What Writing Systems Did the Jurchens Use Before the Creation of the Manchu Script?
What Writing Systems Did the Jurchens Use Before the Creation of the Manchu Script?
MING YE
9/23/20265 min read
What Writing Systems Did the Jurchens Use Before the Creation of the Manchu Script?
The ancestors of the Manchus were the Jurchens. In their early history, the Jurchens did not possess a writing system of their own. After the establishment of the Jin dynasty, Khitan script was used for certain official documents.
In the early twelfth century, during the reign of Emperor Taizu of Jin, Wanyan Aguda, the Jurchen Large Script was created. It was developed on the basis of the Khitan Large Script and Chinese characters, with characters formed through the addition, omission, or modification of graphic elements and strokes. Most surviving materials written in the Jurchen script are in the Jurchen Large Script.
In 1138, Emperor Xizong of Jin promulgated a newly developed form of writing known as the Jurchen Small Script. The Jurchen script subsequently served as an official writing system of the Jin state.
[Image: Example of Jurchen script]
During the more than a century in which the Jin dynasty ruled substantial territories in northern China, however, literacy in the Jurchen script was largely concentrated among members of the ruling and administrative elites.
Following the Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty, many Jurchens who had settled in China proper gradually assimilated into Chinese-speaking society and increasingly adopted Chinese. Jurchen communities that remained in northeastern regions continued to use the Jurchen script for a considerably longer period. Its use persisted into the Zhengtong era of the Ming dynasty, after which it gradually disappeared.
As knowledge of the script was lost, Jurchen writing eventually became, in effect, an undeciphered “code” to later generations.
During the Yuan and Ming periods, Jurchens also made use of the Mongolian script. By the time of Nurhaci, the Jurchens spoke the Jurchen language but relied on Mongolian writing in certain contexts. The discrepancy between their spoken language and the writing system available to represent it increasingly presented difficulties for administration, communication, and cultural development.
The Old Manchu Archives: Historical Records Written in an Early Form of Manchu
The Old Manchu Archives (Manwen Laodang, 满文老档), originally preserved in the Chongmo Pavilion of the Mukden Palace in Shenyang, constitute an important body of historical records written during the formative period of the Manchu script.
They preserve some of the earliest documentary evidence for the use of an emerging Manchu writing system.
By the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Nurhaci, leader of the Jianzhou Jurchens, had largely unified the various Jurchen groups under his authority. Jurchen society underwent rapid political, economic, military, and cultural development, while interactions with the Ming dynasty and neighboring Mongol groups became increasingly frequent.
Under these circumstances, continued reliance on Mongolian writing was increasingly regarded as inadequate for the needs of Jurchen society. The creation of a writing system capable of representing the Jurchen language therefore became an important political and cultural project.
In the twenty-seventh year of the Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty, corresponding to 1599, Nurhaci expressed his intention to “use Mongolian letters to compile a national script” and ordered two officials knowledgeable in languages and writing, Erdeni and Gagai, to create a script for the Jurchen language.
According to the traditional account, Erdeni and Gagai initially objected:
“We have learned Mongolian writing and therefore understand the Mongolian language. If we are to create and translate writings in our own language, we are truly unable to do so.”
Nurhaci responded by pointing to what he regarded as a fundamental problem:
“When Chinese people read Chinese characters, both those who have studied and those who have not can understand them. When Mongols read Mongolian writing, those who know their language can understand it. But when the words of our country are written in Mongolian letters, those who have not learned Mongolian cannot understand them. Why should you regard the creation of writing for our own language as difficult, while considering the study of another country's language easy?”
Seeing that the two officials still hesitated, Nurhaci illustrated his idea through simple syllabic combinations. He explained that combining the sounds corresponding to a and ma would produce ama, “father,” while combining e and me would produce eme, “mother.” He then ordered them to proceed with the work.
Erdeni and Gagai accordingly adapted the Mongolian alphabet to the phonological requirements of the Jurchen language, following the principles laid down by Nurhaci.
The resulting writing system did not yet employ the later system of dots and circles and is conventionally known as Old Manchu, or undotted Manchu.
The Development and Adoption of the New Manchu Script Took More Than a Decade
Although Old Manchu represented a major step toward establishing a writing system suited to the language, its close dependence on Mongolian orthographic forms created a number of difficulties.
In some cases, the same written form could permit more than one reading, and different readings could correspond to entirely different meanings. The problem became particularly evident when writing personal names and geographical names.
For this reason, Dahai was later ordered to reform the script.
The precise chronology of this reform has long been a subject of debate in the study of Manchu history. Historical records provide several different dates, including the first month of the sixth year of Tiancong (1632), the third month of the same year, the third year of Tiancong, and even the Tianming period. The surviving accounts are therefore not entirely consistent.
In the sixth year of Tiancong, Hong Taiji ordered Dahai and others to distinguish ambiguous forms in the Manchu script by adding dots and circles.
Dahai accordingly revised the writing system. The reformed script was more capable of distinguishing sounds and is conventionally referred to as New Manchu or the dotted Manchu script.
The introduction of the new system, however, did not result in the immediate disappearance of Old Manchu.
Surviving Manchu archival materials indicate that, during the early phase of the reform, old and new forms of the script continued to be used side by side. It was only by the end of the Chongde period that official documents and archival records had essentially completed the transition to the new orthography.
The process of introducing and standardizing New Manchu therefore extended over more than a decade.
From Expansion to Decline: The Crisis of Manchu Script Transmission
After the Qing conquest of China proper, the Manchu script was used not only in the northeastern homeland of the Manchus but also within central government institutions, departments of the imperial court, and strategically important locations throughout the empire where Manchu Banner forces were stationed.
As Manchus came into increasingly close contact with Chinese political, economic, and cultural life, the Manchu language incorporated a substantial number of Chinese loanwords, many of them represented through phonetic transcription. This process significantly expanded the vocabulary available in written Manchu and contributed to the continued development of the language.
During this period, Manchu writing was not used exclusively by ethnic Manchus. Neighboring peoples and groups incorporated into the Manchu Eight Banners—including Daurs, Xibe, and Evenks—also made use of Manchu in various historical contexts.
Over time, however, the increasing integration of Manchu and Chinese society and the growing influence of Chinese culture gradually reduced the domains in which Manchu was used.
From the Qianlong period onward, the practical use of Manchu became increasingly restricted, and the language entered a long-term process of decline. After the Tongzhi period, Manchu gradually lost much of its former administrative importance, while Chinese increasingly replaced it even in official documentation.
[Image: Later Manchu documentary or calligraphic material]
Following the 1911 Revolution and the collapse of the Qing dynasty, Manchu ceased to function as a language of imperial government and administration.
Today, relatively few people are able to read historical Manchu texts with proficiency. Spoken Manchu has survived only among a very small number of speakers, historically concentrated in a few Manchu communities in the Qiqihar region of Heilongjiang Province. Outside these communities, people capable of using Manchu fluently or writing the Manchu script proficiently are also comparatively rare.
The history of Jurchen and Manchu writing thus represents a long process of transformation: from the Jurchen scripts of the Jin dynasty, through periods in which Mongolian writing was used, to the creation of Old Manchu under Nurhaci and the subsequent development of the dotted New Manchu script.
It was through this process that a writing system increasingly adapted to the Manchu language took shape and ultimately became one of the major written languages of the Qing imperial state.