Transliterations of Manchu

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There are several systems for transliteration of the Manchu alphabet which is used for writing the Manchu and Xibe languages. These include transliterations in Latin script and in Cyrillic script.

Transliteration in Latin script (romanization)[]

The romanization used in most recent western publications on Manchu is the one employed by Jerry Norman in his Comprehensive Manchu-English Dictionary (2013), a central reference tool in modern Manchu studies.^[1] This system, which has become the de facto modern standard, is very similar though not quite identical to the transliteration system used in the Manchu Grammar (1892) of the German diplomat and linguist Paul Georg von Möllendorff,^[2] who is often credited with being the "inventor" of the system. In fact, Möllendorff took most of his system from the Grammaire de la langue mandchou (1873) by the French linguist Lucien Adam.^[3] It was Adam who did away with earlier transliterations such as tch, dch, kh, replacing them with c, j, h.

Other current romanizations include the system used by BabelPad (for input, not for formal transcription), and the system employed in the New Comprehensive Manchu-Chinese Dictionary (NCMCD, Hu 1994) which is based on the conventions of Pinyin.

The Norman system uses the following graphs: a, b, c, d, dz, e, f, g, g’, h, h’, i, j, k, k’, l, m, n, ng, o, p, r, s, š, t, ts, u, ū, w, y, ž. The Latin letters q, v, x, z are not used. In loanwords, the Chinese syllabic or "buzzing" consonants are represented as follows:

The Norman and NCMCD systems apply the following rules:

• The velar and uvular consonants are not differentiated: <k> and < q> are both transliterated as k, <g> and <ɢ> are both g, and <x> and <χ> are both h. In Manchu orthography, the use of either the velars or the uvulars is predictable (velars before e, i, u and uvulars before a, o, ū). ^[4]
• The graph <nk> is transliterated as ng, for example <inenkgi> inenggi "day", <cankqai> cangkai "only, just", <gunk> gung "duke".
• The graph <-ii-> is transliterated as i, for example <baiita> baita "thing", <meiihe> meihe "snake", <duiin> duin "four".
• The spelling <nio> is transliterated as nio, irrespective of whether it represents [ɲɔ] or [ɲu], for example <nioχon> niohon [ɲɔχɔn] "green" vs. <nioxe> niohe [ɲuxə] "wolf".^[5]

In Norman’s system, the transliterations sh and th each represent two separate consonants, as in eshen /əsxən/ "uncle", uthai /utχaj/ "then". In NCMCD transliteration, separate s and h are written as s’h (Norman sh) to avoid confusion with sh (Norman š).

Transliteration in Cyrillic script (cyrillization)[]

The following transliteration (paired in the table below with the Norman system) is used by the Russian diplomat and linguist Ivan Zakharov, in his Manchu dictionary (1875) and his Manchu grammar (1879). He applies the following rules:

• The velar and uvular consonants are not differentiated: <k> and < q> are both transliterated as к, <g> and <ɢ> are both г, and <x> and <χ> are both х.
• The velars are marked with a macron (к̄, г̄, х̄) when followed by а (a), о (o) and у (u).
• The graph <nk> is transliterated as н before velars and uvulars, for example <inenkgi> инэнги "day", <cankqai> чанкай "only, just"; before other consonants, and in word-final position, <nk> is transliterated as нъ, for example <sinknambi> синънамби /siŋnambi/ "to listen", <gunk> гунъ /ɡuŋ/ "duke".
• The back vowel [ʊ] is transliterated у after the uvulars, and ӯ after other consonants (see Table below).
• Syllable-final consonants are written with the "hard" sign (бъ, мъ, etc.), with the exception of нь (n) which is written with the "soft" sign because нъ stands for /ŋ/.
• The graph <-ii-> is transliterated as й, for example <baiita> байта "thing", <meiihe> мэйхэ "snake", <duiin> дуйнь "four".
• The <-i-> is not transliterated in the spellings <-iya->, <-iye->, <-iyo->, and <-iyū->.
• Combinations of <y> plus vowel are transliterated with the Cyrillic "iotated" vowel letters я (ya), ѣ (ye), іō (yo), ю (yu), and ю̄ (yū).

Notes[]

References[]

• Adam, Lucien (1873). Grammaire de la langue mandchou. Paris: Maisonneuve.
• Hu Zhenyi 胡增益, ed. (1994). Xin Man Han da cidian 新滿漢大詞典 / Iche Manzhu Nikan gisun kamchibuha buleku bithe [New Comprehensive Manchu-Chinese Dictionary]. Ürümqi: Xinjiang renmin chubanshe 新疆人民出版社. ISBN 7-228-02404-4.
• Möllendorff, Paul Georg von (1892). A Manchu Grammar, with Analyzed Texts. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press.
• Norman, Jerry (2013). A Comprehensive Manchu-English Dictionary. Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series, 85. Cambridge (Mass.), London: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-07213-8.
• Roth Li, Gertraude (2010). Manchu: A Textbook for Reading Documents. Second Edition. University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa: National Foreign Language Resource Center. ISBN 978-0-9800459-5-6.
• Zakharov: Захаров, Иван Ильич (1875). Полный Маньчжурско-Русскій Словарь [Comprehensive Manchu-Russian Dictionary] (PDF). Санктпетербургъ: Типографія Императорской Академіи Наукъ.
• Zakharov: Захаров, Иван Ильич (1879). Грамматика Маньчжурскаго Языка [Grammar of the Manchu Language]. Санктпетербургъ: Типографія Императорской Академіи Наукъ.