Writing System
The Manchu language uses the Manchu script, which was derived from the traditional Mongol script, which in turn is based on the vertically written pre-Islamic Uyghur script. Manchu is usually romanized according to the system devised by Paul Georg von Möllendorff in his Manchu grammar. Its ancestor, Jurchen, used the Jurchen script, which is derived from the Khitan script, which in turn was derived from Han characters. There is no relation between the Jurchen script and the Manchu script
Chinese Characters can also be used to represent Manchu. All the Manchu vowels, and the syllables commencing with a consonant, are represented by single Chinese characters, as are also the syllables terminating in t, n, ng, and o; but those ending in r, k, s, t, p, I, m, are expressed by the union of the sounds of two characters, there being no Mandarin syllables terminating with these consonants. Thus the Manchu syllable am is expressed by the Chinese characters a-muh (8084, 7800), and the word Manchu is, in the imperial Manchu dictionary, spelt in the following manner: Ma (7467) -a (8084) gan (2834)—Man; —choo (1303) a (11767) chu; —Manchu.
Read more about this topic: Manchu Language
Famous quotes containing the words writing and/or system:
“In writing these Tales ... at long intervals, I have kept the book-unity always in mind ... with reference to its effect as part of a whole.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“Television is an excellent system when one has nothing to lose, as is the case with a nomadic and rootless country like the United States, but in Europe the affect of television is that of a bulldozer which reduces culture to the lowest possible denominator.”
—Marc Fumaroli (b. 1932)