered or inaccessible writing system.

Modern scholars have studied Jurchen writing through inscriptions, monuments, vocabulary lists, Chinese parallel materials, and other historical sources.

Parts of the surviving Jurchen textual record have been deciphered, allowing researchers to investigate vocabulary and linguistic structure.

However, the conditions for studying Jurchen writing differ substantially from those for studying Qing dynasty Manchu.

Large collections of Manchu archives, dictionaries, books, and official documents survive from the Qing period, providing extensive material for linguistic and historical research.

By comparison, the surviving corpus of Jin dynasty Jurchen writing is much more limited.

The readings and meanings of some characters and passages remain uncertain or disputed.

It would therefore be inaccurate to suggest that Jurchen writing has been deciphered to the same degree as Qing dynasty Manchu.

At the same time, uncertainty surrounding particular characters or passages does not mean that the entire Jurchen writing system is impossible to understand.

The study of historical scripts advances through the discovery of new materials, comparisons between documents, and the continuing revision of earlier interpretations.

Why Is Jurchen Writing Important for the Study of Manchu?

Although the Manchu script did not directly develop from the Jin dynasty Jurchen writing system, Jurchen texts remain important evidence for studying the history of the Manchu language.

The reason is that the history of a language and the history of its writing system are related but distinct.

Jin dynasty Jurchen writing preserves evidence of an earlier stage of the Jurchen language.

Qing dynasty Manchu documents preserve a much larger written record of later Manchu.

By comparing linguistic evidence from different periods, researchers can investigate historical changes in vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar.

For example, certain words preserved in Jurchen-language materials may be compared with historically corresponding vocabulary in later Manchu.

Such research contributes to our understanding of the development of Manchu and provides valuable evidence for comparative studies of the Tungusic language family.

However, these comparisons must take into account the dates of the sources, the reliability of proposed readings, and possible linguistic changes over time.

The visual similarity of two words is not, by itself, sufficient evidence to establish a definite historical relationship.

Nor should Jurchen characters that have not been securely deciphered be assigned arbitrary meanings based on modern Manchu vocabulary.

Rigorous research must rely on verifiable written sources and linguistic evidence.

What Is the Relationship Between Manchu and Jurchen Scripts?

Returning to the original question, the answer can be explained at two different levels.

From the perspective of language history, Jin dynasty Jurchen and Qing dynasty Manchu were closely related languages belonging to the Tungusic linguistic tradition.

From the perspective of script history, however, Jin dynasty Jurchen writing and Qing dynasty Manchu writing belonged to different writing systems.

Jurchen writing developed in the twelfth century and was influenced by existing East Asian writing traditions.

The direct predecessor of Qing dynasty Manchu writing was the script created in the late sixteenth century through the adaptation of traditional Mongolian writing.

In 1599, Nurhaci instructed Erdeni, Gagai, and others to develop a new writing system based on Mongolian script.

Around 1632, Dahai participated in reforms that improved the script's ability to distinguish sounds and helped establish more consistent writing conventions.

Therefore, the Manchu script is not the direct descendant of the Jin dynasty Jurchen script through a continuous process of letterform evolution.

A more accurate explanation is that:

The two scripts recorded Jurchen and Manchu, languages with a close historical relationship, but they were based on different writing traditions and employed different structural principles.

Understanding this distinction helps prevent confusion between Manchu and Jurchen writing.

It also illuminates two separate historical questions: how languages continue and change over time, and why a people may adopt different writing systems during different periods of their history.

When we place a Jin dynasty Jurchen inscription beside a Qing dynasty Manchu archival document, we are not simply seeing two versions of the same alphabet separated by centuries of gradual change.

We are encountering two different writing traditions, separated by hundreds of years and shaped by complex processes of linguistic development, political transformation, and cultural exchange.

— MING YE

References and Historical Sources

• Jin Shi (History of Jin). Historical accounts concerning the creation of Jurchen writing and the Jurchen large and small scripts.

• Manzhou Shilu (Records of the Manchus). Qing historical accounts concerning the creation of Manchu writing during Nurhaci's rule.

• Qing Taizong Shilu (Veritable Records of Qing Taizong). Historical materials concerning the political institutions and development of Manchu writing during Hong Taiji's reign.

• Kane, Daniel. The Sino-Jurchen Vocabulary of the Bureau of Interpreters. 1989. An important scholarly study of Jurchen linguistic materials and their historical interpretation.

• Roth Li, Gertraude. Manchu: A Textbook for Reading Documents. 2000. A reference work on Manchu writing, grammar, and the reading of historical documents.