A Study On Manchu Language And Script And The Historical Influence In The Qing Dynasty

Manchu people and their ancestors, not only set up political power, and also madeprominent cultural contributions. One of the significant achievements was creating thenation’s character (or script). Jurchen people created “Jurchen big character” and “Jurchensmall character”, which continued to use more than400years. In the late Ming dynasty,Nurhachi ordered Erdeni and Gagai create “old Manchu script” according to the Mongolianletter. In Huangtaiji period, Dahai improved it into “new Manchu script”. In the Qing dynasty,Manchu language continued to use for nearly300years. Jurchen language and Manchulanguage had a certain continuity and inheritance, which possesses the value of thecomparative study.This paper is to take the systematical and overall research on the history of Manchulanguage and its historical influence, thus it has a certain innovation significance andacademic value. Based on the absorption and reference on the former scholars’ researchachievements, this paper takes Manchu language and culture as the main research object,taking history, philology, historical linguistics, contact linguistics and other multidisciplinaryresearch means. Time sequence is as the clues, while the issue is as the center. The papercenters with the followed main issues: the historical evolution of Manchu language and therelated problems;“State language” policy in the Qing dynasty and the history of Manchulanguage’s rise and fall of; the classification and value of Qing dynasty’s Manchu literature;the historical influence of Manchu language to Manchu and other northeastern minorities, theChinese nation’s culture and the cultural exchange of Chinese and foreign. The author trieshard to make some breakthrough and innovation on theory level, and contribute to theacademic development of this field. This is also the main innovation place in this paper.Besides the introduction and conclusion, this paper’s main body consists of fourchapters.The introduction part reviews about Manchu language’s academic history, researchpresent situation, academic value of this article, research methods, and defines some relatedconcepts.The first chapter discusses the language of Manchu’s ancestors, and the key is Mohe andJurchen. The paper analyzes the relationship between ethnic language and ethnicconsciousness and cultural consciousness through the historical influence of the fact thatBohai people had not created their own character. The paper also discusses Jurchencharacter’s advantages and disadvantages, the shortage of its promotion, and Jurchenlanguage’s influence to Chinese language, the historical transition and comparison of Jurchenculture from the perspectives of “the culture of Chinese character”. Moreover, the paperdiscusses Jurchen people began to use Mongolian script gradually in the Ming dynasty. Thetransition from “the culture of Chinese character” to “Mongolian script” was appearedgradually, and the creating of Manchu script is the result of this transition.The second chapter discusses the process of Manchu language’s rise and fall in the Qingdynasty. The paper focuses on the followed issues: the relationship between Manchu languageand Jurchen language, the development course of Manchu culture reflected by Manchu scriptfrom creating to reforming,“State language” policy in the Qing dynasty and its historicalevolution, Manchu language’s decline situation and the reason, the stage characteristics and the reasons of culture fusion of the ancient Chinese culture through the contact and fusion ofManchu-Han language and culture. In the Qing dynasty, with the contact and fusion ofManchu and Han people, the relationship between Manchu and Mongolian graduallyalienated, and closer relationship with the Chinese language. Finally the development courseof character (or script) formed a historical track as “Han (Jin dynasty)-Mongolia (Yuan andMing dynasty)-Han (Qing dynasty)”.The third chapter reviews the various Manchu literatures in the Qing dynasty. The paperfocus on the followed issues: the review of the main classification method of Manchuliteratures, the archive literatures of Manchu language and the historical value, Manchutranslation literature and the cultural relationship between Manchu and Han, Qing dynasty’sreligious policy and cultural policy reflected by the translation of “Tibetan Tripitaka”, thefeature of Manchu dictionaries and its cultural connotation. From the evolution course of styleof Manchu dictionaries in the Qing dynasty, we can find the progress of dictionary’scompiling means, as while we can find the relationship between the two languages in theQing dynasty. The series of “Qing Wen Jian” played a vital role on the maturity anddevelopment of Manchu script, and the evolution from “three scripts” to “four scripts” to“five scripts” embodied the development and perfecting process of the ethnic policy in theQing dynasty, which was a miniature of the social development in early and middle Qingdynasty (from the creating of Manchu script to last phase of Qianlong period).The fourth chapter discusses the historical influence of Manchu language, which is thefocus and the main body part of this article. The paper mainly analyzes Manchu language’shistorical influence on Manchu culture, the northeast region culture, the northeast minorities’culture, the Chinese nation’s culture and the cultural exchange of China and foreign, and alsofocus on the relationship between Manchu language and Xibe language, and Xibe language’sdevelopment and its historical influence. Focus on the followed issues: Manchu’s nationalconsciousness and cultural identity reflected by Manchu language in the Qing dynasty, thecultural development level of northeast minorities, Manchu language’s historical influence onBeijing “mandarin”, the situation and feature of foreign scholars’ study of Manchu languagein the Qing dynasty, and the related problems of “Machu studies”.Conclusion part makes a review and summary of the full text, and some theoreticalsublimation is worked out. Through Manchu language, several theoretical issues is reflectedsuch as the relationship between language and writing, Manchu language and Manchucultural identity, Manchu language and culture in the Qing dynasty, Manchu language and thecultural exchange of China and foreign. Finally the central argument of the full text issummarized. Namely, the course of language’s rise and fall are not isolated, but closelyassociated with the change of national social environment. In turn, the language can make aprofound effect on national, society and culture.