Manchu: A Textbook for Reading Documents (review)

Few Western historians can read the millions of records left by China’s Manchu rulers (1644–1911). Even after foreigners gained access to them in the 1980’s, these documents have remained largely inaccessible because of the lack of familiarity with the Manchu language. By authoring the first new English-language introduction to written Manchu in over a century, Gertraude Roth Li has addressed a clear pedagogical need. Composed of sections entitled ‘Introduction’, ‘Reading selections’, and ‘Study aids’, her textbook is intended for self study—a sensible approach given the paucity of Manchu language instructors or opportunities for formal training outside East Asia.

In addition to its value to the historian, Manchu is important for comparative linguistic research. With its close relative Sibe (Xibo) still spoken by about 20,000 people in the Ili region of Xinjiang, it represents the southernmost extension of the Tungusic family. However, L’s book is not geared specifically towards formal linguistics, and the grammatical notes accompanying each reading selection will barely whet the seasoned linguist’s appetite. For example, L explains vowel harmony as based on an opposition between front and back vowels (18), but she cites without comment a source that argues against this interpretation (Josh Ard, ‘Vowel harmony in Manchu: A critical overview’, Journal of Linguistics 20.57–80, 1984).

Part 1 introduces the language’s salient linguistic features and its writing system in particular. L follows the traditional Western practice of presenting the vertical Manchu script as an alphabet rather than a syllabary. Although tables illustrating the script are clearly presented, the introduction itself contains only a single ‘reading exercise’ consisting of a list of words in Manchu script followed by romanization and translation. It is hard to imagine how the student could acquire even basic passive knowledge of this rather complex orthography without considerable additional practice.

The reading selections in Part 2 (33–313) are the book’s finest feature. They are arranged in four sections: ‘Standard Manchu’ narratives from the Qianlong period; ‘official documents’ selected to represent a variety of periods, genres, and handwriting styles; ‘Old Manchu’ texts (dating before the Manchu conquest of 1644); and two modern Sibe texts. Each text appears in the original as well as in transliteration using Norman’s romanization scheme (Jerry Norman, A concise Manchu-English lexicon, Seattle & London: University of Washington Press, 1978). Because of their chronological spread, the reading selections nicely illustrate the language’s evolution over the nearly four centuries when Manchu was in official use by China’s ruling elite.

Part 3, ‘Study aids’ (318–408), contains a hodgepodge of interesting information, including a historical account of the Qing campaigns against the Dzhungars, English translations of the readings, lists of Manchu dictionaries and other selected reference material, an index of the grammatical points covered, and a Manchu-English vocabulary.

Overall, I think this textbook would be somewhat difficult to use without a teacher. Nevertheless, it represents a long overdue reintroduction to a field that in recent decades has enjoyed substantial expansion only in the PRC, Taiwan, and Japan.