Manchu alphabet

Origin

The Manchu alphabet was commissioned in 1599 by the Manchu leader Nurhaci
(1559-1626), the founder of the Manchu state. The letters are based
on the Classical Mongolian
alphabet while the phonetics are based on Jurchen,
an earlier Manchu script. The alphabet was modified slightly in 1632.

In 1644 the Manchus conquered China and established the Ch’ing (Qing)
dynasty, which lasted until 1911. For the first 200 years or so of the
Ch’ing dynasty, Manchu was the main language of government in China
and served as a lingua franca. By the mid 19th century many of the Manchus
had adopted Chinese as their first language, however they continued
to produce Manchu version of Chinese documents until the end of the
dynasty and for sometime afterwards.

Notable features

• Manchu is written in vertical columns running from top to bottom and from
  left to right.
• Most letters have several different forms: initial, medial and final,
  which are used at the beginning, middle and end of a word respectively.
  The vowels also have isolated forms.
• Some letters have different shapes depending on which vowel comes before
  and/or after them.

Used to write

Manchu, a member of the Tungusic group of Altaic languages.
There are currently about 9 million Manchus living in north-eastern China,
of whom about 100 speak Manchu and only 20 can read and write it. Most speak
only Mandarin.

In Xinjiang in the west of China there are about 27,000 people known as Sibe,
Xibo or Sibo who speak a language closely related to Manchu, though they consider
themselves a separte ethnic group. The Sibe were moved to the region in 1764 by
the Ch’ing emperor Qianlong.

Manchu alphabet

Vowels

Consonants

Numerals

Sample text

Translation

Following his advice, when the army was about to enter the town, he
abandoned the town and fled. Akim Bek volunteered to handle the
affairs, so he did the duty on behalf of the General. He had been to
the capital city to present himself before the Emperor. His estate in
the city and property in Kashgar, were used to provide the people
living in Shikago, left in the capital city, or inherited by his son.
He inherited the title of the Duke of Assisting the Nation, and was
bestowed the hereditary title of Akim Bek. His son inherited the
hereditary title of Akim Bek.

Source: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com

Links

Online Manchu forum with lessons (in Chinese)
http://manchusky.qq.topzj.com

满文输入工具 (Manchu Script Creator)
– converts Romanized text to the Manchu script and lessons in how to write Manchu,
a dictionary and other material
http://www.anaku.cn/eng/

Manchu fonts
http://sourceforge.net/projects/manchufont/
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mang_Manchu_fonts
http://www.daicing.com/manchu/index.php?page=fonts-downloads
http://www.xenotypetech.com/osxManchu.html

Manchu in Unicode
http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Test/Manchu.html