The Early Modern Travels of Manchu: A Script and Its Study in East Asia and Europe 9780812296938

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The Early Modern Travels of Manchu

ENCOUNTERS WITH ASIA Victor H. Mair, Series Editor Encounters with Asia is an interdisciplinary series dedicated to the exploration of all the major regions and cultures of this vast continent. Its timeframe extends from the prehistoric to the contemporary; its geographic scope ranges from the Urals and the Caucasus to the Pacific. A particular focus of the series is the Silk Road in all of its ramifications: religion, art, music, medicine, science, trade, and so forth. Among the disciplines represented in this series are history, archeology, anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics. The series aims particularly to clarify the complex interrelationships among various peoples within Asia, and also with societies beyond Asia. A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.

THE EARLY MODERN TRAVELS OF MANCHU A Script and Its Study in East Asia and Europe

Mårten Söderblom Saarela

u n i v e r s i t y o f p e n n s y lva n i a p r e s s philadelphia

Copyright © 2020 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Söderblom Saarela, Mårten, author. Title: The early modern travels of Manchu : a script and its  study in East Asia and Europe / Mårten Söderblom Saarela. Other titles: Encounters with Asia. Description: 1st edition | Philadelphia : University of  Pennsylvania Press, [2020] | Series: Encounters with Asia |  Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019034810 | ISBN 9780812252071  (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Manchu language—History. | Manchu  language—Writing—History. | Manchu language—Study  and teaching—East Asia—History. | Manchu language—  Study and teaching—Europe—History. | Manchu  language—Influence on foreign languages. | China—  History—Qing dynasty, 1644–1912. Classification: LCC PL472 .S63 2020 | DDC 494/.1—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019034810

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Contents

Conventions Introduction. A Cultural History of the Manchu Script

ix 1

Chapter 1. To Follow Fuxi or Kubilai Khan? Written Manchu Before 1644

17

Chapter 2. The Beijing Origins of Manchu Language Pedagogy, 1668–1730

43

Chapter 3. Phonology and Manchu in Southern China and Japan, c. 1670–1716

75

Chapter 4. Manchu Words and Alphabetical Order in China and Japan, 1683–1820s

97

Chapter 5. Leibniz’s Dream of a Manchu Encyclopedia and Kangxi’s Mirror, 1673–1708

121

Chapter 6. The Manchu Script and Foreign Sounds from the Qing Court to Korea, 1720s–1770s

145

Chapter 7. The Invention of a Manchu Alphabet in Saint Petersburg, 1720s–1730s

169

Chapter 8. The Making of a Manchu Typeface in Paris, 1780s–1810s

190

Conclusion

222

viii

Contents

Notes

233

Index

289

Acknowledgments

299

Conventions

Cited late imperial Chinese printed books are xylographs unless other wise stated. Translations are my own unless other wise stated. The Romanization of the personal names of Qing subjects to the extent possible follows the form used in the language that is most associated with that group. Thus the names of Chinese civilians are given in pinyin, the names of Manchus in Manchu transcription, and the names of Mongols (including Mongols in the eight banners) in Mongolian transcription. Quotes from classical Chinese texts written in China, Japan, and Korea are Romanized according to the conventional transcription systems used for the modern national languages of those countries. When used without reference to a specific document, Chinese characters are given in full form. When they are quoted from a source, they are reproduced in the forms in which they are used in that source. Thus a simplified character will appear in a quotation from a seventeenth-century text if the edition I quote from uses simplified characters. Similarly, phrases in European languages are cited using the orthography used in the sources, which might diverge from modern orthography. The last number in a citation refers to the page. When a folio is numbered rather than a page, the recto and verso of the folio are referred to as “a” and “b,” in the case of both Western and East Asian books and documents. In cases where a page number is followed by another number in parentheses, which is not specified as the number of a chapter or section, this other number refers to an alternative pagination (e.g., added by the editors of a reprint).

Introduction

A Cultural History of the Manchu Script

The subject of this book is Manchu, a language first written down as part of the Qing state-building project in Northeast Asia in the early seventeenth century. After the Qing invasion of China in 1644, Manchu was a language of state in one of the early modern world’s great powers for two and a half centuries. Its prominence and novelty made the language interesting to Chinese literati as well as foreign scholars. Manchu was a living language, and its script was in active use in one of the world’s major empires. Yet scholars in Europe and Japan, and occasionally even within China itself, were compelled to study the language without access to a native speaker. Through observation, inference, and reference to received ideas on language and writing, scholars in southern China, Russia, France, Chosŏn Korea, and Tokugawa Japan deciphered the Manchu script, describing it in terms that made sense to them. Generations before the decipherment of the forgotten scripts of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East became one of the success stories of European nineteenth-century philology, scholars across Eurasia worked on the common problem of making sense of the new Manchu script and the uses to which it was put: recording sounds and arranging words. The history of the Manchu script’s study at both ends of Eurasia was not just contemporaneous; it was connected. The Jesuit missionaries in Beijing sent Chinese books on Manchu to Europe, where scholars struggled to make it into an alphabet conformable to Western language pedagogy and printing technology. In southern China, meanwhile, an isolated phonologist with access to Jesuit books relied on expositions of the Roman alphabet to make sense of the Manchu script. When Chinese textbooks and dictionaries of Manchu eventually reached Japan, scholars there used their

2

Introduction

knowledge of Dutch to understand Manchu. In East Asia and Europe, Manchu was studied using partially shared resources. Yet local differences shaped the understanding and usage of the script in the alphabetical, letterpress world of Paris and Saint Petersburg and the predominantly xylographic Sinosphere of Beijing, Hansŏng, and Edo. The shared preoccupation with Manchu brought Europe and East Asia closer. In China, the encounter with Manchu inspired the invention of a specialized, phonographic usage of the Chinese writing system. European observers, duly impressed, declared that the Chinese characters had been made into an alphabet like their own. Korean scholars, conversely, adapted their hangul recording of spoken Chinese to the Manchu script, creating a commensurability between Chosŏn and Qing linguistic technologies. Tokugawa scholars, finally, were able to read letters from Russia once they had acquired the Northeast Asian lingua franca of Manchu, which was the language of the Russian missives. Through these developments, Manchu emerges as intimately related to the globalization of the early modern period. The book shows that Manchu, which thus far has primarily been studied within the context of the expanding Qing empire’s imperial and military institutions, is also a topic for cultural and intellectual history both inside and outside China. Rather than being of interest only to the Manchus themselves, the language was studied by the Chinese and by people outside the Qing domain who had little interaction with Manchu speakers, but who took an interest in the strange, new language of a rising world power. These individuals, spread across several countries, were in a similar situation in that Manchu for them meant written Manchu. Until they could properly read it, written Manchu was, in turn, limited to the Manchu script, which they set out to understand and manipulate in various ways. By focusing on their first encounters with Manchu, the book contends that the script—the medium rather than the message—has a rich cultural history. By looking at contemporaneous, comparable, and at times connected scholarly engagements with the Manchu script in East Asia and Europe, the book further argues that a global history of the humanities should look to forms of linguistic scholarship other than philology. Identifying nonphilological linguistic scholarship in China, finally, is a way to show that the preoccupation with the classical corpus was not as pervasive as often presented, and that the current humanities disciplines might have genealogies that do not lead through the exegetical and philological examination of the classical texts, but through studies of modern and non-Chinese languages.

Introduction

3

This brief introduction will discuss the unfolding of the Manchu language in history, its study since the fall of the Qing, and the intervention that this book makes in Manchu and Chinese studies and the history of the humanities. A summary of the core chapters then follows.

Manchu in History The more than two and a half centuries of Manchu Qing rule in China were one of several periods in which China was part of an Inner Asian empire that operated in more languages than classical, or literary, Chinese. Yet there is a persistent image of Chinese history as a succession of states or regimes (“dynasties”) united by Confucian ideology and statecraft, expressed precisely in literary Chinese and in no other language. Unsurprisingly, this bird’s-eye view snapshot of imperial China has a great deal of truth to it. Even the Manchu regime used classical Chinese texts to legitimize its rule to the educated Chinese elite, who in turn were tested on the Confucian texts in the examinations leading to civil office. The dominant ideology exalted written monolingualism for centuries. According to Zhongyong 中庸 ([Doctrine of] the mean), one of the classical texts studied by virtually every elite Chinese male during the late imperial period, a single and unified written language was one of the hallmarks of a unified empire.1 Indeed, the standardization of writing was hailed as an achievement by the founder of the first integrated empire in antiquity, both in his own propaganda and in later and very well-known historiography.2 This idea of the Chinese empire as imposing a single language has remained in the scholarly imagination, even though the Manchus for centuries upheld a plurilingual empire in China and beyond. The first of the interventions that this book will make is to acknowledge Qing— and by extension Chinese—plurilingualism, through a focus on Manchu. The Manchu language was named as such shortly after it was committed to writing in Jianzhou, just north of the Chinese border close to the Bohai gulf and not far from the Korean Peninsula. The Jurchen people living there spoke a language related to that of the Jin dynasty, which controlled north China in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Jurchen once possessed their own writing system, but it was forgotten in Jianzhou by the early seventeenth century. The aspiring state-builders there instead looked to the neighboring Mongols for inspiration, and adopted their ultimately Near

4

Introduction

Eastern script to write their own language. With some modifications, the new written language became the medium for day-to-day administration and the expression of the ruler’s will in the state that from 1636 was called Daicing in Manchu or Da Qing in Chinese. As Manchu power grew north of the Great Wall, the new state entered into conflict with the Chinese Ming empire and its ally, Chosŏn Korea, then recently assisted by the Chinese in a destructive defensive war against Japan. The Manchus invaded Korea twice in the 1620s and 1630s. For geopolitical reasons, the Chosŏn government supported some study of the Jurchen language for centuries. They then started to train interpreters in Manchu. The Korean efforts to study the new language of Jianzhou represent the first of the many encounters with the language that unfolded over the following centuries. The Koreans used both literary Chinese and their vernacular language and its phonographic hangul script to translate and gloss Manchu texts. Unfortunately, the books written by Korean scholars during this early period have been lost. The Qing state invaded China in 1644 following the collapse of Ming power in parts of north China and in the capital at Beijing in the face of rebelling peasant armies. The Manchus moved a large part of their thoroughly militarized society, organized into eight banners (on the battlefield, but maintained in peacetime through the allocation of stipends and housing), into Beijing. The inner city of the former Ming capital became exclusively inhabited by bannermen, a category with many subdivisions, of which Manchus were only one. Yet the bannermen as a group were strongly tied to the Manchu imperial house that supported them, and also individuals belonging to the Chinese or Mongolian contingents of the banners knew, studied, and published on the Manchu language. Outside the capital, banner troops were placed in garrisons in strategic locations around China and elsewhere in the Qing empire, which expanded in all directions—including across the sea to Taiwan—during the first century and a half of its existence. The Manchu bureaucracy grew as Qing power in China was consolidated in the second half of the seventeenth century. The banner establishment had its own Manchuphone administration, and the central government in Beijing was largely bilingual, with routine documents prepared in both Manchu and Chinese. Manchu education under government aegis expanded in this period: first with the Manchu aristocracy and top-level Chinese officials, then with ordinary boys in the banners. Beijing, the center of Manchu life, was also the center of Manchu education. The Chinese scholars of Manchu

Introduction

5

who will appear in this book all spent at least some time in Beijing. The experience inspired them to study Manchu, even if they themselves were not always able to study the language while in the capital. Several of the first Manchu language studies titles to appear in print in China were written by Chinese individuals. Coming from families of civil officials with no tradition of studying any written languages other than literary Chinese, the first scholars of Manchu approached the new language with concepts developed to describe and teach Chinese, which was written with a radically different writing system. Whereas the Manchu script was related to the consonant alphabets of the Near and Middle East, Chinese was written using characters that, as a rule, each represented a monosyllabic morpheme. It was a challenge for Chinese scholars to describe the new language’s script in a way that made sense to their peers, but a generation of scholars produced teaching aids, textbooks, and dictionaries that allowed Chinese literates to learn and use Manchu. Some of the earliest and simplest books that the Chinese students of Manchu had printed reached Japan, where a curious individual related the script they described to his own country’s writing system. Manchu was entirely new to both Chinese and Japanese learned, but one Chinese scholar, at least, benefited from access to publications about a script, the Roman alphabet, that was more similar to Manchu than Chinese characters were. The European script had been introduced to China by the Jesuit mission, present in Ming China from the late sixteenth century. The mission survived the tumultuous Qing conquest. As astronomers, the Jesuits were employed at the Manchu court to work on calendar reform. A new group of French Jesuits arrived in the 1680s and remained in contact with the learned establishment in Paris and elsewhere in Europe. The Jesuits were present as the Qing signed a treaty with Russia in 1689, which led to a regular Russian presence in Beijing as well. Like the Jesuits, Russians in Siberia and China transmitted knowledge of Manchu westward, allowing it to be studied in Saint Petersburg. Jesuits and tsarist envoys enjoyed the privilege of learning Manchu onsite in Beijing. Some Jesuits evidently thought about the Manchu language in the categories of Latin grammar, but the overall impression from reading what the missionaries had to say about Manchu is that they, being in the Manchu capital, internalized much of how the Manchus themselves viewed at least their script. Scholars in Europe, without access to Manchu teachers, tried the hardest to make sense of the language—accessible to them only in the form of written artifacts—in a way

6

Introduction

that made sense from the point of view of the European tradition of language study. Even before the conquest of China, the Manchu language had been in contact with other languages, such as Mongolian and Chinese, and Manchu recordkeepers had adapted their script to better record foreign sounds. Chinese interest in Manchu after the conquest further testifies to the interaction of the two languages. With the Manchu leadership and many banner troops living in China, the Qing court soon grew wary that continued proficiency in Manchu was under threat in the long term. Toward the turn of the eighteenth century, early government-sponsored projects of translating important Chinese texts in classical studies and historiography were complemented by the editing of reference books serving to standardize and promulgate knowledge of written Manchu. The Qing court sponsored language studies books throughout the eighteenth century. Despite initial attempts to assert the independence of the Manchu language by making these books monolingual, the imperial government soon shifted to producing plurilingual books that allowed readers familiar with, for example, Chinese to access Manchu and to translate in and out of the language. The emergence of a government-sponsored tradition of Manchu-language study coincided in time with bannermen emerging as the authors of commercially published pedagogical and lexicographical literature. The perceived need to preserve the Manchu language in the face of Chinese demographic dominance and the continued relevance and vitality of a Chinese written tradition—even as an administrative language within the Manchu empire—made the Manchu language appear more of a Manchu prerogative and less as a linguistic tradition in which Chinese civilians should partake. Rather than writing new Manchu-Chinese dictionaries in this changed situation, Chinese scholars took inspiration from Manchu in their study of the Chinese language. The Manchu script could record Chinese just as well as Manchu sounds, which inspired new developments in Chinese phonology and, in the nineteenth century especially, the teaching of Mandarin Chinese to speakers of other varieties of the language. However, for non-Qing subjects, the government-sponsored Manchulanguage studies books—technically sophisticated, authoritative, and produced in great numbers—became important resources. In Korea, the Manchu emperors’ dictionaries were used to compile new plurilingual works for use in the training of government interpreters. The imperial dictionaries were also used in Japan, when the authorities there charged a group of scholars

Introduction

7

already trained in Dutch and vernacular Chinese to use them to translate Russian letters written in Manchu. Europeans were also impressed by the Qing court’s books. Rumors of an imperial Manchu dictionary reached Europe through Jesuit mediation already before the book was finished in Beijing, inspiring hopes that such a work could serve a bridging function and impart much coveted Chinese knowledge to a European readership. The wish to have a Manchu dictionary translated into a European language for that purpose was voiced already in the first years of the eighteenth century. Toward the century’s end, a Manchu-French dictionary based on Qing originals was indeed published in Europe, but only after its editors had figured out how to make European printing technology successfully reproduce Manchu text. Manchu continued to be part of everyday reality for many bannermen and officials in China in the nineteenth century, but the court withdrew from sponsoring large-scale historical or linguistic editorial projects. Toward the very end of the Qing period, Manchu reemerged in the linguistic thought of some language reformers who sought to harness the Manchu script’s phonographic properties to better record and better promote Mandarin Chinese. Yet when the Qing dynasty fell in 1911–12, it was no longer expedient to appeal to the Manchu script for such purposes.

Manchu Studies As a written language, and even as a spoken language, Manchu had from the very beginning of its recorded history been tied to the political power of the Qing imperial house and its institutions. The official history of the Qing that was published as a “draft” (gao 稿) under Republican auspices in 1927 did not stress the plurilingual character of Qing official life or its capital’s print culture, which made Manchu seem irrelevant. This view was carried over to mainstream historiography in the West as well, where Qing history emerged only slowly as a distinct field. Even so, Manchu did not disappear when the dynasty fell. Manchu had long been supplanted by a form of northern vernacular Chinese as the language for everyday communication in the banner communities in China proper, but at least in Beijing, elements of the banner existence remained as the city’s local culture.3 Scholars with bannerman backgrounds took an interest in Manchu. They collected books and compiled bibliographies, which helped me tremendously when I did research in the Beijing libraries. Foreign scholars joined in collecting and describing

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Introduction

the heritage of Manchu sources. With Japanese and German scholars living for years in Republican Beijing and adding their penciled notes and ex libris to books that eventually ended up in the city’s libraries, the early twentieth century almost presents a mirror image of the early modern studies of Manchu, with the difference that everybody now seemed gathered in the same place and in some cases knew each other personally.4 The Japanese invasion and then the Communist revolution put an end to this cosmopolitan Indian summer of Qing intellectual life. Manchu studies continued around the world after World War II, with Japa nese and Eu ropean scholars repatriated.5 In China and in Taiwan, researchers, including from scholarly bannerman families or of Sibe ethnicity, began to work through the enormous archival holdings of official documents in Manchu. These documents were gradually used by historians in China and abroad. Although Manchu studies overlapped with Qing history, which also took shape as the imperial period receded further into the past, the overlap was only partial. Most impor tant for the intellectual context that produced this book was the situation in the United States,6 where Qing history after the Communist revolution tended to focus on the empire’s antagonistic interactions with the ascendant Western powers. The Manchus, although always present, were not a topic in their own right in this brand of scholarship. A common characteristic of postwar Manchu studies was that the Manchus were, understandably, primarily considered in relation to Inner Asia whence they came, which often meant a focus on their early history. In the United States, where I received my doctoral training, a new trend was visible from at least the 1990s, as historians integrated the Manchus into Qing history proper. Qing history in the United States had turned from the meeting with Western imperialism toward the social and cultural realities of China, conceptualized quite independently of the foreign penetration of the coasts. When one no longer looked at the Qing from the point of view of its Chinese successor states, which had formed in relationship or even opposition to the West, a picture emerged in which the Manchus were a lot more prominent than had previously been the case. New scholarship no longer showed the Qing as a Chinese dynasty with soon-forgotten Inner Asian roots, but as a multiethnic empire that warranted comparison with the contemporary empires of the Romanovs, Mughals, or Ottomans as much as with earlier Chinese states. In China as well, the culture of the Manchu court captured even popular imagination, and scholars turned their attention to the history

Introduction

9

of Qing institutions and the vast, non-Chinese frontier regions that are still difficult today for the Chinese government to rule. Decades of research have firmly established that the Manchus remained Manchus after the invasion of China, and that the empire that they ruled cannot be properly understood without taking them into account.

Manchu Beyond the Manchus This book intervenes at a moment where the historical relevance of the Manchus, their culture, and language is universally acknowledged by historians of China and East Asia, where the Qing empire was the major political power until the nineteenth century. Yet the research on the Manchus, the imperial institutions, and the new territories that they acquired for the states ruled from Beijing gives rise to new questions when considered together with other advances in Qing history over the past few decades. Generations of historians have demonstrated high rates of literacy and widespread experience with formal education in Qing China, a complex print culture, the intellectual impact of the Jesuit mission, and the prominence of Asia in European learned discourse in the period. As research on the history of scholarship and intellectual life in China has for several decades broken down categories such as Confucianism or tradition, replacing them with others, such as philology, which more easily lend themselves to study alongside similar developments elsewhere in the world, historians have shown the important role played by China in the globalizing world of early modernity. The widespread recognition that knowledge, practices, and texts were transmitted within East Asia or between China and Europe shows that language is an important category for understanding this world of which China was a part.

The Importance of Language in a Plurilingual Early Modernity The importance of language is obvious for many aspects of the cultural history of early modern East Asia. Language mattered for the reception of Chinese vernacular narrative in Korea and Japan,7 for the work of the Jesuit mission in China or for the reception of things Chinese in Europe,8 or indeed for the Manchus, who we now know cultivated their ancestral language

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Introduction

down to the end of the Qing period and beyond. But what about the role of language in the relationship between the Manchus and the Chinese, or between the Qing empire and everybody else? An academic field of world philology now exists to capitalize on the great attention that scholars in China and elsewhere paid to language and the significance with which languageoriented scholarship was invested in this period.9 Yet while plurilingualism is clearly evident in Europe and South Asia,10 for example, Chinese philology has been studied as an essentially monolingual endeavor.11 This book reacts against this view of early modern Chinese linguistic learning by highlighting the plurilingualism of China.12 The book shows that the Manchu language was not just important to the Manchus—we knew that already— but to many Chinese intellectuals, to the Jesuits in Beijing, of course, and to scholars in Japan, Korea, and Europe. Manchus will feature in these pages, but when they do, it is most often as bilingual scholars equally at home in a Chinese linguistic and conceptual world. My emphasis is not on the Manchus, but on all the others, first and foremost Chinese, who encountered and studied Manchu.

Manchu and the History of the Humanities Showing that Chinese scholars subjected written Manchu to careful study does more than correct the misapprehension that linguistic scholarship in late imperial China was monolingual. The fact that Manchu had a very short history as a written language, and had an Inner Asian background that was poorly known in both East Asia and Europe, meant that research on Manchu was something quite different from research on the Chinese sources most commonly considered under the rubric of philology. Chinese linguistic study concentrated on classical texts and their associated language and writing system, which means that such studies were to a large degree ultimately exegetical.13 By contrast, wanting to understand the foreign writing system of Manchu, and then teach and use it, is not an exegetical exercise but one that seeks maximal conceptual economy, brevity, and simplicity to solve problems of the day without any reference to antiquity. Tailored to certain concrete and often pedagogical tasks, Manchu linguistic research was technical in the sense that the applied sciences are technical. The Chinese students of Manchu were not primarily engaged in interpreting ancient texts, but

Introduction

11

compiled dictionaries that enable easy word retrieval, or drew grids that allow for the quick location of the graphic representation of a certain Manchu word. They did not seek to know revealed truth or ancient wisdom, but make the best use of the “paper tools” at their disposal for handling Manchu.14 When compared to scholarly activities elsewhere in the early modern world, the work of scholars of Manchu in China looks more similar to the ingenious efforts of European scholars to manage information overload,15 rather than the European scrutiny of the Bible. Indeed, since Europe and East Asia shared the technology of the easily reproducible codex-style book, the solutions that scholars in different places developed in response to the challenge of the new language of Manchu were at times remarkably similar, as in the case of syllable or letter grids and graphologically arranged dictionaries. By the same token, these scholarly activities also appear so familiar to us today, since we are still preoccupied by foreign-language study, simplicity, visualization, and information management. Looking at Manchu pedagogical and lexicographical texts reveals a form of linguistic scholarship that is much more similar in its intent to humanistic scholarship today than is classical exegesis. The wide range of cultural phenomena and forms of expression studied within the humanities as currently pursued in universities contrasts with the more limited subject matter—canonical and classical texts primarily—of philology. New humanities disciplines that were clearly not part of philology, no matter how one construes that term, emerged in the West in the nineteenth century.16 A number of them even have roots going back at least a century earlier.17 By contrast, even as greater variety is becoming recognized in late imperial Chinese scholarship, including in astronomy and mathematics, it remains construed primarily as philology (philology in “crisis,” but philology no less).18 An unintended consequence is that modern and contemporary humanistic research still appears radically divorced from late imperial Chinese scholarship and indebted more to European intellectual trends than to its own past; to be sure, this is a state of affairs for which recent research on Chinese philology is not responsible so much as the older idea of the early Republic as a radical cultural break.19 The broadening of the category of Chinese philology to include subjects and problematics that two generations ago were rarely discussed alongside “Confucianism” has done much to break down this latter category, but the usefulness of philology as a descriptive term has diminished as a result. Rather than including Manchu studies under the umbrella of late imperial Chinese philology, I use its existence to question whether philology

12

Introduction

was really what Qing scholars were necessarily engaged in. I take the fact that late imperial Chinese-language study had a non-Chinese element to imply, rather, that it cannot be understood as a primarily historical and exegetical field of philology. And recognizing that Qing scholarship was more than philology in turn helps to integrate it into what has recently been named the history of the humanities, conceptualized as a global endeavor.20 Seeing individuals in the Chinese inland South, Japan, and Saint Petersburg struggle, just decades apart, to break the Manchu syllabary down into its elements and align them in an easy-to-grasp table is to see the global humanities taking shape. How often do we get to see eighteenth-century scholars of such different backgrounds work on the same problem— one that was new to everybody—at the same time? In other parts of the story of Manchu studies, scholars’ work was more directly entangled. I already mentioned the examples of Jesuit literature on the Roman alphabet helping Chinese scholars orient themselves with regards to Manchu, and the influence of Dutch lexicography on the making of a Manchu dictionary in Japan. To add one more: the Kangxi emperor urged his scholar officials to study Korean phonological literature as they were preparing a Manchu-inspired Chinese rhyme book. The spelling technique developed for that book was later taken up in a Manchu dictionary that was well received precisely in Korea, where it inspired a revised Korean phonological notation. Phonological studies were transnational and multiscriptal in East Asia. The engagement with the same material in different parts of the world, then, shows the connectedness of the early modern study of Manchu. Yet it also shows that different circumstances mattered. The novelty and challenge of Manchu were perceived from Hannover to Edo, but the difficulties that Manchu students faced and the solutions that they proposed differed according to the linguistic and scholarly traditions in which they were working. Printing Manchu characters never posed a serious challenge in the xylographic print culture of China, but it required both ingenuity and financial investments in Europe, where printing was done by letterpress. Arranging words in a Manchu dictionary was in China conceptualized as breaking them down into graphic components—brushstrokes—on the basis of which syllabic characters were grouped, in the manner of popular Chinese dictionaries. In Japan, by contrast, the same Manchu dictionaries were understood as essentially sound-based and similar to Chinese rhyme books or dictionaries arranged according to the Japanese syllabary. How the materials at hand were

Introduction

13

conceptualized conditioned their use. The effects of differences in language, script, and the tools used to research them are yet another testament to the importance of linguistic circumstances for the history of the humanities and of scholarly practices.21 By bringing that up, I want to underscore a final point that this book makes. Inventories of words and sounds, or dictionary making and phonological analysis, are not just sources for linguists, but should, like language itself, be studied by historians as well.22

Synopsis This book covers the period from the commitment of the Manchu language to writing in Manchuria in the first years of the seventeenth century to the period of Manchu dictionary-making in Japan in the 1810s and 1820s. Excluding this introduction and the conclusion, the book has eight chapters, and each examines encounters of Manchu with other linguistic traditions. These eight chapters each treat a theme or an event. There is a tendency toward chronological arrangement in their order. Each chapter has an argument, and although some of them are better read in the order that they are presented here, that is not true for all. I have written the chapters thinking that a reader might only read one or some of them. Chapter 1, “To Follow Fuxi or Kubilai Khan? Written Manchu Before 1644,” tells how the early Manchu leadership created a new written language with a distinct script for purposes of state-building by following long-standing Inner Asian precedent. The Manchus borrowed their script from the Mongols, but after the conquest of China, Qing writers conceptualized Manchu primarily in relation to Chinese. Despite a very limited knowledge of what actually happened when government scribes decided to write down their Jurchen dialect outside the Great Wall, the later Qing writers were correct in their view that written Manchu had emerged not sui generis, but as a conscious political choice in a context of plurilingualism. Chapter  2, “The Beijing Origins of Manchu Language Pedagogy, 1668–1730,” tells how Chinese scholars after the conquest encountered Manchu as something entirely new and largely devoid of historical context. They made the very simple Manchu teaching aid, the syllabary of the “twelve heads,” into a textbook that a reader literate in Chinese could use to learn to decipher the Manchu script without the help of a teacher. The

14

Introduction

pioneering scholars of Manchu-language pedagogy were not Manchus, but Chinese, and they described the script in terms that made sense to Chinese literates. Chapter 3, “Phonology and Manchu in Southern China and Japan, c. 1670–1716,” is grounded in the fact that not all second-language learners of Manchu ever had the opportunity to study the language with native speakers. Some scholars set out to study the Manchu script in isolation, in one case in the mountainous inland of southern China and, in another, across the sea in Japan. Working on the basis of a shared tradition of phonological studies, the two scholars considered in this chapter transformed the simple Manchu syllabary into an analytical grid that was made for the eye rather than the ear. Chapter 4, “Manchu Words and Alphabetical Order in China and Japan, 1683–1820s,” focuses on the late seventeenth-century invention of the Manchu dictionary and its arrangement. The genre flourished in China and eventually made its way to Japan a century later. In Edo, scholars reworked the Manchu dictionaries to produce several manuscripts with different arrangements serving different purposes. Having been exposed to Dutch books, the Japanese scholars knew what the alphabetical order used in European dictionaries could do: allow a reader to find a word without an inkling of its meaning. With this in mind, the Edo group set out to improve Manchu lexicographical arrangement. Chapter 5, “Leibniz’s Dream of a Manchu Encyclopedia and Kangxi’s Mirror, 1673–1708,” focuses on one Eu ropean scholar’s hope that Manchu could serve a mediating role in a babelized world where Europe and China were polar opposites. The Qing emperor, he thought, would surely be interested in collecting, with Jesuit assistance, the knowledge of China into a reference work, which could then be sent to Europe. Like Leibniz, Kangxi was acutely aware that Manchu existed in a plurilingual environment, but the dictionary that he commissioned sought to establish Manchu’s independence, not its role as a bridge between China and Europe. Chapter 6, “The Manchu Script and Foreign Sounds from the Qing Court to Korea, 1720s–1770s,” focuses on the Manchu script as a phonographic technology. The most common usage of the script was certainly to write the Manchu language, but from the very beginning, it was also used to write down words from other languages. After its introduction to China, the capacity of Manchu to record sound with much greater detail than the Chinese script was inspirational to lexicographers, who experimented with

Introduction

15

using Chinese characters in the same way. When Qing court– sponsored Manchu-Chinese reference works reached Korea, scholars there realized that the Manchu script gave them access to the pronunciation of Chinese. Eu ropean observers, seeing what the Manchu script had done to Chinese, unambiguously declared that Chinese characters had been made into an alphabet. Chapter 7, “The Invention of a Manchu Alphabet in Saint Petersburg, 1720s–1730s,” tells how a scholar in Russia transformed the Manchu syllabary into a European-style alphabet: a collection of consonants, vowels, and diphthongs that fit on a single printed page. The chapter tracks European interest in the Manchu script, from the first mentions in Jesuit publications in the 1650s, when Manchu was described as something halfway between an alphabetical script and Chinese characters, through to the definite analysis of Manchu according to the Eu ropean category of letters in 1730s Saint Petersburg. Chapter 8, “The Making of a Manchu Typeface in Paris, 1780s–1810s,” continues the story of the Manchu script in Europe up to Paris at the end of the eighteenth century. When the Jesuits in Beijing sent a manuscript of a Manchu-French dictionary to Paris, scholars in the French capital were faced with the problem of how to print a book containing both Manchu and a Eu ropean language. European books were printed using the letterpress, which was a realization, in metal, of the alphabetic conceptualization of the script. In order for Manchu to be printed alongside the Roman alphabet, the alphabetic conceptualization of Manchu had to be transformed into printing technology. The conclusion to the book situates the Manchu language and script within the larger context of the Qing empire from which modern China emerged. The scholarly interest in Manchu treated in preceding chapters would never have arisen were it not for the political importance of the language in the Qing empire, where it was embedded in important linguistic communities. The conclusion touches on the place of Manchu within the greater universe of Qing political culture. The Manchu language and script left a lasting influence, and an interest in it lingered long after it had stopped being commonly used in the Chinese Northeast and Beijing.

Chapter 1

To Follow Fuxi or Kubilai Khan? Written Manchu Before 1644

Manchu on a Chinese Model: The View from Posterity A Manchu ballad, dating perhaps from the late seventeenth century, praised the Manchu script in the following way: “At the beginning, the Manchu script was created, | following Fuxi and Cang Jie, | and in accordance with the elegant sounds. | That was the root, | lasting for ten thousand generations.”1 This “Song on the rise of the dragon” (muduri mukdeke ucun), recorded in a manuscript held in Saint Petersburg since before 1834, is written in Manchu with a parallel Chinese translation in Manchu transcription. Thus, although in two languages, the ballad is only written in one script. The ballad tells of how “the arriving heavenly army | engaged the neighboring states in battle” (abkai cooha isinjime | adaki gurun be šurgebuhe) and of the Manchus’ history of conquest and state-building from Nurhaci (1559– 1626) to the Kangxi emperor (1654–1722, r. from 1661). Alongside the establishment of the military banner system, the creation of a written language counted among the important events in this history, according to the ballad.2 It presented the creation of written Manchu as following classical Chinese precedent. Fuxi, a ruler, and Cang Jie, a minister to the Yellow Emperor, were figures of ancient Chinese legend. Various passages in the classical and canonical Chinese corpus, including a foundational text of Chinese lexicography, presented them as creating the record-keeping and representational technologies that lay at the origin of the Chinese writing system. Fuxi invented the divinatory eight trigrams and knotting cords and received the “[Yellow] River Chart” (he tu 河圖) and the “Luo [River] Writing” (luo shu

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洛書). His actions were later supplanted and reenacted by Cang Jie through

the invention of Chinese characters in imitation of “the traces of the feet of birds and beasts.” One account included among those traces the marks on the back of a tortoise, which was an animal associated at the time with the Luo Writing.3 There was a strong link in these classical accounts between the invention of writing and statecraft. Why did a high Qing Manchu ballad evoke Fuxi and Cang Jie in the context of Manchu? The creation of written Manchu consisted in writing down a Jurchen dialect using the Uighur-Mongol script of the early Manchus’ Mongolian neighbors. This fact was not universally known in the Qing period, and in any case merely stating it did not capture the full import of what the early Manchu state-builders had done. The written language that they created before the conquest of China in 1644 thereafter served as a governing tool for the most powerful state in East Asia. Post-conquest scholars writing in Chinese accordingly often associated the creation of written Manchu with Fuxi’s and Cang Jie’s actions, which had been of equally monumental importance. For the official Liu Dou, writing in 1668, the alleged creator of the Manchu syllabary was “a [Cang] Jie . . . of our time” (jin shi jie . . . ye 今時頡 . . . 也).4 In 1670, the Chinese scholar Liao Lunji, who, like Liu, will figure in Chapter 2, saw in Manchu a similarity to ancient Chinese seal scripts (zhuan, zhou 篆籒), believing that the inventors of Manchu considered the origins of the Chinese script when devising the new written language: “The Manchu language goes back to the writings of [Fu] Xi and the Yellow Emperor. When the shapes of the Manchu characters were fixed, careful reference was made to the Luo [River Writing and the Yellow River] Chart. The Manchu language encompasses their principles.”5 Similarly, Qingwen houxue jinfa 清文後學津筏 | manju gisun-i amaga tacire ursebe ibebure tasan-i bithe (Manual for the advancement of the beginning student of Manchu), an anonymous and undated manuscript, offered a “tentative discursive analysis of the Manchu script,” in which the Manchu language and script were associated with nature. The manuscript asserted that the traces left by birds and beasts in the wild were represented not only in the Chinese script created by Cang Jie, but also in Manchu writing. “If we look at the dots and strokes of the dynastic script, do we not see the remnant representations of the tracks of birds and shapes of insects?” it asked its readers.6 Some Qing scholars knew that the Manchu script came from Mongolian, but still entered it into a lineage of writing and rulership reaching back to

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Chinese antiquity. Yang Bin 楊賓 (b. 1657), a Chinese Southerner who had followed his father in banishment to Manchuria, where he then grew up, had better knowledge than Liao of what had transpired in Jianzhou in the early seventeenth century. Knowing that Manchu had been created as an adaption of the Mongolian writing system under Nurhaci, Yang wrote in 1690, “The strokes are almost as in the Chinese [or Han] clerical script [of antiquity]. Now, the Mongolian script began as a transformation on the basis of the clerical script, and Manchu writing is in turn a transformation of Mongolian. The addition of lateral dots is, that too, similar to the Chinese clerical script.” Just as political history was construed as a succession of ruling houses, each with their specific institutions, so Yang understood writing systems as following in succession from antiquity onward. In Eastern Inner Asia, the Manchus were preceded by the Khitan Liao, the Jurchen Jin, and the Mongol Yuan empires in the late first and early second millennia ce, each of which maintained their own written language of state alongside literary Chinese. Yang connected written Manchu to these regional precedents. He quoted a mention in Xin wudai shi 新五代史 (New history of the five dynasties; 1053), where the founder of the Khitan state was said to have been instructed in the clerical script by a Chinese teacher, whence the Khitan script. The Jurchen, the Manchus’ ancestors, had then based their script on that of the Khitan. “Thus it is not that there had never been any scripts in Manchuria. It may be that they got lost with time,” but then re-created in the early seventeenth century, Yang concluded.7 One of Yang’s unstated assumptions was that the Uighur-Mongol script was a development either out of Khitan or Jurchen, just as the Mongol Yuan empire followed the Liao and Jin. In both Chinese scholarly writings and post-conquest Manchu literature, then, the creation of written Manchu was associated with the legendary invention of the Chinese script in antiquity. It would be misleading to present the accounts quoted here as stressing a close causal relationship between Fuxi, Cang Jie, and Nurhaci’s projects; it was as monumental acts of state-building that they were related. These accounts hint at something impor tant regarding the origins of written Manchu. Is it not remarkable that even the writer of the ballad, which praised the Qing imperial project and the Manchu victory over the “corrupt Ming” (efujehe ming gurun),8 associated Manchu with Chinese? It is true that those who knew more, or chose to elaborate on the topic, saw connections to the scripts of the Khitan, Jurchen, and Mongols as well.

20

Chapter 1

In all cases, however, Manchu was presented as emerging not sui generis, but in imitation of another linguistic and political order. That was indeed the case. The early Manchu rulers created a state by adopting institutions and practices used by their neighbors in Mongolia, China, and perhaps Korea. The script they chose came from the Mongols, and they instituted it as the medium for their own language of state. The Manchu leadership was aware of the experiences made by the Khitan, Jurchen, and Mongols in instituting their own written languages alongside Chinese. Records on the histories of those states even influenced how the early Qing scribes chose to present the creation of written Manchu in the court chronicles. This chapter tells the story of the emergence of written Manchu before the invasion of China in 1644. The chapter will show that, ultimately, the reference point for the Manchu leadership was Inner Asia and not the China of Fuxi and Cang Jie. This path was not, perhaps, given beforehand, as knowledge of written Chinese was cultivated in Jianzhou before the invasion. Furthermore, several officials involved in forging the Manchu linguistic order came into conflict with the leadership for proposals considered to be excessively à la chinoise. After the Manchus conquered China, the narrative of the script’s origins was modified to account for the Manchu-Chinese linguistic diarchy that had then developed. To some extent, Chinese took the place of Mongolian and other Inner Asian languages and scripts in the understanding of Manchu’s origins and place in the world. Never was Manchu alone, however. The encounter between languages and scripts was at the very origin of written Manchu.

New Scripts in Inner Asia Before the Manchus When the Manchus appeared as a political entity in the early seventeenth century and committed their language to writing using a borrowed script, they were continuing a tradition dating back at least to the tenth century ce.9 The development of writing in the vicinity of where the Manchus eventually emerged included scripts to some extent influenced by the structure of Chinese writing, scripts primarily dependent on an ultimately Indic tradition, and scripts derived from Near Eastern consonant alphabets. The formation of a new type of hybrid steppe-sedentary empire on China’s northern periphery, following the collapse of the Tang empire in the early tenth century ce, forms the historical background to the development of

To Follow Fuxi or Kubilai Khan?

21

several new written languages in the period. The political weakness of China coincided with the flourishing of Buddhism partially in languages other than Chinese, both of which encouraged Inner Asian empire-builders to experiment with writing their own languages using non-Chinese scripts.10 The first of these empires was that of the Khitan, a people speaking a language most probably related to that of the later Mongols. The Khitan established an empire under the Chinese dynastic name of Liao, but never really attempted to occupy all of China. The Khitan controlled both parts of the steppe and agricultural northern China, ruling these two different territories using a dual empire.11 Relying on Chinese in the southern part of their empire, the Khitan in the early tenth century ce developed two scripts, which were syllabic and modeled on different forms of Chinese characters, to be used in the north.12 Khitan was soon joined in writing by another Inner Asian language: Tangut. Tangut was the Tibetan language of the state known in Chinese as Xi, or “Western,” Xia. The Tangut established a state west of the Liao empire and northwest of the heartland of the early Chinese empires on the North China plain in the 980s, remaining in power there until 1227, when the state was defeated and absorbed by the Mongols.13 The Tangut script, created in 1036, used thousands of characters similar to Chinese.14 Jurchen, ancestors of the Manchus, also followed the example of the Khitan. They were groups of people who spoke a Tungusic language and lived in present-day Manchuria under Khitan rule or tutelage. In 1114 they rebelled against the Khitan and destroyed their empire. A little more than a decade later, the Jurchen defeated the Chinese Song armies in battle and occupied all of North China. Under the dynastic name of Jin, the Jurchen ruled that territory until the early thirteenth century, when they came under attack by the Mongols. The Jurchen were defeated in 1234.15 Thereafter, the Jurchen people remained in a state of political fragmentation in Manchuria until the early seventeenth century, when they were united by one of their constituents as the Manchus. In the first half of the twelfth century, the Jurchen developed two scripts to write their language: one system similar to Chinese characters and one akin to a syllabary.16 When the Chinese scholar Ouyang Xuan 歐陽玄 (1283– 1357) was charged with compiling the Jinshi 金史 (History of the Jin) in 1344–45,17 the invention of the first (“large”) Jurchen script was presented, probably following original documents that Ouyang was working with, as strongly linked to the building of the Jin empire:

22

Chapter 1

Wanyan Xiyin was originally named Guši [“thirty”].18 He was the son of Huandu. After the Great Progenitor [of the Jin] rose in arms, he was constantly on campaign, following either the Great Progenitor, Sagai, or going on the offensive with the various generals, proving his worth every time. The Jin people did not originally have a writing system [wenzi 文字]. As the power of the [Jin] state grew stronger by the day and friendly relationships were established with the neighboring states, they still used the Khitan characters. The Great Progenitor ordered Xiyin to create characters for their own state and create a complete system [bei zhidu 備制度]. Xiyin then relied on the regular script of the Chinese as a model, followed the system of the Khitan characters, matched them to the language of his own state, and created the Jurchen characters. In the eighth month of the third year of Heavenly Assistance [1119], the book of characters was finished. The Great Progenitor was greatly pleased and ordered it promulgated.19 The inventor, Xiyin, was a soldier and statesman. The invention of the script happened with the ruler’s involvement, and it was presented as at least in part motivated by a need to represent the dynasty using its own script in interstate relations. These elements all reappeared in the much later accounts of the commitment of Manchu to writing. The last extant inscription in Jurchen dates from 1413. By this time, one authority writes, “the script had become practically syllabo-phonetic.”20 It fell into disuse thereafter. The Mongols’ adoption of the Uighur script occurred less than a century after the creation of the Jurchen scripts. Unlike Khitan, Tangut, and Jurchen, the Mongols looked not to China for a model for writing, but to their neighbors in Inner Asia. This was true not only in their adoption of Uighur writing, but also in their creation of the ‘Phags-pa script, which was influenced by Tibetan. The distant origins for the Mongol, and thereby Manchu, script can be traced to Syriac, a script used in parts of the Near East. The Aramaic language, associated with the Syriac script, was widely spoken in the Near East from before the common era to the mid-seventh century ce. After that point, it remained in use by some minorities. In the form of Syriac, it was the liturgical language for groups of eastern Christians. The Syriac script is a consonant alphabet to which was added diacritical points to mark phonological and morphological properties.21

To Follow Fuxi or Kubilai Khan?

23

The Syriac script moved eastward to Iran and from there to Central Asia. The Uighurs, a Central Asian Turkic people, adopted the script together with West Asian religions (Nestorian Christianity and Manichaeanism) from the Indo-European Sogdians, a people of greater Iran, in the eighth to ninth centuries ce.22 The Uighurs had originally lived in what is now Mongolia, but later moved west to what is now Xinjiang after 842.23 In the early thirteenth century, the rising Mongol empire adopted the Uighur script to write the Mongol language.24 Perhaps already by the seventeenth century, the unknown process of how the Mongols came to use a modified version of the Uighur script was presented as Čosgi Odsir (Tib. Chos-kyi ‘Odzer, fl. early fourteenth century) adapting the script during a Buddhist study trip to India.25 By contrast, in an eighteenth-century Mongolian text and in an early nineteenth-century Tibetan chronicle, the Mongol script was presented as an invention by Saskiya Pandita (fl. thirteenth century), who, proselytizing among the Mongols, created a script in imitation of carvings in a piece of wood, a notched tanning rod probably, that he had seen in the hands of a woman.26 These accounts, none of which accord with what we know about the Mongol script’s history, differ from the story of the Jurchen script’s invention. State-building is not a factor in these stories, which focus entirely on religious proselytizing. Perhaps it made more sense to Buddhist Mongols writing in the period of Manchu dominance to imagine the origin of their script in this religious rather than political context. Yet during the time of the Yuan empire, the Mongols, like previous empire-builders on China’s northern border, had indeed experimented with new scripts as part of their state-building project. On the eve of the conquest of China (around 1269),27 the ‘Phags-pa Lama, a Tibetan cleric in Kubilai’s (1215–94) ser vice and Saskiya Pandita’s nephew, invented a new script. Since called the “square script” or, in English more commonly, “the ‘Phags-pa script” after its inventor, it was intended as a state script for the Mongol empire.28 The structure of the ‘Phags-pa script resembled that of Tibetan, which in turn is ultimately of South Asian origin.29 The Yuanshi 元史 (History of the Yuan; 1370) records Kubilai’s edict on the occasion of the new script’s invention: I only use characters to write down speech, and I speak in order to record events. This has been the order throughout history. Our state has its origins in the north. Our customs are still

24

Chapter 1

simple and ancient. We have not yet had the time to create new institutions. The scripts we use to express the language of our court [i.e., Mongolian] have therefore been the regular characters of the Chinese and those of the Uighurs. I have examined this matter in the states of the Khitan, Jurchen, and those further away [in western Asia]: as a rule they all have their characters. Now our civil administration is slowly coming to flourish, but we are not yet equipped with a system for our age in terms of characters and writing. For that reason, I have explicitly ordered Preceptor of State ‘Phags-pa to create new Mongol characters and transcribe [yixie 譯寫] all scripts using them so that what we say will be easily expressed. From now on, all those who transmit documents carry ing the imperial seal should do so using the new Mongol characters [i.e., the ‘Phagspa script] and, as before, append versions in the respective script of the country.30 Kubilai’s edict resembles the story of the invention of the large Jurchen script. It conflates the invention of the script, clearly the work of ‘Phags-pa and acknowledged as such, with the imperial order of its creation, and it presents the imperial order as informed by an examination of the linguistic regimes of neighboring or recent states. These tropes remained in the stories of the origins of Manchu. As for Kubilai’s new script, it was used for a variety of documents and purposes in the Yuan period, 31 but it never replaced the Uighur-Mongol alphabet and was not well known in late imperial China. Tibetan influence on the creation and reform of scripts in Eastern Inner Asia and Korea, mediated by the ‘Phags-pa script, continued beyond the Mongol empire. Korea was well connected to Inner Asia and North China during the period of Mongol dominance.32 When the Chosŏn king Sejong (1397–1450, r. from 1418) and his collaborators invented the Korean alphabet now called hangul (han’gŭl) in 1446, they were influenced by ‘Phags-pa and other continental scripts.33 Sejong’s invention of the so-called Hunmin chŏngŭm 訓民正音 (The correct sounds for the instruction of the people) was, like the Khitan, Jurchen, Tangut, and ‘Phags-pa scripts, inseparable from the king’s attempts to strengthen the power of the monarchy domestically by reaffirming its prerogative to define what counted as correct pronunciation and language use.

To Follow Fuxi or Kubilai Khan?

25

At the same time, Sejong was inscribing Chosŏn’s place in the new world order centered on Ming China, who had defeated the Mongols and launched a program of language standardization of its own. Yet the rhetoric of Sejong’s court differed from that seen in the received record of the invention of written Jurchen or ‘Phags-pa. The court chronicle, or Veritable records (Sillok 實錄), for Sejong’s reign stressed, rather, the phonographic properties of the script, represented by its ability to record both Chinese and Korean sounds.34 The publication that described the new script, furthermore, noted that Korea’s spoken language (ŏŭm 語音) differed from China’s, and claimed that it was inconsonant with the literary script of Chinese characters, making the latter inaccessible to the unlettered.35 The Indo-Tibetan tradition, manifest in ‘Phags-pa and thereby in hangul, continued to be important in Eastern Inner Asia and Korea beyond the fifteenth century. Tibetan was a language of great significance among the Mongols as the vehicle of Buddhist doctrine and scholarship, especially from the sixteenth century onward. Literacy in Mongolian and Tibetan appears to have been related; some excavated documents include both the UighurMongol and the Tibetan scripts in the same text.36

Script Experimentation in Seventeenth-Century Mongolia Beginning in the late sixteenth century, Buddhist clerics on several occasions made modifications to the Uighur-Mongol script with the purpose of making it record speech sounds more accurately. The story of script experimentation among the Mongols in this period is related to the emergence of written Manchu. Indeed, the creation of a written language, using a modified Uighur-Mongol script, by the “Mongol nation with the red-tasseled hats”37—as the Manchus were called—can be seen as one moment in this history of experimentation. Buddhist doctrines in vogue among the Mongols demanded that certain formulas and incantations be recited in the closest possible approximation of the Indian original. The question of how to best render foreign sounds was also prompted by the renewed efforts at translating Tibetan texts that included Indian vocabulary. In that context, the Buddhist scholar Ayushi Güüshi, with the help of Tibetan clerics, created an extension of the UighurMongol script in 1587, which was later modified to assume its present form

26

Chapter 1

in 1620. Known as the galik alphabet, the purpose of the script was to transcribe sounds that were not found in Mongolian.38 Chapter 6 will show that this tradition of transcribing foreign sounds continued—using the Manchu script—in the Qing period. The introduction of the galik script was not the only instance of the Indo-Tibetan tradition influencing the reform of the Uighur-Mongol script in the seventeenth century. In 1648, the Tibetan-trained Buddhist cleric Zaya Pandita (a name shortened from a longer Buddhist title; 1599–1662) introduced a new script for use among the Oirads, Western Mongols, in present-day Xinjiang. The new “clear script” (todo bičig in Mongolian) eliminated the ambiguities in the Uighur-Mongol script’s representation of sound and facilitated the recording of the Oirad language.39 The invention of the Oirad script was part of state-building among the Western Mongols, efforts that later in the century would pit them against the Qing in a series of wars that eventually led to their defeat. This political project was an explicit reaction against the rise of the Manchus to the east,40 and it cannot be excluded that the Manchu experience with script reform served as a precedent. Yet even so, certain elements of the clear script’s introduction were decidedly not due to Manchu influence. Notably, Zaya Pandita’s identity as a Buddhist cleric with a Tibetan background stands in striking contrast to the received account of the Manchu script’s creation. Zaya Pandita’s Buddhist identity links the clear script to other Inner Asian innovations of writing going back at least to ‘Phags-pa. The influence of the Tibetan language among the Mongols was so strong that some individuals educated in the monasteries never even learned the Uighur-Mongol script, using the Tibetan script instead to write their Mongolian-language notes in documents dating from the late seventeenth century.41 The Mongols’ interaction with the Indo-Tibetan tradition further led to the invention of several new and more or less ephemeral scripts. In 1686, a socially prominent Khalkha Mongol called Öndür Gegen (1635–1723), who accepted Manchu rule in 1691, invented the soyombo script, structurally similar to Tibetan and the Indic scripts.42 It never enjoyed widespread usage. Öndür Gegen is said to also have invented another script more obviously inspired by ‘Phags-pa.43 The Manchus adopted and reformed the Uighur-Mongol script in the early seventeenth century, around the same time that the Uighur-Mongol

To Follow Fuxi or Kubilai Khan?

27

script was complemented by the galik alphabet and reformed into the “clear script” in Mongolia. Their choice to follow Mongolian precedent rather than that of the Chinese or Koreans suggests that we should look for the roots of their script reform in the scholarly tradition that flourished in Mongolia in their day. Yet as successors to the Jurchen empire that had ruled northern China, the early Manchus were also aware of the intertwined history of writing and statecraft in their own region.

The Commitment of Manchu to Writing Under Nurhaci, 1583–1626 Most impor tant for the development of Manchu writing and literacy were the mutually reinforcing tendencies toward territorial expansion and administrative centralization in the Jurchen (later Manchu) state. Before the Manchus emerged as a political power, Manchuria was nominally under Ming control, but in reality the Chinese had a very weak administrative presence there.44 Despite the destruction of the Jin state in the thirteenth century, the Jurchen maintained at least limited use of their written language for several generations. The Jianzhou 建州 Jurchen, thus called in reference to the Ming administrative name for the area, submitted documents in Jurchen to the Korean court as late as 1434. However, there was a strong, and growing, influence of Mongolian culture in the area. In 1444, a Jurchen in Ming ser vice memorialized Beijing with the request that communication be handled in “Tartar” (Dada zi 達達字), meaning Mongolian.45 A few decades later, the Jianzhou Jurchen were unable to read a Jurchenscript document brought to them by the Koreans.46 It is thus understandable that the Koreans thereafter dispatched their letters in both Jurchen and Mongolian.47 Literacy, in whatever language, does not appear to have been high among the Jianzhou Jurchen at this time, judging by the fact that they sent nearly unintelligible missives to the Koreans.48 Yet there were “intelligent and discerning” individuals in the region. A Ming regional military commissioner in Jianzhou in the 1570s is said to have been “capable of understanding the language and writing of Chinese and subjects [fan 番],” perhaps indicating Mongolian.49 From 1583, Nurhaci (1559–1626) emerged as the leader of the Jianzhou Jurchen. By the end of Nurhaci’s life, his state was in open rivalry with the Ming empire in the south.50 Nurhaci had, in his youth, lived in a

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Chinese household, possibly as a captive, and most certainly knew how to both speak and read Chinese.51 The Jurchen leader’s entourage, furthermore, included individuals literate in Chinese, but, with only one Chinese scribe employed as of 1596, the knowledge of the language’s literary register appeared low to Korean observers.52 As late as 1619, a Korean prisoner of war wrote in a report to the Chosŏn king, “Only Mongolian writing [sŏ 书] is known among the [Manchu] barbarians [Ho 胡]; in general, records are all kept in Mongolian script. When they send letters to our country, they first draft it in Mongolian script, and then Chinese people [Hwain 华人] translate it using the literary script [munja 文字].”53 This account substantiates the inference that key components of Nurhaci’s project of state-building were not Chinese, but Mongolian in inspiration.54 The project involved instituting a literate bureaucracy. Nurhaci took steps in that direction in 1621 when he designated eight individuals as preceptors (baksi)55 responsible for teaching literacy to children in their respective military units. This group, the first professional teachers that we know of in Manchu history, 56 was instrumental in the development of the written language. The appointment of preceptors coincided roughly, perhaps even precisely, with the creation of the earliest documents in the extant Manchu archive, which refer to events that took place in 1607 but might have been written in the 1620s.57 Unfortunately, the early documents themselves do not tell us how the keeping of records began. The earliest mention of writing taking place is a reference to the erection of a stele in 1608 (suwayan bonio aniya), the text of which might have been in Chinese only.58 Erdeni (d. 1623), who “took down by recording in writing every kind of good policy enacted by the wise and great enlightened Khan [Nurhaci],”59 is the most well known of the individuals who kept records in Nurhaci’s young state. He appears to have been Mongol in the sense that he knew Mongolian, had Mongolian ancestry, and had a Mongolian name. He might, however, have grown up in an area where Chinese was widely spoken and used in writing.60 Erdeni was perhaps responsible for putting together the early volumes in the extant archive.61 In that capacity, he probably also influenced the writing practices of the budding Manchu administration. Evaluations of Erdeni written after his death suggest that he, being competent in Mongolian, initially resisted shifting the keeping of records to Manchu. Indeed, by the turn of the seventeenth century, the Mongols probably already possessed a

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“fairly elaborate legal technolect,” which the Manchus had adopted.62 Shifting from Mongolian to Manchu meant developing a written language suitable for administrative purposes as succinct and unambiguous as the Mongolian style the scribes had been using up until that point. Such a shift was not easily accomplished, and Erdeni’s and others’ reluctance to carry it out is understandable. In later accounts, Erdeni was contrasted with other officials of the early Manchu state, who tended to emulate Chinese rather than Mongolian models. It is worth asking from where Erdeni drew his supposedly Mongolian ideas and inspiration, but unfortunately we know so little about him. His name, ultimately from Sanskrit and meaning “jewel,”63 suggests that he might have had a Buddhist background. Indeed, Xie Guozhen 謝國禎 (1901–82), the pioneering historian of the Qing period, conjectured that “the Manchu script was created by Mongolian monks,”64 a group that might have included Erdeni. Given the background of earlier creators of new written languages in Inner Asia like ‘Phags-pa, or later ones like Zaya Pandita, it is tempting to infer that Erdeni too might have at least received a religious education. The written Manchu of Erdeni’s time has been called “old Manchu” or Manchu “without dots and circles” (tongki fuka akû), referring to the diacritics that were later added to the script to disambiguate certain sounds. The script of Old Manchu was very close to the Uighur-Mongol script, although the actual ductus seen in the early Manchu documents does not feature the sharp angles associated with Mongolian writing. Despite its accomplishments, Erdeni’s career as a court scribe ended abruptly. On 31 May 1623 (Tianming 8/5/3), he was executed by Nurhaci on charges of corruption.65 The affair involved “Preceptor Erdeni[’s being] denounced by a female servant of his household, who said that he had received silk sent from Korea” and had hidden pearls and gold in the house of his wife’s kin.66 Erdeni was summoned by Nurhaci and asked to surrender the goods in return for clemency, but he denied the accusations, claiming a legitimate origin for his riches. Nurhaci was ill pleased: “The Khan, enraged, said: ‘Kill Preceptor Erdeni and his wife!,’ and had them both killed.”67 Nurhaci then “summoned the Princes and officials” (beise ambasa be isabufi)68 and justified the harsh punishment enacted. Nurhaci stressed the need to keep the circulation of spoils and wealth (such as Erdeni’s pearls) within the channels established by the banner system, pointing out the need for a strong central authority.

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This story was later rewritten into a very different context, in which Erdeni’s achievements as a recordkeeper and writer were also asserted. Ultimately, it influenced the narrative of Erdeni and Nurhaci as creators of written Manchu.

The Reform of Manchu Writing Under Hong Taiji, 1626–43 Hong Taiji, Nurhaci’s son, continued his father’s efforts at centralization in the polity that he in 1636 named the “Great clear” (Ch. Da Qing) or “Martial” (Mo. Daičing) state, and which is nowadays called the Qing empire.69 Under Hong Taiji’s rule, written Manchu developed as the means of expression in an expanding civil bureaucracy that had intimate contact with Mongolian, Chinese, and Korean populations. Plurilingual frontiersmen facilitated communication between the competing polities of the Manchu, Ming, and Chosŏn in a contested region where northern vernacular Chinese functioned as a lingua franca.70 Hong Taiji himself had great familiarity with Mongolian literary culture,71 and engaged critically with the Tibetan Buddhist faith that flourished among the Mongolian nobility.72 In 1629 Hong Taiji founded the Literary Institute (Ma. Bithei boo, Ch. Shufang 書房; later, Ma. Bithei yamun, Ch. Wenguan 文館),73 employing in time preceptors, “scribes” (bithesi), and Chinese scholars (šusai, from xiucai 秀才, “licentiate”).74 In 1631, Hong Taiji ordered the organization of Six Boards on the Ming model. Their employ included, in addition to scribes, also interpreters (tungse).75 When the Qing state was proclaimed, the Literary Institute was divided into three agencies, one of which was the Palace Historiographic Academy (Nei Guoshi Yuan 內國史院). This agency was responsible for, among other things, recording the affairs of government; communicating with other states; and compiling historical records and grave epitaphs for members of the ruling lineage.76 Writing was at the center of its activities, and it was instrumental in forging a narrative of the origins of the Manchu written language. Hong Taiji took measures to expand the teaching of Manchu literacy beyond what his father had done a decade earlier. In 1631, he issued an order that all male members of the banners aged eight to fifteen sui should receive schooling in the system initiated under Nurhaci. Indeed, documents from 1632 and 1633 make it clear that a school system was in operation at that time. It not only taught students how to read and write, but also tested them in

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examinations intended to select scribes for government ser vice. The fact that knowledge of literary Chinese was still very poor among most scribes shows that the students who were coming up through the schools were mainly trained in the Manchu language. It is possible that, in this early period, most teachers in the banner schools came from the banner army’s Chinese contingent (the so-called Hanjun 漢軍). The teachers would have selected passages from Chinese books and translated them into Manchu for use in the classroom.77 Hong Taiji’s court practiced printing, as well as the continued use of seals.78 After Korea was defeated, for example, the Chosŏn king received a seal to use on his communications with the Manchu court. The text on the seal, “Seal of the king of Chosŏn” (coohiyan gurun-i wang-i doron), had no Chinese version.79 Longer texts were printed by means of xylography. Printed Manchu books might have included some of the translations of Chinese books that were ordered in the early 1630s and at least partially finished by 1636.80 Hard evidence of printing at this time comes, moreover, from extant proclamations forbidding the use of tobacco from 1639.81 There is also written material from Hong Taiji’s reign of a type—wooden tablets—that probably existed also under Nurhaci, but has not survived from the earlier period. The oblong tablets are inscribed with a few Manchu sentences each, roughly corresponding to two to four lines of text in the paper documents. The extant tablets relate events from battles with the Ming in 1636 and 1638, when we can infer they were also inscribed.82 In the early days of Manchu-language administration, it appears that day-to-day records were taken first on such tablets and later recorded on paper. The tablets that do exist, however, were created at a time when paper was becoming increasingly available to the Manchu government. Rather than representing drafts for the archive, they were likely communications sent among parties in the field.83 On the basis of these varied sources we can infer that Hong Taiji’s officials wrote, inscribed, and printed a substantial amount of Manchu using various media. As the bureaucracy expanded and schooling became institutionalized, the written language was to some extent reformed and standardized.84 Spelling became less idiosyncratic and several new graphs were introduced to disambiguate certain vowels (e.g., o from u) and consonants (e.g., t from d). Vowel harmony was much weaker in Manchu than in Mongolian, so the ambiguities that resulted from several vowels being written using one sign seem to have appeared more troublesome to the Manchus than it had to their

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western neighbors. In the 1620s and 1630s, scholars and scribes invented a few new signs and disambiguated several of the existing ones by adding diacritical dots and circles either to the left or the right of the written column of text.85 Only some of the scribes and scholars involved in changing written Manchu from the early 1620s to the early 1630s can be identified today. The Literary Institute was the center for the reform; Hong Taiji knew little about the particulars and might not even have been very supportive of it.86 Kûrcan (fl. 1601–33), the leader of a Manchu company (niru) since 1601, was appointed to the Literary Institute after having assumed several military and diplomatic charges. It is possible that Kûrcan succeeded Erdeni as responsible for the overall editing of the state archive.87 He was skilled in spoken Chinese, proclaiming Hong Taiji’s orders to the Ming enemy in that language, and was awarded the title of preceptor for his knowledge of written Chinese.88 Yet early in 1633 (Tiancong 7/1/17), Kûrcan was executed upon conviction of several crimes, the most serious of which was his secret care for the severed remains of a friend of his, a condemned and executed military official of Chinese background.89 Another of the scribes involved in the reform of written Manchu was Dahai (c. 1595–1632), who might have been Chinese.90 Like some other Chinese children in southern Manchuria, Dahai might have been kidnapped by the Manchus on his way home from (Chinese) school.91 At a young age, Dahai was employed in the Literary Institute because of his good knowledge of Chinese. It was probably for the same reason that he was in frequent contact with visiting Chosŏn representatives, who knew the regional lingua franca.92 His talents were deemed so valuable that Nurhaci in 1620 spared his life after condemning him to death for “being intimate with and receiving presents from a maid-servant.”93 Dahai was at some point severely punished, perhaps as a result of this incident.94 In 1631, with Nurhaci long dead, Dahai was given the title of preceptor. Dahai translated Chinese books into Manchu, a task that inspired him to make some editorial choices with regards to the use of the Manchu script. He died of illness in 1632.95 In the original archive, several texts (printed and manuscript) from the early 1630s talk about the reform of Manchu orthography and its organization into a syllabary, in one case mentioning Dahai by name. One entry of printed text described the reform as the result of deliberation by an anonymous group of “learned” (margese) while hinting at the reform’s trial-and-error process.96

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On the same printed sheet, however, another document (written between February and 24 April 1632 [Tiancong 6/1–3])97 is found that mentions Dahai. It states that the script “did not originally have dots and circles,” referring to the diacritics characteristic of reformed Manchu. “Although understanding in accordance with the right sound is easy in case of plain speech and documents,” the document continues, “in the case of the names of places and people, one may not deviate” from the proper reading. Therefore, Dahai, “following the ruler’s order, distinguished [the graphs] by adding dots and circles” during 20 February–20 March  1632 (Tianzong 6/1).98 The document suggests that Dahai had received an order to standardize foreign toponyms and personal names, whose reading was unintuitive to the Manchus. Dahai’s efforts were, in a sense, the capstone of the reform of written Manchu, which had probably been under way since 1623. Yet the habits of the young state’s budding officialdom changed slowly. Unreformed Manchu continued to be used intermittently until 1637.99 By 1639, Korean interpreters reported to their superiors that the reformed script was in general use among the Manchus: “The writing now in use among them was created by the previous Khan. It is vocalized using Manchu sounds, and its script has the general appearance of Mongolian writing, but with substantial differences in the dots and strokes.”100 The early sources do not say much more about the Manchu script and its history. Beginning in the 1630s and continuing into the eighteenth century, the disparate original documents that mentioned the reform of the script were stitched together to form a seamless chronological narrative of the political history of the early Manchu state.

The “Main Sequence” and the Origin of Written Manchu, 1636–c. 1800 Sorting out what really happened when the Manchu language entered the historical record as the language of state in the developing Qing polity might very well be an impossible task. Part of the story was probably lost to history when Erdeni was executed for corruption in the spring of 1623. When Dahai passed away in 1632, the young state’s recordkeepers were aware that a lack of rules and precedent led to the irretrievable loss of information. After Dahai died (1 January 1633; Tiancong 6/11/21), the civil official

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Li Qifeng 李棲鳳 (1594–1664) wrote that at that time “the documents [were] still all as Dahai left them.” Yet Li was alarmed that “now after Dahai’s illness and passing, the organization at the Literary Institute [Shufang] actually does not include anyone charged specifically with Dahai’s desk, and people can wantonly move around the documents stored there.”101 Some of Dahai’s papers probably got lost at this time. Records of the man himself, however, remained in court annals, but they were for a long time not widely available. During the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, the period in focus in this book, knowledge of the origin of written Manchu was limited to a few anecdotes weaved into a political narrative. Manchu historiography and the creation of the streamlined “main sequence”102 of this narrative arguably began in the 1630s. Hong Taiji, who substantially reformed the administrative apparatus left to him by his father, was unhappy with some of his officials, including Kûrcan, for interpreting the expansion of a civil bureaucracy to mean that the state was moving closer to a Chinese model. Hong Taiji held the late Erdeni up as a model official, implicitly criticizing his father’s execution of the man. A “comment” (sume henduhe gisun) in two parts was appended to the preexisting record of Erdeni’s execution, probably representing the words of Hong Taiji.103 It read, in its first part, “Preceptor Erdeni came to serve the holy Khan [i.e., Nurhaci], who pulled him close and put him to work on the meaning [jurgan] of the documents. As Erdeni was bright and wise, he was later promoted. . . . For a small crime he was killed along with his wife.”104 The second part of the comment followed in smaller handwriting. “Speaking not of Erdeni’s other achievements, but only of his achievements with the documents,”105 Hong Taiji said, “Erdeni . . . seems to have been sent by fate to the holy Khan [to work] on the various Jurchen and Mongol documents.”106 Perhaps criticizing his late father, Hong Taiji said that Erdeni had died as a result of rash action taken on the basis of accusations by people who did not have a nuanced view of right and wrong. Upon its founding in 1636, the Palace Historiographic Academy compiled a collection of files,107 through which we can follow Hong Taiji’s continued praise of Erdeni. It is in Hong Taiji’s retelling of an apparently familiar story that we find the first record of the creation of written Manchu. Under a date corresponding to 11 November 1633 (Tiancong 7/10/10), Hong Taiji is recorded as ordering his clerks (bithesi) to honestly record political and military events and report transgressions by their superiors, but

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refrain from meddling in matters of military strategy.108 Hong Taiji seems set on enforcing a division of labor according to which the scribes, familiar with bureaucratic and perhaps Chinese culture, should record actions for which the Manchu rulership was solely responsible. In this context, Hong Taiji mentions the creation of written Manchu as an act by the ruler that should be properly recorded in the archive. The relevant passage reads as follows: In the past, at the time of my father the Khan [in a later interpolation: the Great Progenitor Emperor (i.e., Nurhaci)], he said that he wanted to create Manchu documents. After Preceptor Erdeni had refused and said that it was impossible, my father, the Khan, said [the latter word has been blocked out and replaced with “ordered”]: “Why would it be impossible? If we put a underneath ma, is it not ama, ‘ father’? If we put e underneath me, is it not eme, ‘mother’? I have made up my mind; stop refusing.” Erdeni then made the changes [in a later interpolation: to the Mongol writing]. Before him, there was no Manchu writing. Erdeni was an outstanding wise man of his generation; there are no such good men today. Admittedly, the documents that he produced were true [jurgan]. Although I would agree that Preceptor Kûrcan has done something, in that he has continued this work, I do not think that what he has produced is true. You scribes, who write documents with regulations, you should open and look at the documents that you have written; if they are wrong in places, you should improve them using your own heart! I have succeeded my father, the Khan [the Great Progenitor Emperor on the throne]. If I do not record every one of my father’s deeds in the way of governance and the movements of the army completely in the documents, depositing it under the name of history, then I would not be filial; descendants in later generations would have no way of knowing of these deeds.109 This passage is, as far as I am aware, the earliest explicit account of the invention of Manchu writing. It goes beyond stating that Erdeni was a good scribe or official to explain how Nurhaci ordered him to write in Manchu. Hong Taiji’s point is that Erdeni was a man of outstanding abilities, whom

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the officials at his own court, including the Chinese-leaning Kûrcan, could not and cannot match. The focus of the story cited by Hong Taiji is not that Nurhaci would have invented the principles of Manchu orthography, but that Erdeni was able to carry out the order. Rather than a record of Nurhaci’s genius, I think we should read Nurhaci’s instruction to Erdeni as an example of the ruler using a condescending, patronizing tone with his officials, which was common to the genre of imperial pronouncements not just in the Qing period. The forging of the “main sequence” reached an important milestone in 1636 with the compilation of the Veritable records of Nurhaci by a group of officials supervised by the Mongolian expert and high official Hife (c. 1589– 1652).110 The Records were the chronicles of the Qing imperial house. Access to the few manuscript copies kept by the court was restricted. Yet since teams of court scholars were successively put to work on the Records, copies eventually trickled out from the palace.111 The Nurhaci Veritable records presented the following account of the creation of written Manchu. It features Erdeni and a certain G’ag’ai, of whom not much is known. Very late sources say that G’ag’ai was executed by Nurhaci for plotting rebellion already in 1599,112 after which he seems to disappear from the historical record. His name is clearly foreign (Tibetan?) and his title, jargûci, “judge,” was Mongolian (Mo. ǰarγuči). The account in the Veritable records reworked the story that Hong Taiji told his scribes in late 1633 (Tiancong 7) about the beginning of Manchu recordkeeping under Nurhaci. Whereas Hong Taiji had originally stressed the importance of accurate documentation for political continuity and the legitimacy of policy, the editors of the Veritable records, by means of editorial sleight of hand that was not isolated to this instance,113 turned it into a story of script creation on the model of the dynastic histories of the Jin and Yuan: When the Great Progenitor [taidzu], the Wise Prince [sure beile] [Nurhaci], in the second month of the year of the yellow pig [sohon ulgiyan] [25 February–25 March 1599] expressed the wish to change Mongol writing and write in the Manchu language, Preceptor Erdeni and Judge G’ag’ai spoke, protesting and answering: “Because [we, the Manchus] have learned the writing of the Mongols, [we] are expected to know it. Why now change the script that has come down from antiquity?” The Great Progenitor, the Wise Prince, answered:

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“When [one] reads the writing of the Chinese state aloud, people knowing Chinese writing and people not knowing it all understand. When [one] reads the writing of the Mongolian state aloud, those who know and those who do not know the writing of the Mongolian state also all understand! When [we] read our documents as Mongols, people who have not studied the documents [produced in Mongolian in] our state will not understand! If we [would instead] write in the language of our state [that is, in Manchu], why would it be difficult? Why would only the language of the Mongolian state be easy?” Judge G’ag’ai and Preceptor Erdeni protested and answered: “If [we] write the language of our state it would be good indeed. [But] because within ourselves, [having already learned to write in Mongolian,] we are unable to change to writing in Manchu, we are prone to resisting [the change].” The Great Progenitor, the Wise Prince, said: “Write the letter called a! If we put ma under a, is it not ama ‘ father’? Write the letter called e! If we put me under e, is it not eme ‘mother’? I have made up my mind; try and write it yourselves—it works!” By that sole objection, the documents that had been read in the manner of the Mongols were changed using the Manchu language. Thus the Great Progenitor, the Wise Prince, brought Manchu documents into existence for the first time, and promulgated them in the Manchu state.114 Wanyan Xiyin created the Jurchen script for the Great Progenitor of the Jin, ‘Phags-pa had done the same for Kubilai, and now Erdeni was presented as having done it for Nurhaci, Great Progenitor of the Qing. The rewriting of the story of document creation into one of script creation is explained by Hong Taiji’s interest in the history of the Jin around this period of momentous political and institutional change. On 9 December 1636 (Chongde 1/11/13), Hong Taiji told an assembly of relatives and officials to consider the recently translated records of the rule of the fifth khan of the Jin, the Generational Ancestor Wulu (Shizong 世宗; r. 1161–89), who “was judged a good ruler by both Chinese and Mongols,”115 ascended the throne after the Jin conquest of North China, and, like Hong Taiji, experienced a tension between Chinese and Inner Asian traditions of statecraft.

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As told in the translated Wulu records, the Jin ruler wanted Jurchen boys to be sent to the ancestral homeland to study the Jurchen language (nioi jy gisun hese be tacifi) and maintain the old customs.116 Similarly, Hong Taiji said that in his time officials like Kûrcan and Dahai had jeopardized the state by urging assimilation to Chinese ways. In this context of translating and relying on the published History of the Jin (and those of the Liao and Yuan, translated at the same time),117 a document that originally sought to stress Erdeni’s close relationship with Nurhaci (despite the fact that it ended in execution) and the veracity of his records in contrast with those of the disgraced Kûrcan was transformed into a history of script invention modeled on those found in the histories of the Jurchen and Mongols. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this episode circulated most widely in secondhand Chinese versions in official history books. Given their language, their source was probably the Chinese translation of the Records. Several Chinese versions were made. Varying in the details, they all retained the gist: Nurhaci wanted to write the Manchu language using the Mongol script, which he achieved after overcoming the obstinacy of his Mongolophone officials by making reference to the existence of native written languages among the Manchus’ neighbors. The earlier Chinese translations were also faithful to the original Manchu in that they had Nurhaci show the officials by example how the Mongol script could be used to write Manchu.118 The next moment in the development of written Manchu that was well known in the Qing period was the reform of the script. The reform gave the Manchu script the unique appearance that distinguished it from Mongolian. The received record stated that the Manchu script was reformed sometime between 1629 and 1632 by Dahai. The source is again the Veritable records, which were compiled for Hong Taiji’s reign beginning in 1652 (a few years after the government was moved to Beijing), finished before 1655, and later revised until 1739.119 In the story of Dahai’s reform of the Manchu script, cracks in the “main sequence” would have been apparent for a careful reader already in the Qing period. Notably, the reform was not given the same date in the different versions of the Hong Taiji Veritable records.120 The Records further innovated by presenting Hong Taiji as having already conceptualized the reform before giving Dahai the order to execute it.121 In the final Chinese translation of the Records, better known than the Manchu original in the Qing period, Hong Taiji’s agency was increased further as the description of the state of

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the writing system was presented as the ruler’s direct order to Dahai. Hong Taiji has already thought of it all, we are to infer; Dahai is but his vehicle.122 The final version of the Hong Taiji Records was arguably an early product of what with hindsight appears as the Qianlong emperor’s (1711–99, r. 1735–96) great editorial program of rewriting the history of Manchu culture and institutions. Several other works destined for a general readership appeared from the palace printshop that reaffirmed the “main sequence” of the events constituting the emergence of written Manchu. Additional confusion was introduced in the process, which contributed to a garbled narrative of Manchu’s early history reaching Europe when scholars there took an interest in the story. If even the scholars at the Qianlong court, who were working with direct access to the Records and probably other archival sources too, could be confused by the script’s early history, the first generation of Chinese scholars to publish on the Manchu language after the conquest often knew even less, as the statements by Liao Lunji and Yang Bin that I quoted in the introduction to this chapter show. Xiong Shibo, another scholar from South China who will be the central figure of Chapter 3, assumed in 1709 that the inventors of Manchu had proceeded ex nihilo, as it were, and fashioned a writing system out of the descending diagonal stroke (pie 撇) so common in the Chinese script.123 The historical works sponsored by Qianlong in the eighteenth century reaffirmed the creation of a Manchu administration, supported by the translation of relevant historical treatises, as a key moment in the history of Manchu state-building. The documents that remained from before the conquest of Beijing in 1644, disordered and difficult to interpret, were edited into a continuous narrative, but kept secret in a few manuscript copies under imperial control. Certain works were for public consumption, even though some of them were, at the same time, tools for streamlining the costly banner apparatus at a time of increasing demographic and financial pressures.124 Qianlong continued projects begun under his predecessor and sponsored genealogical, geographical, and political histories of the Manchus. At the same time as the revised Veritable records were finished, work was also completed on what would become the first installment of the Comprehensive treatises of the eight banners (Baqi tongzhi 八旗通志 | jakûn gûsai tung jy), in progress since 1727. This book, which contained biographies of Erdeni, Dahai, and other individuals associated with the early development of written Manchu,

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in several places confused the history more than the shifting of dates in the Veritable records had done. Giving in, perhaps, to the desire for a single origin, the book grouped Dahai with Erdeni as both having developed written Manchu on Nurhaci’s order. In addition, the compilers of Baqi tongzhi introduced one more change. The book, published in both Manchu and Chinese at a time when the latter language was becoming more familiar to metropolitan Manchus than their ancestral tongue, had elided its Mongolian origins entirely in one of its mentions of the creation of written Manchu. Instead, the post-conquest ManchuChinese linguistic diarchy was read into the early days of the dynasty. As in the accounts with which I opened this chapter, the development of Manchu writing was there associated with the civilizing achievements of Chinese antiquity. The story read in part: Our Lofty Progenitor Emperor inaugurated the imperial sovereignty, personally creating the dynastic script [Ch. guoshu 國書; Ma. gurun-i bithe] in order to enlighten the officials and the people. Manchu and Chinese writing were then practiced both at court and in the provinces. Thus he connected to sagely heaven, arisen in remote antiquity, revealing the absolute heights anew in our time. The generation that then emerged with enlightened individuals who continued [this work] included Preceptors Dahai, Erdeni, and others who are famous in our time. In concert, they fulfilled the Great Progenitor’s sagely will and helped to bring about the characters of the documents [bithei hergen]. Thereafter, the Four books and Five classics could one by one be laid out and translated.125 In this account, the creation of the Manchu written language is completed by the translation of the Confucian canon into Manchu. Mongolian has no place in it. The emperor’s Ode to Mukden (Shengjing fu 盛京賦 | mukden-i fujurun bithe; 1743), which, true to its genre, listed flora, fauna, and sights, also namedropped a few outstanding individuals from the heroic period before the conquest of Beijing, including Hife and Dahai. The officials writing the commentary for the ostensibly imperial ode made a mistake on the basis of an ambiguous formulation in the biography of Dahai that was on file at the

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Historiography Institute, erroneously dating his work on the script to 1641 (Chongde 6), years after his death, instead of 1632 (Tiancong 6).126 Other major works of imperial historiography also touched on the essential Qing institution of the Manchu written language. The Strategic narrative of the founding of the nation (Huang Qing kaiguo fanglüe 皇清開國方略 | daicing gurun-i fukjin doro neihe bodogon-i bithe), commissioned in 1774 and published in 1786, for instance, included mentions of the creation of the dynastic script (dated to 1599) and of the translation of selections from the histories of the Song, Liao, Jin, and Yuan (1635).127 None of that material, however, was new. The Researches on Manchu origins (Manzhou yuanliu kao 滿洲源流考), initiated in 1777 and published in 1783, was more innovative. In this book, Qianlong speculated on the relationship between the Manchu script and the Jurchen script used by the Manchus’ ancestors under the Jin. His scholars, after investigation of the issue, concluded that there was no relationship between these writing systems.128 From around 1800, finally, scholars without a court affiliation could read the Veritable records’ account of the invention of the script in Jiang Liangqi’s 蔣良騏 (1723–89) Donghua lu 東華錄 (Records from [inside] Donghua [gate]), put together from sources at Jiang’s place of work, the State Historiographer’s Office (Guoshi Guan 國史館), and circulating in manuscript until its printing in 1844.129 At this time, the Qing dynasty was already more than two centuries old. Scholars in Europe and Japan, furthermore, also learned about the early history of written Manchu only belatedly.

The Early History of Manchu in Foreign Accounts By the second half of the eighteenth century, foreign scholars also had some knowledge of the origin of the Manchu script. The Donghua lu reached Japan, where Kondō Jūzō 近藤重蔵 (1771–1829) read it and found out about Nurhaci’s order to Erdeni.130 Selections of the early Qing Veritable records, moreover, were even printed in Japan in 1799 and 1807, probably on the basis of a manuscript copy that had entered the country via the Ningbo-Nagasaki merchant route.131 In Europe, the account in Qianlong’s Ode to Mukden was the first to be made widely available. In Joseph-Marie Amiot’s132 (1718–93) translation, this book was at least partially responsible for the errors in early European ac-

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counts of the history of the Manchu script. Amiot, who is remembered for his research on Chinese music, among other things, arrived in China in 1750.133 In his translation of Qianlong’s Ode that was published in 1770, he commented on some personages mentioned in the original Manchu text, writing that Hife worked on the translation of historical works into Manchu after the conquest of Beijing, and that Dahai, Erdeni, and a certain “Paksi” had worked on improving the Manchu script.134 In 1790, Amiot wrote at greater length on the script’s history, introducing new mistakes in the process.135 The errors notwithstanding, Amiot retained the strong association between written Manchu and state-building in pre-conquest Manchuria. When academic Sinology came of age in the early nineteenth century, Amiot was criticized as part of the great reappraisal of the work of an earlier generation of students of Manchu, which I will discuss in Chapter 8.136

Conclusion The early history of the Manchu script was not well known either in China or abroad during the first century and a half following the conquest of Beijing. Yet both the Qing court chroniclers in the 1630s and Chinese and Manchu writers of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries understood the written language as sprung from a plurilingual context, with the history of older writing systems (Mongolian, Chinese, Jurchen, ‘Phags-pa) providing important precedents to draw on. The paucity of information on the early history of written Manchu meant, however, that the first generations of Manchu pedagogues and lexicographers, who were often Chinese, had very little to go by as they went about explaining and presenting the new language. Notably, few had any familiarity with Mongolian. The Manchu script presented itself to them as a given. As the following few chapters will show, they explained it using the intellectual resources at their disposal, which they inherited largely from the study of the Chinese written tradition and developed to suit new needs.

Chapter 2

The Beijing Origins of Manchu Language Pedagogy, 1668–1730

I am Chinese, still I have loved Manchu books all my life. —Shen Qiliang in 1683

When the Qing army “entered the pass” (ru guan 入關) in the Great Wall to invade China proper in 1644, one of the technologies of governance that they brought with them was the written Manchu language. Communications between the center and the armies in the field were in Manchu, as was much of the recordkeeping. Manchu society, however, was unsettled in the early conquest years. After the defeat of the last Ming forces in the 1660s, former Chinese allies of the Manchus, now installed in the South, rose in rebellion in the 1670s. The banner armies were on the move, and even in Beijing, education was during the first decades after the conquest institutionalized only for the Manchu elite.1 With the country undergoing so much change, it was initially not clear what the linguistic order of Qing China would be like. In 1646, one Chinese official suggested that the Manchu language be promulgated throughout the country2—something that later Western observers regretted never happened.3 Manchu never supplanted literary Chinese in the state or in society at large, but some Chinese individuals took an interest in Manchu in the dynasty’s first century. Having already received an education in Chinese, they were the ones who introduced the Manchu language to a Chinese readership. This chapter focuses on the new, bilingual pedagogy that this group of scholars developed for readers who, like themselves, already knew how to read and write Chinese.

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The Chinese scholars took Manchu pedagogy, such as it existed, as their starting point. The key text was the Manchu syllabary in twelve sections. Called the “twelve heads” (Ma. juwan juwe uju; Ch. shier zitou 十二字頭), it was the gateway to written Manchu throughout the Qing period. Students of Manchu familiarized themselves with the syllabary before proceeding to read texts. Without knowledge of the syllabary, one could not use a graphologically arranged Manchu-Chinese dictionary. The “twelve heads” were also essential to the study of the Manchu script that developed in Europe and Japan. In China, scholars developed the Manchu syllabary from a teaching tool, intended for recitation and repetition, to a textbook in which the building blocks of the script were theorized as consisting of units smaller than syllables. The Chinese discourse that developed around the Manchu script in such books drew on the two traditions of Chinese grammatology and phonology. The grammatological tradition was based on written syllables subdividing into strokes and was, in the seventeenth century, manifest in graphologically organized dictionaries. From the Chinese phonological tradition, some Qing scholars borrowed the idea that the basic sound-bearing unit of the Manchu script, like that of Chinese, was the written syllable. Beneath the level of the syllable, those scholars recognized graphic constituents, strokes, which in themselves did not represent sounds. In other (or, indeed, in the same) analyses, written Manchu syllables were primarily understood as consisting of either one or two subsyllabic parts that, unlike strokes, did represent sound. Chapter  3 will explore the Chinese phonological tradition’s encounter with Manchu further. This chapter focuses on four individuals: Liu Dou, Liao Lunji, Shen Qiliang, and Wu-ge. Liu was Chinese but from an area of North China profoundly affected by the Manchu conquest. Liao and Shen were both Chinese civilians from the South, and both for a time worked as Chinese teachers in schools for bannermen. Shen, and probably Liu and Liao as well, studied the dynastic language with Manchu teachers in Beijing. At least Liu and Shen knew Manchu well. Wu-ge, finally, belonged to a later generation. A bannerman, Wu-ge also wrote primarily for bannermen. Yet in his day, the first language of many bannermen had shifted to Chinese, and so had their education. The linguistic background of Wu-ge’s readers was thus not necessarily very different from that of Chinese readers of the seventeenth century. The fact that the target audience of the books to be discussed in this chapter was already literate in Chinese explains why Manchu grammatology

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45

and pedagogy took the form it did at least from Shen onward. Notably, it explains why basic Manchu pedagogy in his and other books looks so different from the methods used to teach basic Chinese literacy at this time. Unlike learners of written Chinese, who began their studies as children not previously exposed to writing in any form, the readers of Shen’s textbook not only had already learned to read Chinese, but also had—or such was the expectation—been exposed to more advanced analyses of the Chinese script through grammatologically arranged dictionaries. Understanding Shen’s book requires first understanding Chinese linguistic study of the seventeenth century. This chapter begins with a description of basic Chinese-language pedagogy and of the analysis of the Chinese script encountered by more advanced users of the written language. Second, I will proceed to the basic Manchu curriculum that emerged as a fusion of pre-conquest pedagogical practice with the Chinese paradigm in the bilingual curriculum of the Qing banners. Third, I will treat the different pedagogical descriptions of the Manchu script seen in Liu’s and Liao’s syllabaries and Shen’s textbook, and contrast them. Finally, I will take the story of the Manchu script’s pedagogy beyond Shen Qiliang. After Shen, other pedagogues took a similar approach to the Manchu script, writing in a context in which also bannermen learned to read Chinese before they learned to read Manchu. To be sure, Shen’s approach never became the only approach to teaching the basics of Manchu. Yet even in pedagogical texts that relied more heavily on the recitations and oral instructions of a teacher, the trend in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was to accord writing—as opposed to reading—greater attention that had originally been the case.

Chinese Pedagogy Late imperial China was the inheritor of an ancient idea that language consisted of words, represented in writing by Chinese characters. A distinction was sometimes made between words with lexical meaning and words with primarily a grammatical meaning.4 By the late imperial period, the generic term for a written word, generally coterminous in the Chinese context with one Chinese character, was zi 字, but in antiquity it had been wen 文, which originally meant “pattern.” Ming 名, “name,” is also attested in early sources in reference to written words. Zi had originally meant “give birth to,” “treat

46

Chapter 2

as one’s own child,” or “care for,” but passing through the sense of “bestowing a courtesy name upon a young male,” it had come to mean “written Chinese logogram,” or character, for short.5 By the late imperial period, written characters, then, had long been referred to by a special term (zi). They were no longer thought of as an instance of a more general category (“names” or “patterns”). Especially in reference to Chinese characters in aggregate, scholars used the compound word wenzi 文字, which also serves as the term for “writing” or “written characters.” The declaration by one seventeenth-century writer that “the meaning and principles of the world are gathered in the written characters” shows that writing in the most general sense of the word was construed as an inclusive collection of wenzi.6 A basic recognition that language consisted of words of different meanings, which were in turn represented in writing by characters, provided a theoretical foundation for lexicography. One major genre of Chinese lexicography, and one that would influence both Manchu-language pedagogy and Manchu dictionaries, early on presented an analysis of Chinese characters as subdividing into strokes. Learning to read and write in late imperial China meant, on a theoretical level, to learn the meaning and pronunciation of characters. On a material level, it with time could mean gazing up toward inscriptions on stone or inscribed hanging scrolls. Yet most of all, learning to read and write meant reciting after a teacher, parent, or tutor, and—finances permitting—handling paper, brush and ink, and books. Like in early modern Europe, learning how to read and write in China retained a strong oral component, the advanced print culture notwithstanding.7 Elementary education had in China been extensively discussed since the Song dynasty (960–1279), prompting one authority to identify a “discovery of childhood” in this period, comparable to what we see in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.8 The teaching of writing was outlined in detail in Chinese educational treatises. Preparation for the teaching of the script was laid by training the students’ memory.9 A curriculum based on rote memorization in its early stages seems to have existed at least since the Song and to some extent throughout the late imperial period. Late imperial education in written Chinese was a prolonged process that began with the memorization of texts and of the sound of individual characters in early childhood, continued with the reading of a few common primers for their content and instruction in writing simple characters, and

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essentially ended with the reading of either more difficult Confucian books or books intended for various professions. Learning to read preceded learning to write, and reading began by reciting after the teacher in what has been called the “aural-oral” paradigm.10 The teacher recited a text bit by bit and the students repeated after him or her until all of it had been committed to memory.11 In some cases, there might have been little exposure to actual written text at this stage; the teacher was certainly reading from a book, but the students might just have initially repeated what the teacher recited. Yet even when students had a wealthyenough background to have their own books from the very beginning, focus was initially on memorization.12 Memorizing single words or pieces of text sometimes began very early, perhaps already at ages two to three in some cases. Late imperial writers often criticized this method, which they themselves had experienced.13 After around two thousand characters had been memorized in the sense that the students could recognize and vocalize them, they started reading with the purpose of understanding the text. The most common texts used for this purpose were Qianzi wen 千字文 (Thousand-character essay), Sanzi jing 三字經 (The three-character classic), and Baijia xing 百家姓 (The hundred surnames).14 The two former books were in parallel prose, making the text easy to parse, and had a morally edifying content. Baijia xing was little more than a list of surnames. To teach how to write, teachers began by letting the students draw structurally simple characters with a brush, such as shang 上, “up”; da 大, “big”; and ren 人, “person.”15 Changes in pedagogical practice in the Qing period included an increased intention paid to the teaching of how to write characters. With the goal of improving retention of the lessons, students were to a greater extent asked to recognize individual characters rather than reciting passages of texts following the teacher’s lead.16 The activity of looking at written characters thereby became more familiar to students of a progressively younger age in the Qing period. Students usually learned ten or so characters per day.17 Calligraphy, the drawing of characters in the aesthetically sanctioned manner, was an impor tant aspect of learning how to write. For elite male learners, calligraphy was essential, as mastery of the regular script was demanded in the civil ser vice examinations. First, students learned the proper positioning of the body and the holding of the brush. A good brush consisted of three layers of hair of different stiffness. Paper

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came in different qualities, the kinds most appropriate for writing having long fibers and thus being relatively sturdy. Characters were written using ink made most often from soot and a gluelike binder, which were mixed and pressed into cakes. To make the ink usable, the cake was ground using water and a stone.18 One reason for delaying the practice of actually drawing characters until a relatively late stage in the education process was the difficulty of handling the writing implements. The teacher taught the student to hold the brush by holding his hand and drawing characters for him.19 After the students had been allowed to hold the brush themselves, the movements necessary for drawing characters were repeated to the point that they became instinctual. To achieve such mastery, students were not initially asked to write stroke by stroke. For advanced learners, however, writing stroke by stroke implied a segmentation of the Chinese characters into a limited set of components. The components were taught to the student as dots and strokes to be written using the brush in a certain order.20 In artistic (as opposed to educational) calligraphy, changes in writing implements, format, and esthetics in the late Ming period had the consequence that technical terms appeared for new kinds of strokes, such as the “vertical hook” (shugou 豎勾). Through calligraphy, the preexisting paradigm of understanding Chinese characters as consisting of dots and strokes was complemented with a paradigm considering them made up of (connected) lines.21

Segmentation of the Chinese Script in Dictionaries Calligraphy was an art form that not all learners of Chinese practiced to the extent that they were exposed to its technical vocabulary. More students were probably exposed to Chinese dictionaries, which taught a similar segmentation of the Chinese script. It directly influenced the pedagogy of Manchu textbooks. When Manchu textbooks started to appear in the last decades of the seventeenth century, the by far most famous Chinese dictionary was Mei Yingzuo’s 梅膺祚 (n.d.) Zihui 字彙 (The characters collected) from 1615. Mei’s “Statement of editorial principles” explained that “the strokes of characters are discussed in terms of where the tip of the brush is applied and removed. For example, 乚 (pronounced yin) and 𠃌 (pronounced fan) only have one

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49

stroke. The character 阝(pronounced yi when on the right side and fu when on the left), by contrast, is made up of three strokes, which is what distinguishes it from 卩 (pronounced jie) [which is made up of only two strokes].”22 Through these examples, Mei explained that Chinese characters were composed of fixed numbers of strokes of the brush. Change one stroke, and you will be dealing with a different character altogether. The analysis that Mei laid out was exemplified further in the section “Moving the brush” (yunbi 運筆), which came before the main body of the dictionary. Mei discussed the drawing— and thereby implicitly the structure—of characters stroke by stroke. The character mu 畞 (a unit of land mea surement), for instance, was explained as a combination of 十 (shi), 田 (tian), and 久 (jiu), three structural components that here figured entirely independently of their pronunciation as characters in their own right. 23 Mei’s instructions taught the reader the principles by which words were arranged in the dictionary. Thereby they also taught him (or her) that Chinese characters were composed of fixed numbers of finite brushstrokes, the building blocks of writing. This kind of analysis was later applied to the Manchu script.

The Manchu Syllabary and Its Place in the Curriculum The earliest extant copies of the Manchu syllabary date from after the conquest of China in 1644. We know, however, that it was studied earlier than that date. References to the syllabary or anything like it are rare in preconquest documents, but a source written sometime after 1632 talks about the “twelve heads,” or syllabic finals, “which are recited and learned.”24 This brief mention indicates that the syllabary was already being used in a pedagogical context and that early Manchu education had a strong oral component, in the sense that very little writing might have taken place when students first familiarized themselves with the script. Structure of the Syllabary

The Manchu syllabary consisted of lists of syllables divided into twelve sections. The lists were made up of combinations of two linear sequences of graphs. One sequence was formed by twelve codas, which I call the syllabary’s

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Chapter 2

Table 1. Outer sequence of the Manchu syllabary 1.

-ø

5.

-ng

9.

-b

2.

-i

6.

-k

10.

-o

3.

-r

7.

-s

11.

-l

4.

-n

8.

-t

12.

-m

“outer sequence.” I call it “outer” because it gives the syllabary the overall structure of an ordered collection of twelve syllable lists. The outer sequence contains vowels or consonants acting as syllabic codas (sections numbered two to twelve) as well as a zero coda (section number one). The outer sequence can be seen in Table 1. The other, “inner” sequence of the syllabary is found within the syllable lists that make up each of the twelve sections. The inner sequence had been borrowed from the Mongols along with their version of the Uighur script, and it was subsequently modified by the Manchus in the early seventeenth century by the addition of new graphs. The inner sequence contained open syllables consisting of monophthong nuclei with or without consonantal onsets. In the early seventeenth century, one of the modifications made to the script that the Manchus had inherited from the Mongols was the invention of a series of graphemes used primarily to spell words of foreign origin. They were appended to the end of the inner sequence (see Chapter 6 on this point). Each of the twelve sections of the syllabary consisted of the inner sequence paired with a coda from the outer sequence. In the first section, the inner sequence was paired with the outer sequence’s zero coda, meaning that this section was coterminous with the inner sequence. The inner sequence as represented in the first section can be seen in Table 2. The inner sequence typically contained 131 syllables, but all possible combinations of the two sequences were not always listed in a given syllabary. The total number of syllables included therefore varied somewhat, while generally hovering around 1,400.25 The structure of the syllabary can be easily understood if we display the two sequences in columns, as in Table 3. Much of the order of the inner sequence can be explained by the contingencies of its history as the subject of Manchu script reform and, before

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51

Table 2. Inner sequence of the Manchu syllabary a-

ba-

šu-

mu-

gi-

fû-

e-

be-

šû-

mû-

hi-

wa-

i-

bi-

ta-

ca-

ku-

we-

o-

bo-

da-

ce-

gu-

tsa-

u-

bu-

te-

ci-

hu-

tse-

û-

bû-

de-

co-

k’a-

ts-

na-

pa-

ti-

cu-

g’a-

tso-

ne-

pe-

di-

cû-

h’a-

tsu-

ni-

pi-

to-

ja-

k’o-

dza-

no-

po-

do-

je-

g’o-

dze-

nu-

pu-

tu-

ji-

h’o-

dz-

nû-

pû-

du-

jo-

ra-

dzo-

ka-

sa-

la-

ju-

re-

dzu-

ga-

se-

le-

jû-

ri-

ža-

ha-

si-

li-

ya-

ro-

že-

ko-

so-

lo-

ye-

ru-

ži-

go-

su-

lu-

yo-

rû-

žo-

ho-

sû-

lû-

yû-

fa-

žu-

kû-

ša-

ma-

ke-

fe-

žû-

gû-

še-

me-

ge-

fi-

sy-

hû-

ši-

mi-

he-

fo-

cy-

šo-

mo-

ki-

fu-

jy-

that, adaptation by the Mongols, and before them the Uighurs, who derived it from the Syriac script. As Chapter 1 showed, most of this history was unknown to people in the Qing period, however. The order of the inner sequence can therefore be treated as a given for the purposes of this chapter. A total count of more than 1,400 syllables at first glance looks like a lot to memorize, especially compared with the few dozen graphs used by contemporary Western linguists to describe the Manchu script. 26 However, since the syllabary consisted of the pairing of an inner and an outer sequence, what students had to memorize was not 1,400 syllables, but

52

Chapter 2

Table 3. The Manchu syllabary displayed in columns “Outer sequence”

-ø -i

-r

-n -ng -k -s

-t

-b -o -l -m

Paired with “inner sequence” a ai ar an ang ak as at ab ao al am e ei er en eng ek es et eb eo el em i ii ir in ing ik is it ib io il im o oi or on ong ok os ot ob oo ol om  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . . Note: One column represents one section of the syllabary.

the two sequences of 12 and 131 syllables, respectively. Certain regularities in the order of the inner sequence made memorization of the syllabary easier still. One characteristic of the order of syllables in the inner sequence is the separation of written syllables used primarily to spell foreign words from those used also in native Manchu vocabulary. The foreign syllables were found at the end of the inner sequence, representing a distinction of Manchu and non-Manchu sounds that was probably intuitive to native Manchu speakers. A student of the syllabary would thus easily have identified that the inner sequence consisted of two sections, of which the second and shorter section was of lesser importance. That realization was one step toward breaking the sequence of more than a hundred syllables down to more manageable units. The inner sequence contained other regularities as well. First, the six vowels tended to occur in the same order throughout the inner sequence. Furthermore, among stops, voiceless consonants precede voiced ones (e.g., t precedes d), and stops tend to precede fricatives (e.g., k precedes g, which in turn precedes h). The contingencies of the syllabary’s history meant that these rules of thumb do not apply everywhere (e.g., b precedes p). Yet  the fact remains that the order of the Manchu syllabary was not entirely arbitrary; some regularities made its memorization by a learner relatively easy. The Syllabary and Other Primers

In the post-conquest period, the syllabary in twelve sections was the default entry way to Manchu literacy, and it held an incomparable position within the Manchu pedagogical paradigm. An explanatory note on the syllabary ap-

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53

pearing in a book from 1699 stated that “it is the gate through which the beginning student enters virtue.”27 This phrase was an allusion to a statement by the Neo-Confucian philosopher Cheng Yi 程頤 (1033–1107), who was talking about the Great learning (Daxue 大學). Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) included Cheng’s comment at the very beginning of his collection of the Four books “by chapter and verse.” Zhu’s purpose was to stress that the Great learning should be read first out of the four.28 In the Qing period, every student with the ambition of sitting for the civil ser vice examinations read Zhu’s comment. And, just as every classically educated male knew that the Great learning was the foundational text of the orthodox, Neo-Confucian curriculum, so would he have understood that the Manchu syllabary was the first stop on the way to Manchu literacy. Faith in the syllabary as a teaching tool was so strong that it blinded aspiring students to the difficulties of Manchu. The grammarian Shang Yuzhang 尚玉章 (n.d.) summarized this view in a generic statement that he found hyperbolic to the point of being false: “Everybody says: ‘Manchu writing is easy to learn; you just commit the twelve heads to memory, and then read several books with dialogues to retain the gist of it. It’s not difficult to do.’ ”29 Contrary to such pronouncements, Shang thought that Manchu was still quite a difficult thing to master. Yet he did not question the central place of the syllabary in the educational curriculum, which the statement he quoted tacitly assumed. The syllabary was used to teach Manchu literacy to children already by the time of the conquest of China. As early as 1647, the Jesuit missionary Gabriel de Magalhães (1610–77) wrote, in Joseph Sebes’s translation, that the Manchus “have an alphabet but no learned persons. . . . The consonants are the same as ours. However, they cannot distinguish them from the vowels and constantly mix them up. They teach the children the consonants joined together in syllables, thus making twelve chapters (combinations [Sebes’s note]); e.g., pa, pe, pi, po, pu, [pû].”30 An account written as late as 1849 about Guangzhou, a garrison town with thousands of bannermen soldiers, gave a similar picture of basic Manchu education. Its author, the British interpreter Thomas Meadows (d. 1868), wrote that “Manchu boys when learning, instead of saying l, a—la; l, o—lo; &c., are taught at once to say la, lo, &c.”31 Louis-Mathieu Langlès, the focus of Chapter 8, who had little regard for the Manchu syllabary, wrote that it was “the only alphabet known to the Manchus, which their children learn chanting and often, I believe, crying.”32

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Chapter 2

Such statements by foreign observers, including one written at the time of the conquest of China and one in the late Qing, 33 point to a pedagogical regime based on the syllabary in twelve sections that seems to have been in place all over China throughout the Qing period. At least in Meadows’s account, we also catch a glimpse of the methods by which the syllabary was taught. Meadows described the children as being instructed how to pronounce Manchu syllables, probably by following the teacher’s lead. The method whereby students repeated pronouncements by the teacher resembles what was used in Chinese education in the late imperial period. From the moment the Manchus entered China proper, literacy in Manchu was much less widespread than literacy in Chinese, which remained the dominant written language in the regions of the empire where Manchu garrisons came to be stationed after 1644. Some Manchus might not have known any Chinese initially, but as the Qing period progressed, concurrent literacy in both languages became more and more common, which encouraged increased convergence of the pedagogy and curricula used. In the postconquest world, the syllabary, as a tool for teaching Manchu, then coexisted with texts used to teach basic literacy in Chinese. In the banner communities, the Chinese and the Manchu texts increasingly formed part of the same pedagogical paradigm, in which the basic mode of elementary instruction consisted of the teacher reciting a text, with the students following and committing it to memory. The aspect of this pedagogical paradigm most important for the purposes of this chapter is the very limited role that it accorded writing. In the initial stages of education neither teacher nor students did any writing. In cases where the teacher read the text out loud, and the students recited it in turn, only the wording, and not the writing, of the curriculum’s foundational texts was retained at the end of class. In cases where the teacher brought the students in greater contact with writing by showing them written characters to remember and recognize, the lesson learned included the pairing of glyphs with sound. Yet even this method did not teach students writing as a separate activity. At most, it taught them how to read a written text on their own. Chinese pedagogy, as I mentioned, underwent changes from the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries. From having been focused almost exclusively on aural-oral instruction and memorization, Chinese characters came to be taught as structurally complex written graphs. The history of the syllabary in twelve sections indicates that a comparable shift took place in

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55

Manchu pedagogy. Over time, it seems, students of Manchu came to be taught how to write at the same time as they were taught how to read. In the case of students with no native proficiency in the language, teaching how to read and write also included teaching how to pronounce Manchu syllables and words. Given the bilingualism, in speech, of most post-conquest bannermen, most Qing-period learners of written Manchu also learned written Chinese. The most common texts used in the teaching of basic Chinese literacy in the Qing period, such as Qianzi wen and Baijia xing, were translated or transcribed into Manchu and formed an integral part of Manchu education.34 In line with an education that stressed recitation, repetition, and memorization, the Manchu versions of some of the Chinese primers were not so much translations as transcriptions; the texts had been turned into Manchu primarily in the sense that the pronunciation of the Chinese characters (in the main text at least) had been noted alongside in Manchu script. Perhaps the text was intended to be recited with the students glancing at both the Chinese and the Manchu characters simulta neously. The Manchu versions of these texts thus did little to help the students learn to speak Manchu, as the sounds transcribed represented Chinese words, but they might have helped the students learn the pronunciation of the Chinese characters and familiarized them with the Manchu script. Teaching the students to recognize the syllabic blocks of written Manchu was not the task of translated or transcribed Chinese primers, however; it was the prerogative of the syllabary in twelve sections. In the case of Chinese students, who learned Manchu as a second language, the syllabary also familiarized the students with the phonetics and phonotactics of spoken Manchu. Such knowledge became useful when they later learned Manchu words. Yet all students, regardless of linguistic background, were supposed to recite and memorize the syllabary, just as they were supposed to recite and memorize the Chinese primers.35 The original Manchu syllabary was similar to the Chinese primers in its use in the classroom setting: the students recited the syllables following the teacher’s lead until they had committed the sequence to memory. Rarely do the syllabaries give any indication of how long students were supposed to spend on it in order to have learned it satisfactorily. In Eu rope, pedagogues specified that children were supposed to learn three to four letters a day when they studied the Roman alphabet.36 A very late manuscript gives a similar estimate for Manchu: superimposed on the usual

56

Chapter 2

division into sections or heads is a division into twenty-nine “lessons” (Ma. kicen; Ch. ke 課).37 As the first section is divided into five lessons, it follows that students were supposed to spend a little less than a week on memorizing the inner sequence of the syllabary. If taught one lesson a day, the whole syllabary would have been memorized by the end of the month. Since the syllabary in twelve sections taught only the most basic literacy, students needed other teaching material once they had finished with it. Comparable perhaps to the rhymed readers used in late imperial Chinese education to bridge the gap between the teaching of basic literacy and core Confucian books,38 the Manchu texts taught after the syllabary consisted of phrases or dialogues.39 Like early versions of the syllabary, the intermediatelevel phrase and dialogue books40 initially did not provide an analysis of the script meant to teach how to write it.41 The centrality of the syllabary in the education of male members of the banners can be illustrated with an anecdote from one of the textbooks. The textbook in question included a dialogue that was probably intended to present a familiar scene from mid-eighteenth-century Manchu life in Beijing. The dialogue described what was probably a common trajectory for learners of Manchu in the capital at that time, when Chinese was becoming the dominant spoken language also among the Manchus. The account shows both the progression from the syllabary to other textbooks, as well as the stress on memorization: “Brother, have you read any books?” “First I read Chinese books, and now I’m also reading Manchu books.” “Brother, what books are you reading?” “I’ve finished reading the book of the twelve heads, and now I’m reading books on helping words.” “Brother, have you memorized each one of the words you’ve learned?” “I’ve memorized every word I’ve learned.”42 Although one might question whether the “ brother” (age) had really successfully memorized his entire Manchu-Chinese curriculum, his description of Manchu education as progressing from memorizing the syllabary (“heads”) to memorizing textbooks read for contents is fairly accurate. Testimony from individuals schooled in the Qing-period paradigm paints a similar picture.

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Aisin Gioro Yingsheng 愛新覺羅瀛生 (1922–2013), although born in the Republican period, learned Manchu from older relatives once schooled in the language as members of the imperial clan, as well as from former teachers in the banner establishment. Yingsheng confirmed that Qing-style Manchu education was focused on oral proficiency and recitation from memory.43 In sum, the Manchu syllabary, just like the first texts encountered in the Chinese curriculum, was memorized by following the recitation of an instructor with the aim of learning the syllabic building blocks of the written language. In the case of second-language learners, the syllabary also served to familiarize the student with the phonetics and phonotactics of spoken Manchu. Within the wider world of teaching and learning in Qing China, it formed part of an educational paradigm that included Chinese primers as well. The important role played by other educational books notwithstanding, the syllabary in twelve sections occupied a special position among the bilingual primers. It formed the basis for all theoretical reflection on the Manchu script that is seen in sources from the Qing period. It was used not only by Manchu children, but also by adult Chinese learners, who had already studied the Chinese primers when learning to read Chinese in childhood. Even bannermen at times learned to read and write Manchu only after they had studied written Chinese. At least from the eighteenth century, some also learned only spoken Manchu at such a late stage. This circumstance helps explain why one strand of the Manchu pedagogy of writing developed so differently from the pedagogy of Chinese. The Chinese pedagogical paradigm based on recitation and memorization was intended for children who had no previous experience with the written word. Chinese adults or adolescent bannermen, by contrast, had not only learned how to read and write Chinese; they had also, or so the pedagogues assumed, familiarized themselves with the principles of Chinese phonology and grammatological analysis. Manchu pedagogy made use of these resources to explain the script in such a way that studying with a teacher was no longer even necessary.

From Syllabary to Textbook In the hands of pedagogues such as Shen Qiliang, the Manchu syllabary (in the sense of a book and not of a theoretical understanding of the Manchu

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script) changed from a monolingual aid for oral instruction to a bilingual, self-contained textbook allowing students who already knew basic written Chinese to learn Manchu on their own. In the new textbooks, the focus was no longer only on vocalizing Manchu graphs, but on writing them. Teaching how to write was accompanied by descriptions of the structural components of the graphs that made up the syllabary. The Manchu script was already taught through simple bilingual syllabaries before Shen published his textbook. The bilingual syllabary, which consisted of Manchu syllable lists with Chinese glosses, enabled self-study and thus the memorization of the Manchu script in complete silence. In the words of one pedagogue, the bilingual syllabary could be “understood by both Manchu and Chinese students at a glance, without the recourse to a teacher.”44 Even so, the bilingual syllabaries, still with one foot in the aural-oral paradigm, continued to stress recitation and memorization of the Manchu sounds represented on the printed page.

Bilingual Syllabaries on Stone and on Paper: Liu Dou (1668) and Liao Lunji (1670) In 1668, Liu Dou 劉斗 (d. 1718), originally of Baoding prefecture south of Beijing, had been serving as governor for Gansu in western China for more than half a decade. Before that, he had been in the capital as an academician (xueshi 學士) doing secretarial work at the court, as a princely tutor, and as an interpreter and mediator (qixin lang 啓心郎) between the Manchu and Chinese contingents of the bureaucracy.45 Growing up after the Manchu conquest, he “mastered the dynastic script [of Manchu] when he was young” (shao tong guoshu 少通國書),46 which qualified him for this position. Now, Liu commissioned the engraving of a bilingual Manchu-Chinese syllabary in stone, with the addition of his own commentary in Chinese. The syllabary was bilingual in that the written Manchu syllables were accompanied by Chinese characters specifying their pronunciation. It is the earliest syllabary yet to come to light. The stones, the size of a sheet of paper, were placed at the government school in Gaolan county in the provincial capital. The stones were placed at the school complex in the Wenchang Pavilion, dedicated to a deity associated with examination success,47 together with stones engraved with two collections

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of Chinese model calligraphy (including a Qianzi wen).48 Clearly, Liu’s intended audience were local examination candidates, who would have been Chinese. That such a document, if one can call it that, in two scripts could on a technical level be produced in Gansu in the 1660s depended on the flexibility of engraving as opposed to using movable type. Provided with Liu’s manuscript, careful carvers could reproduce the Manchu script that it contained without having a clue about how the language worked. That was true for carving stele as well as woodblocks, which was of greater consequence for the development and spread of Manchu-Chinese language pedagogy. Liu’s syllabary was in several respects similar to other bilingual syllabaries that appeared in the late seventeenth century, and it is best discussed together with them. Liao Lunji 廖綸璣 (fl. 1670–80s [?]), of Guangdong and perhaps of the Hakka linguistic minority, edited the first syllabary to be commercially published. The syllabary and its “Prelude” (yin 引) were finalized in late 1670 (Kangxi 9/10/1). Liao’s syllabary occasionally appears as an independent work,49 but it probably reached most readers as part of several editions of the Chinese dictionary Zhengzi tong 正字通 (Mastery of correct characters). The dictionary was compiled by Zhang Zilie 張自烈 (1598–1673) and published in Jiangxi in 1671 by Liao’s father and Zhang’s old friend and then employer, Wenying 文英 (c. late 1590s [?]–before 1674 [?]).50 Liao’s syllabary was, like Liu’s, bilingual. The xylographic—or woodblock—printing made it possible for the syllabary to be printed in Jiangxi, far from the center of Manchu publishing in Beijing. This technology, so common in China, offered the same flexibility as engravings on stone in terms of what contents could be inscribed. To be sure, publishing could involve complications that did not occur in the case of a single instance of carving a stone. In case of repeated recarvings of woodblocks for republication, the quality of the Manchu would eventually deteriorate if the carvers or the editors did not know Manchu. For example, the Manchu vocabulary included in the encyclopedia Zengbu wanbao quanshu 增補萬寶全書 (Complete book of a myriad treasures, expanded), printed in 1739 and again in 1746, probably on the basis of the vocabulary Tongwen yaolan 同文要覽 (Essential readings in translation),51 was made illegible for this reason.52 Despite the risks involved when printing Manchu without craftsmen skilled in the language, the ease with which Liao’s syllabary was printed— and reprinted—contrasts with the difficulty that European publishers had when reproducing Manchu, which will be the focus of Chapter 8.

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The carvers in Jiangxi might not have known Manchu, but Liao Lunji himself knew a bit, because he had worked with Manchus. Liao identified himself as an instructor in the Plain Yellow Banner. Zhang, his father’s associate, wrote that Liao “carried the bell of culture [as an educational officer] and was a teacher by the imperial carriage [in the capital].”53 These statements suggest that Liao was a Chinese instructor in one of the banner schools in Beijing. He had probably been hired to teach Chinese composition to banner children and while there had seen and studied the material that his colleagues used to teach them how to write Manchu. Indeed, Liao wrote that his syllabary was based on “prints from the government schools” (guanxue keben 官學刻本).54 In some regards his syllabary is so similar to Liu’s that it is tempting to infer that Liu too worked with such prints, which he enriched with his own additions and commentary. Liao’s interest in language extended beyond Manchu. He published, presumably after the publication of his Manchu syllabary, a small work of twenty folios that represents one of the earliest descriptions of the Quanzhou dialect of Chinese, which was spoken on the southeastern coast in Fujian where banner forces assembled in preparation for the invasion of Taiwan in the early 1680s.55 Liao clearly took an interest in the linguistic diversity that he encountered when moving with the banner armies across the empire. In the story of Liao Wenying and his son Liao Lunji we see a family of southern literati and Ming office holders shift their allegiance to the Manchus during the turbulent years in the mid-seventeenth century. Liao, as an instructor (jiaoxi 教習), was still a civil official, but he worked in an environment both institutionally and linguistically very different from the old Ming civil administration. In the capital he first came into contact with the Manchu language and script. He then moved with the army to the Southwest and continued his studies of new languages as the frontiers of the Qing empire expanded into new regions. Whereas Liu Dou was a high official, Liao Lunji belonged to a literate sub-elite connected to the banner establishment. His syllabary, however, was published in a dictionary whose intended readership was the high civilian elite. The dictionary Zhengzi tong underwent several editions that included the syllabary in the seventeenth century.56 In the “Prelude to the twelve character heads” that introduced the syllabary, Liao stressed the role of language in government administration; the association of writing and statecraft in antiquity (an aspect in which his text was similar to Liu’s); the proper method of learning Manchu; the structure

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of the Manchu language and script with relation to Chinese; and the limits of his own contributions to Manchu studies. Liao said that imperfect Manchu writing on the part of clerks in the bureaucracy infuriated their superiors: “Whenever the dots and strokes [of writing] do not accord, the bureau chiefs often refuse to acknowledge the communications of their subordinates.”57 The superiors were “enraged by the fact that the Chinese [Hanren] study only Chinese characters”58 and had neglected the study of Manchu. This piece of information was related in the beginning of the text, highlighted, perhaps, to incite a will to study Manchu in the “Prelude’s” readers. It follows that the intended audience of the “Prelude” and the syllabary it introduced were adults. The “Manchu and Chinese” who master both languages in Liao’s text probably referred to government functionaries. Nowhere in the text did Liao refer to the teaching of Manchu literacy to children. Also, it should be noted, nowhere did Liao mention Manchu learners of the script; his “Prelude” was a text written in Chinese for adult readers literate in that language. In this regard, too, his text was similar to Liu’s. In other respects, Liu’s and Liao’s approaches differed. Both texts placed the introduction of the Manchu script to China in a long history of governance through writing going back to Chinese antiquity. The bulk of Liu’s commentary, however, consisted of examples of how syllables from the different sections of the syllabary combined to form words: “For example, ‘dog’ is called indahûn,” he wrote. “Use the fourth section’s third character, in, and connect it with the first section’s forty-first character da, and the fourth section’s nineteenth character hûn,”59 and so on, using longer and longer examples. Liu clearly hoped that given a sufficient number of examples, the students would eventually simply get it. He did not explain that the syllables in the syllabary changed shape when they were combined into words. That is actually looks quite different to say, he did not explain why indahûn written separately. Half a century after Liu, from in , da , and hûn precisely this kind of difference startled Gottlieb Bayer in Saint Petersburg and pushed him to replace the Manchu syllabary with an alphabet, as I will show in Chapter 7. Liu might have been too familiar with written Manchu to see where beginners were likely to want further explanations. Liu did not have—or did not see the need to develop—a technical vocabulary for explaining the structure of written Manchu syllables to a Sinophone audience, as his successors Shen Qiliang and Wu-ge later did. Finally, unlike Liao,

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Liu seems to have thought the simple pairing of syllables a good initiation to the study of Manchu. Liao, for his part, did not provide any explanation of the Manchu script, beyond comparing it in very general terms to Chinese writing and noting that it was both written and read “from left to right” (zi zuo zhi you 自左至 右).60 Liao’s syllabary primarily taught the sounds of spoken Manchu to speakers of Chinese. If it taught Manchu writing at all, it left it to the student to discern the structure of Manchu characters. Some sentences into the “Prelude,” Liao wrote the following regarding the Manchu script:61 [In this ideal world, where right and wrong is as clear to all as] the light of day, Manchu and Chinese are both written, and Manchu and Chinese people are made to read both languages. As long as he does not know Manchu, a person with good calligraphic skills will only produce columns of pictograms [when writing in Manchu, without understanding what they mean]. Knowing only [where to put] the dots and strokes will not enable him to put them into words. A person ignorant of Manchu characters who wants to learn the Manchu language quickly, without having [first] practiced its sounds, will bring difficulties upon himself. Therefore, he must mimic the lips and cheeks [and learn how to pronounce the sounds] before practicing to write the script. Thereafter, he can master the meaning of the words. . . . Some people [think] that, since in Manchu writing, one sound corresponds to only one character, the Manchu script does not present much to teach to people who do not master the Manchu language. Actually, Manchu characters must be connected together to form Manchu phrases [yu 語], [after which] the meaning of a text starts to emerge; [the script is] inexhaustible in its thousand changes and myriad transformations. How could this be easily surmised [by someone who has not studied Manchu]?62 Liao explicitly rejected the idea that one can learn Manchu by simply copying characters. He asserted that one could very well learn to copy a Manchu text as one would copy a drawing, without understanding Manchu orthography or pronunciation. This was not, however, the proper way to learn Man-

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chu. To do that one needed to repeat after someone speaking Manchu; the syllabary, as far as we can infer from Liao’s “Prelude,” was originally intended to be recited by a teacher for the students to repeat. It seems to have been precisely in order to enable students to study by themselves, without for that reason relinquishing the aural-oral method, that Liao had added phonetic transcriptions in the form of Chinese characters. Like Liu’s syllabary, which also featured both Manchu and Chinese script, Liao’s work was similar to the Manchu versions of the common Chinese primers. Both syllabaries were also bilingual, in that they contained Chinese-character transcriptions of the Manchu syllables and explanatory notes at the introduction of every section to help the student with pronunciation. Liu innovated further in the treatment of Manchu pronunciation. He placed Manchu transcriptions of Chinese syllables apart from the rest of the syllabary, creating a thirteenth and a fourteenth section for this purpose. Liu’s innovation anticipated the institution of a section of so-called outer characters in dictionaries and textbooks of the eighteenth century. Increasing the syllabary’s sections was also done later, and on other grounds, by European scholars. From the very beginning, the Manchu syllabary as it was introduced to China seemed insufficient to those who sought to explain it in another language. The presentation of the syllabary on the printed page or carved stone surface shows the affinity of Liu’s and Liao’s texts with Chinese primers. In both cases, syllables were arranged in groups of three or, more rarely, two, separated by whitespace. In this way, each column on the page was made to contain three syllable groups of uniform size, facilitating browsing of the syllabary. Although some of the syllable groups coincided with sequences of characters sharing phonetic traits, which would have been intuitive to Manchu speakers, such a presentation also had a clear analog in Chinese primers. The latter were composed of often rhymed syntactic units of two, three, or more syllables. The purpose of such groups was to facilitate recitation and memorization of the contents. Both syllabaries were intended to be recited and memorized by the students, with or without the aid of a teacher. Directly or indirectly, the syllabaries from the government schools remained influential. Liao’s syllabary appeared in a new edition in Xinke Qingshu quanji 新刻清書全集 (Complete collection of Manchu writing, newly cut) from 1699.63 The book was compiled by Ling Shaowen 凌紹雯 (presented scholar in 1688), a civilian from the lower Yangzi region who at one

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point worked on translations from Manchu into Chinese in the Hanlin Secretariat,64 and Chen Kechen 陳可臣 (n.d.), Ling’s friend and the compiler of a manuscript Manchu dictionary. Quite remarkably published in Nanjing, Xinke Qingshu quanji was a high-end publication, with large, clear print and flowery seals. The preface referenced the selection of Chinese civil examination graduates to study Manchu in the central government;65 presumably such individuals, or those aspiring to their status and position, were the book’s intended readership. In addition, manuscript syllabaries in the style of Liao’s Shier zitou are also extant.66 Shen Qiliang’s Pedagogical Publications

In 1686, Shen Qiliang 沈啟亮 (fl. 1645–93), of Loudong 婁東 (Taicang 太倉 prefecture) in the lower Yangzi region,67 published an expanded and heavily annotated version of the bilingual Manchu syllabary. Shen was the son of an officer in the Green Standard army who died in the line of duty in 1659, and the grandson of a Ming local magistrate who died in confrontation with antiMing rebels in 1644. Following in his father’s footsteps, Shen Qiliang, despite an interest in literary studies, opted for a military career and eventually served in the civil war against the Three Feudatories. Having served in the war for two years, Shen left Taicang for Beijing. “After I was demobilized,” he wrote, “I had the chance to travel to the capital to study. I stayed with the Bordered Yellow Banner [in the northeastern corner of the banner inner city of Beijing],68 and was lucky to study with several Manchu scholars. After a couple of years I had gained a smattering of what they taught.”69 Shen studied Manchu for years, beginning in the capital in 1677. He remained in Beijing for the rest of his known life, with the exception of a trip to the south in 1691–92.70 In Beijing, Shen for some time at least worked as a teacher, writing at one point that he “managed to gather a few students.” Shen might have worked as a Chinese teacher in the school founded for the bannermen of the Imperial Household Department in 1685, because he had access to the Chinese textbooks used in “the school for basic instruction at Scenic Hill,” which was located north of the Forbidden City and was the site of that school.71 Coming from a southern family of civil officials uprooted by the civil war and the Manchu invasion, Shen, like his father, turned to the military for an alternative career, but later managed to transition to teaching. In both geographical and social origins and professional identity, Shen was similar to Liao Lunji. Shen, how-

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ever, dedicated himself to the study and promotion of the Manchu language with much greater zeal. Shen’s first publication on Manchu-language pedagogy was the collection Qingshu zhinan 清書指南 | manju gisun-i jy nan (Guide to the Manchu language), which assembled texts that Shen himself had used to learn Manchu. Among these texts was a monolingual Manchu syllabary (Figure 1), which is remarkable for presenting the twelve sections in a somewhat different order from that seen in Liao Lunji’s book and virtually all other copies of the syllabary from later in the Qing period. The absence of Chinese glosses and the compactness of the printed page together suggest that the syllabary published by Shen represents a very early version of the syllabary. The syllabary in Qingshu zhinan contained no explanatory text of any kind. It conveyed information only by grouping syllables using punctuation, whitespace, and arrangement of one section per page. It did not explain how Manchu was pronounced, nor did it give any instruction on the structure of the characters. The syllabary in Qingshu zhinan probably originated as a mnemonic to be used by teachers, who would have complemented its listing of the syllables of Manchu with oral explanations. Shen might have brought it to print for it to be used by beginners on their own, but it is hard to see how it could have been productively used by adult Chinese autodidacts. The syllabary in Qingshu zhinan is worlds apart from the extended syllabary that Shen published in 1686. Partly an elementary Manchu textbook, Shier zitou jizhu 十二字頭集註 (Collected notes on the twelve heads) appears to have been compiled without knowledge of Liao’s publication. Yet the syllabary in Shier zitou jizhu had many similarities with publications in the tradition of Liao’s Shier zitou. Shen’s syllabary featured Chinese transcriptions of all Manchu syllables, using diacritics to capture some of the distinctions of Manchu phonology not easily represented using Chinese characters alone. It also included a long preface that treated the pronunciation of Manchu in some detail. Using a great number of terms borrowed from the discipline of Chinese phonology, Shen identified each of the syllabary’s sections with a par ticu lar articulation of the speech organs. That identification was very forced, as the characteristics of the sounds’ articulation varyingly included either the place or the mode of articulation, in a way suggesting that Shen’s main concern was to make the number of identified articulations match the number of codas in the syllabary for the sake of symmetry. Still, Shen’s

Figure 1. The eighth section (final in –t) of the first syllabary that Shen Qiliang published (1682). Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, East Asia Department, shelf number: 4° 41321 ROA. Courtesy of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

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attempt to give a comprehensive account of Manchu phonology was unprecedented both in ambition and level of detail. Shen spent much time on pronunciation in the preface. Ultimately, however, his ideas of how Chinese individuals ought to study Manchu differed markedly from Liao Lunji’s. Shen acknowledged that a second-language learner studying Manchu writing as part of his studies of the Manchu language had different needs from a native Manchu speaker who was merely learning how to read and write. “If the beginning students are Manchu, then they will know Manchu pronunciation and the tongue’s movements [gunshe 滾舌] natively. If the students are not Manchu, then they will not know the sounds and they will think the tongue’s movements difficult,”72 Shen wrote. He continued: The student must know that the method of moving the tongue has a fixed and natural internal logic to it. With effort it will be attained, and the student will produce the tongue’s movements without thinking about it. Aspiring students who are not Manchu do not have to rigidly adhere to the Manchu movements of the tongue and let that hurt their motivation to study. All they have to do is to take the twelve heads [i.e., the syllabary], look at the Manchu characters and read, recite, write, and think about them until they feel completely familiar. Completing these four operations to the point of complete familiarity is the secret key to the tongue’s movements, which [in turn] opens up the subtleties of Manchu pronunciation.73 Shen’s view on learning Manchu differs from that of Liao; the general impression from reading Shen’s text is that he downplays pronunciation, arguing that correct pronunciation will follow by itself from sustained study. Also noteworthy is that Shen included writing (xie 寫) among the necessary motions for learning Manchu. Shen spoke out forcefully against people claiming that Manchu should be learned first and foremost by assimilating the spoken language. He criticized those who wanted to put writing aside and “proceed directly to the study of the tongue’s movements.” Such people, Shen wrote, “use the following argument”: “ ‘A long time ago, Confucius was born in Lu. Those in the realm who wanted to read his writings first had to learn the local pronunciation of the land of Lu before they could chant his poetry and read his

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books. If they did not first learn the sounds of Lu, their pronunciation would not match [what Confucius intended], and the writings would be difficult to read.’ ”74 Shen found such an argument ridiculous: “It goes without saying that these words cannot be believed. Do the people who use this argument not know, that once the student has learned the Qing characters, they will also have learned the Manchu pronunciation? That once they have mastered the principles of writing, the tongue’s movements come naturally?”75 Whereas Liao had criticized the habit of learning how to write without learning how to pronounce Manchu,76 Shen criticized those who were content with trying to learn Manchu through osmosis or assimilation in a community that speaks Manchu. Perhaps this difference reflected Shen’s situation in Beijing, where Manchu at this time was a spoken language. In a context where Manchu was heard spoken every day, there was little need for the pedagogue to stress the importance of exposure to the sounds of Manchu for learning the language. Shen’s stress on mastering the principles of Manchu writing was coupled with detailed exemplification of the changing shapes of Manchu graphs when connected into words. Shen used nonsensical combinations of Manchu characters to illustrate their changing shapes depending on their placement at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a word. For example, in an eight-point note on writing that succeeded the first section in the textbook, Shen offered the following instruction: “[The first section] contains the characters ba bi bo pa pi po sa so šo la lo ma mo ca co ya yo. If we connect these seventeen characters and write them together, we get babibopapiposasošolalo mamocacoyayo.”77 Shen’s instruction and the accompanying explanations represented a momentous development in Manchu pedagogy. The simple syllabary with which Shen had once been taught Manchu as well as Liao’s bilingual syllabary both encouraged recitation and memorization of syllables. Now, Shen’s textbook divorced the script from speech to illustrate a point that earlier syllabaries—even Liu’s, which included simple writing instructions—had left unstated: the sometimes substantial changes that Manchu graphs underwent depending on their position in actual words. Shen was aware that his “detailed instructions on how to connect characters into words” would be new and, perhaps, counterintuitive to his readers. He thus felt the need to specify their purpose: “ These instructions, grouping seven, eight, or even ten or more characters together, are intended to give a taste of how Manchu characters are actually written; they are de-

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void of meaning and cannot be used in real language. You should not ignore them just because they do not form real words, but verify their structure character by character.”78 Shen not only showed by example that Manchu writing consisted of units that changed shape completely independently of their realization in speech (which remained the same), but also referred to those units explicitly by name. Adding a coda from the outer sequence to a syllable from the inner sequence was, in Shen’s parlance, to “form a character” (cheng zi 成字).79 The “formed” characters could be understood as consisting of an “upper” and a “lower half block” (shang xia banjie 上下半截).80 Shen’s notion of “half blocks” was formed in relation to the written syllable, which as a “character” remained the basic unit in his understanding of the script. Shen described the subsyllabic structure of the script in some detail, assigning names to the strokes that made up the blocks by means of a descriptive terminology largely derived from the Chinese tradition. He described characters as being divided into hooks (gou 勾) and short or long descending diagonal strokes (chang pie 長撇, duan pie 短撇, or na jiao 捺脚), in part employing technical terms used in Chinese calligraphy. The strokes, furthermore, could be either “straight” (zheng 正) or “bent” (qu 曲).81 Other terms used by Shen were not derived from the Chinese tradition, but were translations of Manchu that at times had Mongolian equivalents.82 Such terms included the circular “belly” (du 肚) seen on some Manchu characters.83 The circle was a shape unknown in the regular Chinese script, so no term existed in the Chinese terminology on writing that could readily be used in reference to it. Shen chose to instead translate a term from Manchu that he had most probably learned from his Manchu teachers in Beijing. Shen’s analysis of the structural components of Manchu characters, appearing as early as 1686, already contained many of the characteristics of the discourse on the Manchu script as it came to develop later in the Qing period. Shen, a Chinese scholar from the lower Yangzi region living in Manchu-speaking Beijing and familiar with both the Chinese and Manchu educational traditions, used a terminology derived in part from analyses of the Chinese script (greatly popularized in seventeenth-century lexicography) and in part from Manchu and Inner Asian pedagogy. These two traditions remained the main inspirations for discussions of the Manchu script throughout the Qing period. Likewise, Shen’s understanding of the Manchu script as consisting of syllabic “characters” composed of two subsyllabic units that in turn consisted of a number of standardized strokes also

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remained constant for the duration of the dynasty: characters, “half blocks,” and strokes—not “letters.” Qing discourse on the Manchu script was carried out in the Chinese language and in an episteme in which the exemplar of writing was the Chinese character and that of speech were the two parts of the syllable. In 1701 a syllabary appeared that referred to Shen’s Shier zitou jizhu, but it was most probably published without Shen’s involvement. The preface of this book, titled Jianzhu shier zitou 箋註十二字頭 | giyan ju ši el dzi teo (The twelve heads, annotated),84 was a paraphrase of parts of the preface to the 1686 extended syllabary, consisting of a summary of Shen’s detailed description of Manchu phonology. Indeed, the focus in this syllabary was Manchu pronunciation; the only addition that was made to the paraphrastic preface was the promise that if students only learned the syllabary, then “there will be nothing to slow [them] down when reading the names of persons and clans in the archival records.”85 The author of the preface was here indicating, perhaps, that students were not expected to necessarily master Manchu, but merely to acquire enough knowledge of Manchu phonology through study of the syllabary to be able to successfully parse transcribed Manchu names encountered in administrative Chinese prose. Gone was Shen’s stress on mastering Manchu writing. The Analytic Syllabary After Shen Qiliang

Shen’s textbook from 1686 went beyond the aural-oral paradigm that reigned in much of Manchu and Chinese education, and it introduced into the curriculum instructions on not just how to read, but also how to write Manchu characters. Shen brought theorization of the Manchu script in a pedagogical context to a new level. In the first half of the eighteenth century, analyses of the script in Manchu pedagogy became more common and more widespread. After 1730, a segmentation of the characters of the Manchu syllabary was available to many students of Manchu through the efforts of an ingenious bannerman who was spreading his ideas through the commercial publishers of Beijing. The Manchu grammar and primer Qingwen qimeng 清文啟蒙 | cing wen ki meng bithe (Manchu language primer; 1730) by Wu-ge,86 is one of the most well-known works of Manchu language pedagogy. Wu-ge was a “teacher in a family school,”87 where his textbook originated as teaching material. Wu-ge himself was Manchu, but the book was printed only on the urging of his

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friend, Cheng Mingyuan 程明遠 (n.d.), who was a Chinese civilian from the southern garrison town of Hangzhou (Qiantang). The change from private teaching notes to print also involved a change in audience. Wu-ge’s notes, originally used to teach “the household’s children” (Ma. mini booi juse; Ch. xiaozi 小子), became a book targeting “beginners” (Ma. teniken tacire urse; Ch. chuxue [zhe] 初學[者]), which could also include older learners.88 The book was repeatedly published and circulated widely in the Qing period.89 By exploring the structure of Manchu characters, Wu-ge laid bare the discrepancies that existed between how Manchu was presented in the syllabary and the way it was actually used in documents. It was not his stated intention, but by reading his book students of Manchu were trained to see written words as subdividing into segments. The first volume of Wu-ge’s book was dedicated to the instruction of the Manchu script and pronunciation. One section of that chapter was even modeled on Mei Yingzuo’s instructions on “Moving the brush” in Zihui. Imitating Mei’s instructions for writing Chinese, Wu-ge gave instructions for writing Manchu syllables stroke by stroke under the heading “Order to rely on when moving the brush” (Ma. manju hergen ararade fi nikere nenden ilhi; Ch. 清書運筆先後).90 Wu-ge’s first chapter, titled “Guide to the twelve heads of Manchu characters,” opened with a syllabary in twelve sections. The great originality of Wu-ge’s syllabary lay in its presentation of the first section. Whereas many previous syllabaries presented each of the sections as flowing in columns across the page, Wu-ge opted for a different arrangement, one that invited the reader to consider the syllabic characters as realizations of smaller, abstract units of writing. Wu-ge presented the first section linearly as running across the upper section of the page (stretching over twenty-two pages, with six syllables per page). Beneath every syllable, Wu-ge provided words that exemplified the appearance of the syllable in question in initial, medial, and final position. Next to the words, he wrote the illustrated syllable in isolation, retaining their initial, medial, or final shape. By highlighting the different ways of writing Manchu characters, he clearly depicted the syllables as the building blocks of words, which conversely were showed to subdivide into syllables. Wu-ge referred to the syllables simply as “characters” (zi). Wu-ge also used specific terms for written syllables in various positions. Syllables written in isolation were referred to as “head characters” (touzi 頭字). He also used terms for the half blocks, referring to the lower half block as the “tail” (weiba 尾巴), and pointed out that some tails would “change shape inside connected characters,” or words.91

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Wu-ge, dedicated pedagogue as he was, tried to close the gap between the Manchu script as presented in the syllabary and as encountered in running text. The syllabary in twelve sections did not include all syllable types occurring in Manchu as actually used. In the instructions that he made to accompany the list of syllables, Wu-ge complemented the lacunae in the original syllabary’s presentation of the script. By using the example of actual words, he explained that different shapes could in fact represent the same underlying character. In the process, he also introduced shapes of graphs that were not attested in the simple syllabary, but which a reader would encounter when reading actual Manchu documents.92 Wu-ge expanded on an innovation made in an imperially sponsored Manchu dictionary (see Chapter 4) and used the term “outer characters” to refer to the syllables and words that were often encountered in written Manchu but were not included in the syllabary. He distinguished two groups of such characters: “simple outer Manchu characters” (Ma. manju tulergi emteli hergen; Ch. Manzhou wai danzi 滿洲外單字) and “connected outer Manchu characters” (Ma. manju tulergi holboho hergen; Ch. Manzhou wai lianzi 滿洲 外聯字). The simple characters were Manchu-script transcriptions of Chinese syllables that were not historically part of the syllabary (unlike the similar “Manchu combined sound characters” that Wu-ge also identified), whereas the connected characters were Manchu words several syllables long that could not easily be subdivided into the syllables found in the syllabary. The two groups of “outer characters” will be important in Chapter 4, in the context of Manchu dictionary order, and in Chapter 6, in the context of the transcription of Chinese. After Qingwen qimeng, graphological analysis of Manchu characters appeared in a wide range of pedagogical texts, including higher-level textbooks and manuscript syllabaries. To be sure, the simple syllabary survived; a syllabary with Chinese sound glosses, not very different from Liao Lunji’s text but echoing Shen Qiliang’s preface to his 1686 textbook, was printed in 1733 and then in the second half of the nineteenth century, while also circulating in manuscript.93 Yet as one Manchu scholar noted in 1746, “the twelve heads have always been the key entry way [to the Manchu language], but students cannot understand them by themselves unless they come with explanations.”94 Just as the simple bilingual syllabary survived Shen’s and Wu-ge’s analytical approach, some of the graphical analyses that were practiced later in

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the century had their origins rather in an older, or at least distinct, Inner Asian pedagogical tradition. In a collection of treatises of government interest, produced at the imperial palace in 1787, for example, written Manchu syllables were described as types of strokes that were given Manchu names. Certain names, some of which had equivalents in Mongolian terminology,95 occurred also in later, nineteenth-century syllabaries. Perhaps some Manchus maintained a stroke-based but Inner Asian paradigm inherited from the Mongols. Unsurprisingly, a methodology of teaching the Manchu script through recitation and repetition also survived Shen and Wu-ge. Notably, jingles describing the changing shapes of written Manchu syllables are attested from the early nineteenth century and into the twentieth.96 Other pedagogues continued to innovate. A manuscript finished in the second half of the nineteenth century, but containing older material that it shared with other manuscripts, distinguished the changing shapes of syllables using a variety of terms.97 Another manuscript, probably written after 1830, offered a comparably innovative terminology to describe the same features.98 Finally, Qingwen houxue jinfa distinguished two parts in the composition of Manchu characters. In syllables consisting of more than just a pure vowel, it called the different parts “half shapes” (banxing 半形) and “half sounds” (banyin 半音), which echoed Shen Qiliang’s identification of “half blocks.” Both probably reflected an interiorized understanding of Manchu syllable structure as bipartite. The terminology in this and other manuscripts differed, but they had one thing in common: they all tried to teach how to write Manchu, not just how to read it. In that sense, they were inheritors of Shen Qiliang’s and Wu-ge’s pedagogy, focused as it was on the script. Liu Dou, Liao Lunji, Shen Qiliang, and Wu-ge were all scholars for whom Manchu was a living language that they knew firsthand in Beijing. The Qing capital was a place where Manchu was first taught—or so the appearance of the original syllabary suggests—largely by relying on recitation and memorization of repetitive syllable sequences. Yet the pedagogical work of these scholars brought the Manchu syllabary into a new curriculum for Chinese literates, in which Manchu was learned only after basic written Chinese had already been acquired. The syllabary was duly adapted to the outlook of someone who thought of writing primarily in terms of Chinese characters, as described in books such as Zihui.

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Not every Chinese scholar who took up the study of Manchu enjoyed Liu’s and Shen’s access to Manchu teachers and a Manchu-speaking milieu. Xiong Shibo, one of the central figures of Chapter 3, had only very simple written resources at his disposal for learning Manchu. On the basis of his exposure to other foreign scripts, including the Roman alphabet, and a thorough training in Chinese phonology, he nevertheless managed to decipher Manchu into something of which a Chinese scholar could make sense.

Chapter 3

Phonology and Manchu in Southern China and Japan, c. 1670–1716

How do you study Manchu if there is no one there to teach you? Before Manchu got written down in the early seventeenth century, there would have been no way to learn the language without access to one of its speakers. Possibilities increased once written documents were available a few decades later. By the turn of the eighteenth century, a prospective student of Manchu was in an even better position. For several decades, booklets specifically designed to teach the script had been available in stores, and at precisely this time, teachers and lexicographers such as Shen Qiliang were busy creating a pedagogical literature that would allow anyone— anywhere—to study Manchu, as long as he knew how to read Chinese. The southern Chinese phonologist Xiong Shibo and the Japanese scholar Ogyū Sorai, the focus of this chapter, were not lucky enough to have access to the full range of pedagogical publications available by the time they were writing in the early 1700s. Crucially, however, they both had access to more than one text. Xiong had two Manchu syllabaries, one of which Shen Qiliang had published; Sorai had a Manchu Thousand-character essay and Liao Lunji’s syllabary. Both of them focused on the script and its pronunciation and, amazingly, they arrived at the same result: the reorganization of the syllabary into a grid. A shared intellectual heritage of phonological studies certainly contributed to it, as did the basic fact that both were scholars used to exploiting the resources of the written page. Writing, for them, was not just a support for recitation or for memory in the way of the original, monolingual Manchu syllabary. The written page could do more than reproduce, in a durable medium, the linearity of speech. A page is two-dimensional; it

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allows the reader’s eye to make connections vertically as well as horizontally. Making use of this characteristic enabled Xiong and Sorai to transform the linear list of syllables into a grid made for the eye rather than the ear. I will begin this chapter by contextualizing Xiong Shibo’s essay on Manchu through consideration of his life up until the time when he wrote it. Second, I will discuss Xiong’s voluminous work on general phonology and its scholarly context, and then analyze the Manchu section of this book. The third part of the chapter will treat Sorai’s more limited study and its context.

Xiong Shibo: From the South to Beijing and Back Xiong Shibo’s 熊士伯 (fl. c. 1642–1713) study of Manchu, written from the point of view of Chinese phonological studies, is the earliest extant one of its kind. Yet Xiong was not the first Chinese phonologist to attempt a description of Manchu or to draw on it in phonological research. Yang Xuanqi 楊選杞 (1610–60), of a generation that reached maturity already before the Qing conquest, saw in the Manchu script a resource for phonological description, and Liu Xianting 劉獻廷 (1648–95) studied the syllabary.1 The loss of their original writings on Manchu, composed during these turbulent decades, makes it difficult to say today just how deeply they penetrated the study of China’s new language. Xiong Shibo’s text, by contrast, survives in its entirety. Xiong traveled widely in China. It was not completely by his own choosing. While a student in Beijing, Xiong developed an interest in Manchu, but he never had the chance to properly study the language. During a career working as a local administrator and a teacher in the Northwest and inland South, he wrote an encyclopedic work of phonological studies that was capped by a treatise on the Manchu script. Xiong was educated at home, in Jiangxi. The province was far from the centers of Manchu life, but Xiong had access to both phonological knowledge and phonological literature. 2 In 1672 (Kangxi renzi),3 when he was around thirty years old, Xiong was selected to “travel to the gates of the metropolis”4 as a senior licentiate of the first class5 (ba gongsheng 拔貢生; an alternate translation is graduate for preeminence), selected for study at the Directorate of Education (Guozi Jian 國子監) in Beijing. At the Directorate, he was offered the opportunity to study further in preparation for the higher civil ser vice exams.

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Beijing in the 1670s, and its Directorate of Education in particular, was an interesting place to be. Manchu education only started to really take off around this time, with the power of the dynasty increasingly secure. One of the first places where it happened was the old Ming institution of the Directorate. The guozi of its Chinese name originally referred to the “Scions of State” in the feudal and aristocratic society of Chinese antiquity, and indeed in the Manchu period the institution was from the very beginning intended to train the “sons and brothers” (zidi 子弟) of the conquest elite.6 The actual teaching in the banner schools under the jurisdiction of the Directorate of Education was carried out by instructors (jiaoxi) in several subjects. Instructors in Chinese were generally recruited from the pool of licentiates,7 to which Xiong belonged after his arrival in the capital. Indeed, Xiong served as a banner instructor at this time. Xiong’s superiors at the Directorate, apparently Manchus, were skilled in both of the Qing languages of state. Xiong wanted to learn Manchu as well, but could not find the time. “I regretted that I worked on compositions in preparation for the examinations and did not have the time to dedicate myself to learning Manchu,” he wrote.8 In Beijing, Xiong thus rubbed shoulders with Manchu literati, and in all evidence he taught written Chinese to Manchu students. He wanted access to the language that they shared, but that to him, as a civilian southerner, was completely unknown. Evidently, Manchu was for Xiong a marker of social standing and prestige, and he wanted in. In the early to middle Qing period, a mechanism existed whereby successful Chinese candidates for the highest civil examinations were taught Manchu in the Hanlin Secretariat, the place where much of the courtsponsored scholarship in both Chinese and Manchu was carried out. Before Xiong Shibo’s time, the Shunzhi emperor had even personally interviewed the Manchu learners in the Secretariat.9 Some of the early Chinese scholars of Manchu, such as Ling Shaowen, studied Manchu in the Hanlin. Xiong wanted the same chance, but he was unsuccessful in the examinations. Instead, he “privately sought instruction” in Manchu but “only managed to get a rough knowledge of it from glossed texts bought in the book stalls.”10 Rather than gaining access to the Hanlin, the less successful of the senior licentiates—of which Xiong appears to have been one—were appointed assistant heads of prefectural schools (zhou zuo jiaozhi 州佐教職) in the provinces.11 After leaving the directorate around 1680, Xiong served in vari-

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ous locations in southern, central, and northern China. In 1684, Xiong went back to his native Jiangxi, teaching in Nanfeng 南豐.12 This place was important to his scholarly production. Xiong met a senior colleague, Liu Ning 劉凝 (courtesy name Erzhi 二至; fl. 1665–1706), whose work influenced Xiong substantially, and Tang Zhudun 湯燝頓 (courtesy name Zijiang 子將; fl. 1684–1706), who titled himself Xiong’s student (shouye menren 受業門人). Tang later wrote that Liu was very impressed with Xiong’s work.13 Yet Xiong was not entirely satisfied with his life during these years, at least not after leaving Jiangxi. For a time, he served as a magistrate in Gaoling 高陵 county in the northwestern province of Shaanxi.14 “I was given the cold mattress [of a poor civil official] and received postings to remote mountain towns,” he wrote, perhaps in reference to this period of his life. It appears that Tang Zhudun worked for Xiong during his tenure as a local magistrate, for Tang remembered observing Xiong constantly working on phonology, jotting down notes in the middle of a reception and practicing the sounds of Middle Chinese initials while the yamen clerks were bothering him with reports.15 Eventually, Xiong went back to Jiangxi. First he taught in a location “on the shore of Pengli [i.e., Poyang 鄱陽] lake in the Lu mountains,” where he lived in “hunger and poverty” without any possibility of advancing his Manchu studies.16 Relief appears to have arrived in 1695, when he traveled to southern Jiangxi. Friends he had made on his travels sent him books on phonology, and he wrote essays on phonological works. In 1696, he wrote a first draft of Guyin zhengyi 古音正義 (Correct meaning of ancient sounds) on the basis of Liu Ning’s Yunyuan [quanshu] 韻原[全書] ([Complete writings on the] origins of rhymes).17 Xiong appears to have remained in southern Jiangxi at least until 1703,18 but perhaps until 1709 or longer.19 In the latter year he finished his treatise on Manchu phonology and script.

Xiong Shibo’s Phonological Studies Guyin zhengyi was drafted before the publication, and probably writing, of the collection that contained the study of Manchu. Yet Xiong published the finished version of Guyin zhengyi only in 1713. This final version, at the very least, shows that Xiong was influenced by Manchu in his study of ancient Chinese phonology. Xiong disagreed with his friend Liu Ning’s view on tones in ancient Chinese, believing, rather, that ancient Chinese tones had been

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fewer than what was attested later in the medieval sources. Just as Manchu did not have tonal distinctions, Xiong argued, so had they been nonexistent or at least fewer in ancient Chinese as well.20 Yet Xiong did not deal extensively with Manchu in Guyin zhengyi. However, he did in the definitive version of Dengqie yuansheng 等切元聲 (The fundamental sounds, spelled and arranged in grades), which was published in 1709. Xiong complained that he was isolated, even poor, but by 1709, that was probably no longer so: Dengqie yuansheng, in four handsome volumes, shows that he was a respected scholar with loyal students and a helpful extended family. Eleven individuals are listed as having collated his book. Tang Zhudun wrote a preface for it in 1706. Three years later, Xiong appended the study of Manchu. Phonology, the topic of Xiong’s book, was the study of “articulated sounds and rhymes” (yinyun 音韻), a field that by late imperial times was sometimes more restrictively referred to as “graded rhymes” (dengyun 等韻). By the time Xiong took it up, the study of sounds and rhymes had a long history behind it. Chinese Phonological Studies Before Xiong

From very early times, speakers of Chinese and dedicated students of the written language took an interest in the peculiarities of the pronunciation that they and others used. Sustained scholarly interest in— and writing about—the sounds of Chinese developed in the medieval period. Buddhism arrived in China at this time from India and Central Asia, and there is no doubt that Indic learning played an absolutely crucial role in the development of phonological studies in China, perhaps already at the time when Chinese scholars in the fourth century ce identified “rhymes” (the character yun 韻 did not occur in the Chinese canonical texts of the classical period) and “tones” (sheng 聲) in the language they spoke.21 Phonology as a discipline emerged as a theoretization of poetry, and books that classified Chinese characters into rhymes for use in poetry were initially its main genre. Pronunciation glosses in Chinese rhyme books were commonly given using a system of syllabic spelling. The origin of the method is not known with certainty. As for Xiong Shibo, he agreed with Song Qi 宋祁 (998–1061) that it “originated in popu lar custom” (ben chu [yu] lisu 本出[於]俚俗), 22 perhaps referring to the language games that others have since identified as the method’s source.23 Yet it is also possible that the system

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was conceived in imitation of the way Indic alphasyllabaries were used by medieval Chinese Buddhists. In the conceptualization of the functioning of the Indic scripts, which the Chinese inherited, a written syllable consisted of two parts, defined as onset and nucleus on the one hand, and coda on the other.24 In later treatises on the Indic script that was best known in East Asia, Siddhaṃ, the script was often presented as a series of twelve vowels and consonants, with which the onsets were coupled to form complex syllables.25 Writing Sanskrit syllables in Indic script and in transcription using Chinese characters was referred to as fan zi 翻字, “turning characters.” The Indian pairing of a basic consonant-vowel element with diacritics might have inspired the analysis of the Chinese syllable into two parts as well, giving rise to the method of syllabic spelling as we find it in the early rhyme books.26 A seventeenth-century writer, whom Xiong read with great interest, believed that was the case, writing that “in the past, people saw this method in the Sanskrit books and created syllabic spelling in imitation of it.”27 In Chinese, the method of syllabic spelling was called fanqie 反切, with fan 反 possibly being a shorthand for fan 翻, “turn,”28 as used in reference to the manipulation of Indic scripts, and qie meaning “fitting together.”29 Syllabic spelling worked by spelling one Chinese character using two others, one of which indicated the initial, the other the rhyme (which included the coda). By the late imperial period, much phonological research was being carried out within a genre other than the rhyme dictionary. A second major tool of Chinese phonology appeared as the “rhyme table” or “-chart” (dengyun tu 等韻圖), literally translating as “table of rhymes [divided into] grades.”30 Such tables, emerging around the turn of the second millennium ce, displayed syllables—by now familiarly analyzed into two parts through the operation of syllabic spelling—on a two-dimensional grid. One axis of the grid listed the first part of syllables (initials); the other axis listed the second part (rhymes).31 More phonological information could be communicated by dividing the axes into sections, so that adjacent columns or rows shared certain features. The utility of the rhyme tables stemmed from the circumstance that Chinese characters could not easily represent sounds on the subsyllabic level; to overcome this problem, the tables endowed the Chinese writing system with a kind of “systematic syllabary.”32 The inspiration for the tables came from Indian Buddhist learning, the impetus for adapting that knowledge to the Chinese language came from

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the widening distance between the language described in the canonical rhyme dictionaries and the forms of Chinese actually spoken. The sound glosses contained in the rhyme books were not easy to interpret for a reader coming at it a few hundred years after they were written; the tables helped specify the pronunciation and, if used in the right way, could also circumvent problems brought about by changes in the language over time. In the late imperial period, rhyme tables were often appended to rhyme dictionaries as a form of index helping the reader to establish the location of a character in the main body. Yet they had also acquired other functions, including as tools for phonological research and presentation of research findings.33 Xiong Shibo’s Dengqie yuansheng featured several tables that fell into this latter category. Indeed, the final product of his Manchu studies was a kind of rhyme table fashioned out of the Manchu syllabary’s first section. Rhyme Tables and Foreign Scripts in Xiong’s Book

Rhyme tables played a key role in Xiong’s phonological studies. One set of tables, included at the beginning of the first chapter of Dengqie yuansheng, attempted to reconcile an early rhyme table, Jingshi zhengyin qieyun zhinan 經史正音切韻指南 (Guide to syllabic spellings of the correct sounds in the classics and histories) from 1336, 34 with the canonical rhyme dictionary Guangyun 廣韻 (The expanded rhymes).35 At this stage, Xiong was probably also inspired— either first- or second hand—by another table influenced by the same source: Yuan Zirang’s 袁子讓 (n.d.) Zixue yuanyuan 字學元元 (Fundamentals of the study of characters; 1603).36 Yuan’s book was later instrumental in Xiong’s tabulation of the Manchu syllabary. Such sources represented the base line for phonological study. The division of initials and rhymes was a constant reference point in phonological research, so putting this at the beginning of Xiong’s book made sense. The table’s basic principle was the pairing of elements from the horizontal and vertical axes to form syllables in the cells of a grid. A table might gather syllables belonging to the same rhyme group, which mean that they all, from the point of view of the phonological system represented in the table, had a similar vowel. The table then arranged these assonating syllables according to the place of articulation of their initials, on the horizontal axis, and according to their tone, on the vertical axis.

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Such tables give an indication of the method with which Xiong approached Manchu and, indeed, any other articulated speech sound. Xiong’s focus throughout the book was on human sound in general, its variation, and the history of its study. The rhymes and initials, presented on the axes of a two-dimensional grid, were the categories through which Xiong made sense of his varied source material, which included Manchu books. After occasionally having made reference to the Manchu script for comparison in the book’s first three volumes,37 Xiong treated it in detail in the fourth volume together with other non-Chinese scripts. The fourth and last volume contained studies on foreign phonologies and scripts and a lengthy assemblage of notes on various Chinese phonological books. Its first three essays were titled “Reading the Buddhist character genera” (Yue Shishi zimu 閱釋氏字母), “Reading The Western classicists’ resources for the ears and eyes” (Yue “Xi-Ru ermu zi” 閱西儒耳目資), and “Reading the character heads of Manchu writing” (Yue Qingshu zitou 閱清書字頭). The books and authors cited by Xiong in these sections reveal the intellectual resources that he had to draw upon when studying the Manchu script. Xiong’s essay on the “Buddhist character genera” reviewed Indic characters that were both introduced to China along with the religion and available in Xiong’s time in transmitted medieval sources and more recent Siddhaṃ treatises. Siddhaṃ is typologically an alphasyllabary like other Indian scripts.38 It is not an alphabet noting consonants and vowels independently in the manner of the Greek or Roman alphabets, but it is structurally similar to Manchu in the syllabic understanding that pedagogues like Shen Qiliang inherited. The source on Indic scripts that most interested Xiong was a recent book. Titled Xitan jingzhuan 悉曇經傳 (The Siddhaṃ treatise and its commentary), it had been published in 1611 by the southern literatus Zhao Yiguang 趙宧光 (1559–1625). Zhao had studied Siddhaṃ mantras with a Buddhist master who in turn had learned it from Tibetans using also the Tibetan script.39 Zhao’s book is a very learned treatise, discussing Siddhaṃ within the framework of Chinese rhyme-table studies and analyses of written graphs. Xiong Shibo wrote that the book was “very detailed regarding Indic phonology,” but thought that some of its Chinese terminological innovations were “most laughable.”40 When explaining how Siddhaṃ functioned, Zhao repeatedly used features of the Chinese writing system for clarification. Zhao compared the changing shapes of Siddhaṃ graphs when they were combined into composite

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graphs to the changes of Chinese radicals depending on position in a character (e.g., huo 火, “fire” turning into 灬 when occupying the lower part of a character).41 Furthermore, in Zhao’s mind, possible but unused character shapes in Siddhaṃ presented a situation analogous with the Chinese writing system’s recognition of 丿and 乀 as strokes that could form characters, but could not themselves function as independent characters.42 Xiong Shibo later similarly compared the structure of Manchu characters to the Chinese script. Zhao’s presentation of the Siddhaṃ script took the form of a rhyme table, constituting a two-dimensional grid in which the vertical axis listed the twelve vowels and consonants. The latter were paired in the squares of the grid with the thirty-four sounds of the horizontal axis. The grid stretched over several printed pages. Chinese characters along the axes guided Zhao’s reader to the pronunciation of the Siddhaṃ characters in the cells of the table. When Xiong later wrote his study of Manchu, he subjected it to a similar tabulation. Alongside comparisons of Siddhaṃ to Manchu, Xiong invoked another foreign script: the Roman alphabet, the focus of his following essay. Xiong’s source for information on the Roman alphabet was the book Xi-Ru ermu zi 西儒耳目資 (The Western classicists’ resources for the ears and eyes), published in 1626, a few decades before the collapse of the Ming dynasty.43 The book, which was written in Chinese, was a collaborative publication that begun as conversations that the Belgian Jesuit Nicolas Trigault (Jin Nige 金尼閣; 1577–1629)44 had with a Chinese scholar in Shanxi.45 The Jesuits presented themselves as “Western Classicists” to their Chinese interlocutors, who associated “Classicist” (Ru) with scholars in their own Confucian tradition. Trigault’s book described the functioning of the Roman alphabet in a terminology that, while innovative, made sense to scholars who had studied Chinese phonology. The Western classicists’ resources for the ears and eyes would never have been published in China were it not for the European Jesuit presence there. Yet in the context of late Ming language studies, it was but one of several books that relied on exotic or novel notation systems to refine the way that speech sounds were recorded within the Chinese writing system. Zhao Yiguang’s Indic studies, to which Xiong also referred, belonged in the same category. Xi-Ru ermu zi presented spellings of Chinese characters using the Roman alphabet. Yet as its authors were writing for a Sinophone audience, they tried to find suitable Chinese characters that could be substituted for the Roman letters. They divided the Roman letters and their corresponding

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Chinese characters into “character fathers” (zifu 字父), referring to the syllable initials, and “character mothers” (zimu 字母), referring to the rhyme. These two together “generated” (sheng 生) a full syllable, called the “character offspring” (zizi 字子). Ideally, Trigault and his collaborators wanted the “offspring” to be “generated” by itself when the initial and the rhyme were read in succession, as was the case in alphabetic writing.46 The terminology was new, but the division of syllables into initials and rhymes followed Chinese phonological precedent. In European languages, syllables could consist of one, two, or more Roman letters. In the spelling system that Trigault and his collaborators presented to his Chinese readers, however, a syllable was bipartite. Similar to other phonologists, they too presented the syllables in tables with two axes, where one axis represented the initials and one the finals. Xiong’s Manchu grid was comparable. Yet Trigault and his collaborators introduced a European-derived terminology into the fundamentally Chinese phonological framework. The syllable, in their description, was a pairing of “consonants” (tongming 同鳴), represented in the initial, with “vowels” (ziming 自鳴, lit. sounds that “resonate on their own,” the exact opposite of “consonant”), represented in the rhyme. The authors understood the functioning of the Roman alphabet as a pairing of these subsyllabic units. They then transferred the same idea unto Chinese syllabic spelling.47 Trigault and his colleagues’ treatise had an immediate impact on Chinese phonology. One of the first scholars to draw on it in his studies was Fang Yizhi 方以智 (1611–71),48 whom Xiong Shibo read and cited. Yang Xuan-qi and Liu Xianting also read the Jesuit publication, and like Xiong discussed the Roman alphabet in connection with the Manchu script and, in Liu’s case, also Indic scripts.49 Xiong, like other readers of his time, treated the Trigault book as an intervention into a Chinese discourse. He accessed the Roman alphabet through the Jesuits’ Chinese-style tables and Chinese explanations. Xiong accordingly judged the alphabet by the standards of Chinese phonological studies. “Being from the far West, Trigault is discerning in phonology, which shows the spirit of a people from a far-off land,” Xiong wrote. “Being a Western Classicist, he has carefully examined the literary writing of China, which shows the dexterity of his mind.” Xiong accorded him the respect of a neutral and frank close reading. “I regret that I cannot bring Trigault back to discuss with him face to face,”50 he wrote, yet was critical of Trigault’s departure from established phonological categories in favor of modern pronunciation.51

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From reading Trigault, Xiong understood that Europeans used a writing system that functioned differently from Chinese characters. Roman letters came in two flavors—consonant and vowel—that together formed the syllables usually represented each by one Chinese character. Xiong thought that the pairing of European letters to form syllables was similar to the pairing of onsets and nuclei with codas in the Manchu syllabary: “The method of combining characters in Western writing is roughly similar to the Manchu script’s first character head.”52 In Zhao Yiguang’s and Nicolas Trigault’s books, Xiong encountered the idea that the Chinese method of phonological study—the division of the syllable into two parts and their display on the axes of a twodimensional grid— could be applied to other scripts as well. As used in his time, syllabic spelling and rhyme tables primarily served to study and explain the sounds of Chinese characters, but as Zhao and Trigault demonstrated, they could also describe Siddhaṃ and the Eu ropean alphabet. Why not also Manchu? Xiong’s Tabular Manchu

After Xiong had already drafted a treatise on phonology, he brought out the Manchu syllabary with Chinese sound glosses (yinzhu Manwen 音註滿文) that he had purchased in Beijing more than twenty years earlier. This book was probably something akin to Liao Lunji’s syllabary from 1670 (see Chapter 2). Xiong evidently also had access to the monolingual syllabary that Shen Qiliang had included in the pedagogical collection Qingshu zhinan in 1682. Unfortunately, in the remote location in the inland South where Xiong was living at this time, “there was no one well-versed in Manchu letters.”53 Xiong instead turned to Nicolas Trigault for help, verifying what he had gathered from the Manchu syllabary by consulting Xi-Ru ermu zi. Trigault’s book was published when the Manchu language was still completely unknown in China. What he described in his book was a script that was only very distantly related to the Manchu script. Yet both Trigault’s Roman alphabet and the Manchu script of the syllabaries spelled sound at the subsyllabic level, which Chinese characters as normally used did not. Trigault and his collaborators, as mentioned, identified the two groups of vowels and consonants among the European letters. Neither the monolingual nor the glossed Manchu syllabaries to which Xiong had access did anything similar, however. Xiong’s sources identified twelve groups—the

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“heads”—and, within them, syllable groups of two or three members. Yet these divisions were not theorized or explained. Thanks to the Chinese sound glosses, Xiong had a way to decipher the Manchu graphs, but finding an order in the thousand and some syllables required a great deal of thinking. Looking at Trigault’s book, Xiong realized that “the first two syllable groups” (shou er ju 首二句) of the Manchu syllabary “unexpectedly accord” (bu yue er tong 不約而同) with Xi-Ru ermu zi.54 The first two groups included the Manchu single-vowel syllables a e i and o u û. They corresponded neatly with Trigault’s Roman vowels a e i o u, as apparent also in the transcription I am using here. The Eu ropean vowels were five in number; the Manchu ones numbered six. However, like several of his contemporaries,55 Xiong understood the difference between the Manchu vowels o and û as merely one of tone. Because tonal distinctions were not made in Manchu, û was “for the most part not used” (duo bu yong 多不用) in the language.56 That left five Manchu vowels and five Eu ropean vowels listed in the same order. “ These five rhymes are most clear and distinct, hence they are listed first,” Xiong wrote elsewhere in his essay. “The Western classicists’ resources for the ears and eyes says that the fundamental sounds a, e, i, o, and u, although very few, are the flutes [with which] the myriad countries [produce all sound]. That might be the reason [that they are listed first].”57 The more Xiong looked, the more systematicity he found in the Manchu syllabary. He knew that the Chinese sound glosses to the original syllabary “used the capital dialect” (yong jinghua 用京話). Representing a northern vernacular, the glosses stood outside the tradition of phonological studies, which took Middle Chinese as represented in the early rhyme books as its point of departure. To relate the Manchu syllabary to the established scholarly tradition, Xiong changed the transcription characters in accordance with earlier influential studies on northern pronunciation.58 Xiong applied the terminology used to segment the northern Chinese syllable in such works to the Manchu syllabary. The ultimate source for this analysis, perhaps reaching Xiong through an intermediary, was Yuan Zirang’s Zixue yuanyuan. Yuan’s study contained what could be interpreted as a classification of northern Chinese syllables according to their first vowel sound. This classification was revelatory for Xiong.59 Yuan described northern Chinese syllables using two pairs of binary features: the quality of being “open” (kai 開) or “gathered” (he 合) and the one of being “upper” (shang 上) or “lower” (xia 下). Xiong came to recognize the same features in the Manchu vowel system.

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Xiong matched the Manchu vowels to the Chinese vowels according to their sound value, comparing Manchu a to Chinese a, Manchu i to Chinese i, and so on. When looking at the order of the Manchu vowels according to their features, Xiong saw a pattern. In terms of the first feature, the first three vowels (a e i) shared the quality “open”—we would say “unrounded”— and the last two vowels (o u; as mentioned, Xiong did not count û) shared the quality “gathered,” or “rounded.” In terms of the second feature, Xiong found that all vowels but one were “upper.” Only the third vowel, i, was “lower.” Indeed, in Yuan’s description of northern vernacular Chinese, “lower open” referred precisely to syllables with initials followed by -i. This classification, which Xiong projected onto the Manchu vowels on the basis of a typology of the northern Chinese vowels, made the Manchu sequence of five vowels appear too well ordered to be random: two groups of two vowels each (a e and o u), separated by one unique vowel (i). It followed that the Manchu vowel sequence, when one “explores it,” turns out to be “neat and orderly.” This was no coincidence, Xiong thought: “Thus we learn that in the past, when the characters were made and the pronunciation fixed, they were invested with precise intention.”60 Xiong knew nothing about the history of the Manchu writing system. He had at his disposal two syllabaries, nothing else. He had probably never seen a Mongolian book. Qing rule was new, and Xiong assumed that the Manchu script too was new. Rather than comparing the Manchu script with its ancestors in Inner Asia, he compared it with the other foreign writing of which he had some knowledge: the Roman alphabet. “The ductus [of Manchu] is roughly like the symbols of the Western classicists,” Xiong wrote. “They are drawn out and extended, transformed without end.”61 Xiong believed that “when the [Manchu] characters were first invented,”62 the inventor probably took a descending diagonal stroke (pie 撇) and made the first stroke of the first syllable, a. From there, through the addition of brushstrokes, the inventor would have built the first section of the Manchu syllabary. Xiong, a man of the century, would have been introduced to the study of scripts in an environment where the conceptualization of (Chinese) script as consisting of syllabic blocks (characters) divisible into strokes was practically universal. In imagining the origin of the Manchu script as an ex nihilo invention, he used the brushstroke paradigm to make sense of a new arrival in the world of Chinese print culture. It enabled him to reduce the basic units of the script to a handful of stroke types.

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When the Manchu script was reformed in the 1630s, the addition of “dots and circles” to some graphs made it so that some sounds with the same place (k and h, both velar or guttural) or manner of articulation (e.g., o and u, both rounded) were written similarly, distinguished only by a diacritic. Xiong saw in this circumstance a confirmation that the script’s inventor had designed the vowel graphs with the intention to highlight the symmetry that Xiong believed existed in their order. Xiong wrote that “the first [vowel] group,” meaning the “open” vowels a e i, would be “pronounced unrounded, their last stroke extending out.” That contrasted with the second group (o u [û]), the “gathered” vowels, which would be “pronounced rounded, their last stroke bending on itself.”63 Xiong believed that he had found in the Manchu syllabary a correspondence with the Roman alphabet, as described by Trigault, and the typology of vowels, as elaborated by Yuan Zirang and others in reference to contemporary northern Chinese. The shape of the Manchu characters confirmed, he thought, that the neat arrangement of the vowels had been a guiding principle for the inventor of the writing system. Xiong wanted to bring the regularities and correspondences out of the list of syllables included in the “twelve heads.” Merely parsing the columns of syllables into groups, as was done in the syllabaries to which Xiong had access, “does not make the precise intention of the creation of the characters and the fixing of the rhymes apparent.”64 To highlight that intention, Xiong proposed to make use of the two-dimensional nature of the page. First, he abandoned the original syllabary’s division of syllables into groups of three for convenient recitation. Instead of separating syllables with the vowels a e i from those with o u (û), he made a single group out of an initial paired with the whole vowel sequence. Instead of letting the syllables flow in a single sequence from column to column, as in the original syllabary, he proposed that one such syllable group, or “chain” (lian 連), each containing the full sequence of vowels and a certain initial, would occupy one column (hang 行) by itself. This arrangement meant that each column would be characterized by a specific syllabic initial. In the first column, the initial was zero, so it listed the vowels on their own (a e i o u û). In the second column, the initial was n-, giving the chain na ne ni no nu nû. Xiong saw symmetry in the way the columns were arranged. For instance, it was not by chance that the series ba . . . preceded pa . . . ; both were pronounced at the lips.65 Yet in some places, there was neither symmetry nor a neat a e i o u vowel sequence. Xiong believed that there was “a special reason” (bie you

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jingyi 別有精意) for that.66 The phonological analysis revealed to Xiong that increased clarity was the reason the vowel sequence was not always followed. For example, the ka ga ho series was separated from the ke ge hu series because “open” and “gathered” sounds in these syllables—perhaps Xiong was here, contrary to his earlier statements, intuiting the logic behind vestigial Manchu vowel harmony—were “very easy to mix up” (zui yi hunxiao 最易混淆). In order to stress their difference, they were put apart in the sequence.67 Second, Xiong identified each “chain” by its initial. Just as he matched the Manchu vowels with those of Mandarin (or, northern vernacular Chinese), he also matched the Manchu syllabic initials with those of Mandarin.68 He “indicated [the initial] at the head of every column, so that the reader can grasp it at first glance.”69 Here was the crux: Xiong was rearranging the Manchu syllabary into a reference work convenient for users trained in Chinese phonology. He was convinced that he thereby revealed the original intent of the script’s creator. Through his phonological analysis, the rational intent of the syllabary’s originator had been revealed. It was, Xiong thought, apparent everywhere: in the order of the vowels, in the matching or separation of initials, and in the brushstrokes that composed the characters. At the end of his essay, Xiong presented his enhanced syllabary as a table, where he highlighted the structural regularities that he had found through phonological analysis. Table 4 shows this. (I have represented the Manchu text and the circled Chinese characters in Roman letters to make the table easier to grasp.)70 The advantage of Xiong’s syllabary was that a reader could ascertain the spelling of a given Manchu syllable with greater accuracy. In the original syllabary, a reader had to read through the entire sequence contained within a section (or “head”) to find the written syllable he was looking for. Now, after having found the relevant section (i.e., the section containing the relevant coda), the reader could narrow down his search further by also identifying the column containing the relevant onset or initial. Instead of reading through a list of around 130 written syllables, now the reader had to read only through approximately six syllables. It is clear that the syllabary as presented by Xiong presupposed an entirely different usage from Liao Lunji’s bilingual syllabary and especially from the monolingual lists seen in Qingshu zhinan. Those syllabaries were first and foremost teaching aids. They were intended to be recited by dividing the syllables into groups of two or three, as in the Chinese primers, and committed to memory. In the case of the monolingual syllabary, the student might not even

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Table 4. Detail from Xiong Shibo’s phonological syllabary ø

n

k

b

p

s

š

t

a

na

ka

ba

pa

sa

ša

ta

g e

ne

ga

d be

pe

se

še

h i

ni

ha

no

ko

bi

pi

si

ši

nu

go

bo

po

so

šo

nû

ho

te

 . . .

de

 . . .

t bu

pu

su

šu

h û

 . . .

d

g u

ta t

k o

 . . .

ti

 . . .

d bû

pû

sû

šû

di

k

t

kû

to

g

d

gû

do

h

t

hû

tu

 . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .

d du

 . . .

have had his own syllabary. He might merely have listened and repeated after his teacher. Xiong’s syllabary, by contrast, was written for a scholar sitting down with a book. Its presentation was similar to the grid of the rhyme tables, which in the late imperial period were often used as indexes. It was probably not intended for recitation and memorization so much as for consultation.

Ogyū Sorai’s Japanese Grid A few years after Xiong Shibo wrote his phonological study of the Manchu script, a scholar in Japan subjected the Manchu syllabary to a similar treatment. Xiong was a scholar on the margins in his own day, and has remained under-

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studied since. Even the linguists, who like to mine late imperial phonological scholarship for information on the language of the day, have largely ignored Xiong. Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1728), by contrast, was one of the leading political thinkers in Japan in the early eighteenth century, and he remains a key figure in the historiography of early modern Japanese thought.71 In their study of Manchu, however, Xiong and Sorai were alike in that they both subjected the script and its pronunciation to an academic treatment on the basis of very limited written resources. When the Manchus conquered Beijing in 1644, Japan had for a few decades been ruled by the Tokugawa shogunate (bakufu) based in Edo (Tokyo). The Pax Tokugawa succeeded a period of political division and warfare, in which Japan had been exposed to a variety of foreign cultures. Trade and interaction with the Chinese, Dutch, and Koreans continued in the Tokugawa period mostly in a few domains in the southwest and during periodic visits of the Dutch to Edo.72 Many Japanese intellectuals distrusted the Manchu regime on the continent and portrayed it as culturally inferior both to the Chinese state that preceded it and to Tokugawa Japan. At the same time, knowledge of literary and vernacular Chinese increased in the archipelago. A few even tried to learn to speak the vernacular in some kind of northern pronunciation.73 Both the Chinese and Japanese languages became the focus of concentrated linguistic study in this period.74 Lexical items presented as words from the Manchu language appeared in Japanese literature in the seventeenth century in reports of a group of Japanese merchants or fishermen stranded in China. The words might have come from the mariners, but it is possible that such glosses were also drawn from written Jurchen vocabularies predating the Manchus.75 Sustained interest in Manchu in Japan began with the brothers Ogyū Sorai’s and Hokkei’s 北溪 (1673–1754) work in the second and third decades of the eighteenth century. While Hokkei’s Manchu-language study was limited to deciphering the Manchu words that occurred—in Chinese transcription—in the Qing legal statutes, available in Japan since 1720,76 Sorai made a study of the Manchu syllabary. Sorai, equally a political thinker, was interested in language. Early in his career, he was involved in the attempts to organize academic events in vernacular Chinese at the household of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu 柳澤吉保 (1658–1714), Sorai’s patron and a Zen follower who received visits by several Chinese monks. Thanks to studies with individuals from the Chinese interpreter community in Nagasaki, Sorai was able to appear an authority on vernacular Chinese in this group. In 1711, the

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brothers Ogyū founded a “translation society” (yakusha 譯社) for the study of vernacular Chinese.77 It was probably between 1711 and 1716 that Sorai wrote his tabular analysis of the Manchu script. Precise information on the circumstances of its production is not available, nor is Sorai’s original manuscript. Several copies are extant, some titled “Manbunkō” 滿文考 (Examination of Manchu writing), some “Manjikō” 滿字考 (Examination of Manchu characters), and at least one “Shinjikō” 清字考 (Examination of Qing characters); which title Sorai used is a matter of conjecture, but it was probably not the last of the three.78 The main body of Sorai’s study is a tabular representation of the Manchu syllabary, written on the model of the Japanese “fifty-sound table” (gojūonzu 五十 音圖). The table is followed by a list of Manchu syllables that are not found in the standard syllabary in twelve sections. Sorai wrote the study of the Manchu script on the basis of two books: Liao Lunji’s bilingual syllabary, which was published as part of the Chinese dictionary Mastery of correct characters, and a version of the Thousand-character essay, a Chinese-character primer, in which the Chinese characters had been replaced by a Manchu-script transcription based on their reading in Mandarin Chinese. Sorai probably accessed Liao’s syllabary in a reprint that arrived in Japan in 1711. The Thousand-character essay was published in 1685 in China and circulated in Japan in a reprint with Japanese glosses by 1698. Its author was You Zhen 尤珍 (1647–1721), a Chinese southerner from a prominent family who studied Manchu in the Hanlin Secretariat after 1682, where he worked on several scholarly projects for which a knowledge of Manchu was useful.79 You’s Essay was included in a collection titled Baiti qianzi wen 百體千字文 (The thousand-character essay in a multitude of styles),80 one of several collections of versions of the Essay in which Chinese characters were written in several highly divergent styles.81 The Manchu version, written in the Manchu manner from left to right, was appended to the end of the collection (or the beginning, in the Manchu sense), but its integration into the collection made sense. Except for You Zhen’s name, title, and the essay’s date of writing, the Manchu script here represented Chinese words. And with each Chinese syllable written apart as one unit also in the Manchu script (tian di yuwan hûwang, ioi jeo hûng hûwang for tian di xuan huang, yuzhou hong huang 天地玄黃，宇宙洪荒 [“heaven and earth are black and yellow | the cosmos is vast and desolate”]), why would the Manchu version not be counted as just another strange looking way of writing Chinese? Sorai was certainly interested in it because it presented a rare specimen of written

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Manchu in early eighteenth-century Japan, but the fact that the Manchu script in it recorded Chinese sounds (and not Manchu ones) was important for his study of the syllabary. Liao had not added Chinese-character transcriptions to all the syllables inside the twelve sections. He added them throughout the first section, and then at the beginning of the remaining sections to highlight their different finals. He relied on the reader to be able to piece together the pronunciation of the other syllables on the basis of this information. Sorai, however, wanted to give his readers transcriptions for more Manchu syllables: “occasionally, characters are missing” in Liao’s syllabary, he wrote, so he “used the Thousand character essay to add supplementary characters.” Sorai also highlighted differences in transcription between the two works by writing alternative Chinese-character transcriptions alongside in red ink.82 The original Manchu syllabary listed only a few Chinese sounds. Comparing the two Manchu sources at his disposal, Sorai realized that the Manchu syllabary did not include all the combinations of graphs that actually occurred in running Manchu text, including, for example, originally Chinese or foreign names of people or places. Some Chinese syllables had no counter parts in the native Manchu lexicon. The use of the Manchu script to transcribe Chinese text in You’s version of the Essay thus meant that Manchu graphs appeared there in unexpected combinations. The realization that the original syllabary did not account for all possible combinations led to innovations in Manchu pedagogy both in China, where Wu-ge extended the syllabary into a textbook to remedy its incompleteness, and in Eu rope, where, as Chapter 7 will show, it contributed to the abandonment of the syllabary in favor of an alphabetic presentation. Eventually, the use of the Manchu script to transcribe the Chinese language became a means to more accurately impart knowledge of Mandarin Chinese (see Chapter  6). Sorai noted that the syllabary was incomplete and appended a list of syllables culled from You’s Essay that were not found in Liao’s twelve sections. He thus took a step in the same direction as his counter parts in China and Eu rope. The most unique feature of Sorai’s Manchu study is not his reliance on a knowledge of Mandarin to infer the pronunciation of the Manchu graphs, nor his awareness of the syllabary’s limitations, but the grid into which he transformed the twelve sections. Sorai’s grid differed from Xiong Shibo’s, but both were ultimately rooted in the Indic-inspired Chinese tradition of phonological study and, more impor tant, both served scholars who

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encountered Manchu only on a two-dimensional sheet of paper and not as the fleeting sounds of speech. Xiong’s grid was based on the first section of the Manchu syllabary. The irregularities aside, it displayed the consonants acting as onsets on the horizontal axis and the vowels that ended the first section’s syllables—which were all open—on the vertical axis. Sorai’s grid, by contrast, displayed the whole syllabary spread out over twenty-two pages.83 The horizontal axis in Sorai’s grid consisted of the entire first section, both onsets and nuclei, as one row running across the head of the pages. The vertical axis contained the codas that characterized each of the twelve sections. Thus, the first row had the first section’s zero ø final; the second row, the second section’s final in -i; and so on. Sorai’s presentation would have been intuitive to educated Japanese readers of his time. Its model was the Japanese “fifty-sound table,” an arrangement of the Japanese syllabary, typically the katakana graphs, on phonological principles. As its name indicates, the “fifty-sound table” was not a linear presentation of the Japanese syllabary. It was a two-dimensional grid, where the horizontal axis listed syllable initials and the vertical axis listed rhymes. Isolated Japanese syllables are always open (if we exclude the coda in -n), so the vertical axis listed the language’s five vowels. The table was a product of Chinese phonological studies in Japan and the study of Indic scripts there. That might seem like a dual origin, but the Chinese phonological tradition had also, as mentioned, at least in part developed under Indic influence, notably in the case of the rhyme tables. In Japan as in China, Chinese rhyme tables were used to interpret fanqie spellings, which were difficult for Japanese readers to decode. The tables were useful in this regard, as they allowed the reader to run through either alliterating or rhyming syllables to find matching pairs. The earliest “fifty-sound tables” predate the earliest rhyme table, but they are similarly structured and fill the same function: they allow the reader to interpret spellings of sound glosses. The most striking difference is that the “fifty-sound table” is much simpler—similar to the Indic-script tables—and lists katakana instead of Chinese characters.84 In Sorai’s time, the table received greater attention in part through the work of the monk Keichū 契沖 (1640–1701), who used it in his research on ancient Japa nese phonology and orthography.85 Keichū was probably inspired by Jōgon 浄厳 (1639–1702), who presented his fifty-sound study of Siddhaṃ as a universal table of all the sounds in the world.86 It was in this context that Sorai reached for the “fifty-sound table” as a suitable format for presenting the script and pronunciation of Manchu.

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Sorai stressed that his syllabary was made for reading. He organized the information in a grid, which enabled the retrieval of a written syllable according to its initial, to facilitate its use as a work of reference. The removal from the context of aural-oral education made Sorai’s grid possible. It was made to look at: the eye can move both right, along the inner sequence inside the sections, or down, through the outer sequence. To the right, the onsets and nuclei change. Downward, it is the codas that change instead. The grid was made even easier to understand visually by Sorai’s differentiation of the “half blocks” of syllables by writing the codas in red ink, “in order to facilitate browsing” (ben o motte kanran su 以便觀覽).87 Here, Sorai went further than Xiong, as the Japanese scholar completely abandoned the linear arrangement of the sections in favor of a grid that highlighted structural regularities. It does not appear that Sorai continued his studies of Manchu beyond the writing of the grid. Perhaps he had simply exhausted the very limited resources at his disposal. Perhaps his grid is a Manchu syllabary adapted for the disinterested armchair scholar, for whom Manchu was a curiosum. The grid once finished, Sorai might have lost interest.

Conclusion To a reader approaching Manchu with the resources of a few hundred years of historical and linguistic research at her grasp, Xiong’s phonological study of the Manchu syllabary looks ludicrous. The syllabary was a simple teaching aid, the product of largely contingent circumstances, not a bearer of a secret order and meaning. Xiong’s inferences regarding the original intent behind the creation of the Manchu script and its syllabary, envisioned as a single event carried out by a single inventor, are contradicted by Manchu’s history as a recording of a Jurchen dialect using the preexisting UighurMongol script in early seventeenth-century Manchuria. Yet, in context, Xiong’s essay made sense. Early Qing scholars knew very little about the Manchu language and next to nothing about its history. Xiong divided the Manchu script and pronunciation into units that made sense to an educated Chinese reader, and arranged those units on the page in a way that was intuitive for someone used to running his eyes across Chinese characters aligned in rhyme tables. Xiong thus made Manchu more accessible to Chinese intellectuals. Symmetries of vowels and places of articulation could, similarly,

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fulfill a mnemonic function for Chinese scholars trying to learn this new and foreign language. Ogyū Sorai’s study of a partially overlapping and very limited set of Manchu textual artifacts produced a similar result, for a similar reason. He too made the Manchu script manageable for his peers. The fact that Sorai’s study survives in a number of manuscripts from the Tokugawa period suggests that it found its way to those readers, several of whom made the effort to copy the text. A few decades after Xiong’s and Sorai’s nearly contemporaneous studies, European scholars unknowingly replicated their attempts to make the syllabary more simple and analytic. Jean Domenge and especially Gottlieb Bayer presented the Manchu script in a way that appealed to book learners. The difference was that this time, the readers were Europeans, who were schooled not in Chinese characters and phonological tables, but in the Roman alphabet. The European grids, accordingly, displayed Manchu as an assemblage of vowels and consonants in the image of the alphabet. This story will be the focus of Chapter 7.

Chapter 4

Manchu Words and Alphabetical Order in China and Japan, 1683–1820s

Clerks, officials, Manchu examination candidates, and others who translated and read Manchu needed dictionaries in which they could look up words conveniently. An unknown word encountered while reading can be conveniently located in a dictionary only when that dictionary arranges words according to how they are written, not according to what the words mean. That is true for not only Manchu. Chinese dictionaries developed substantially to better fulfill this function beginning in the late sixteenth century. Manchu lexicography underwent a similar development from the 1680s onward. Qing lexicographers of Manchu associated their dictionaries with Chinese dictionaries that arranged single characters according to their graphical structure. Outsiders saw matters differently. This chapter describes this graphological genre of Manchu lexicography and its surprising continued development in Japan in the early nineteenth century. In 1820s Edo, Takahashi Kageyasu, a scholar with the shogunal astronomy office, reworked Manchu dictionaries that he had acquired from China to produce several manuscripts with different arrangements serving different purposes. Takahashi had been exposed to Dutch books, and he knew what the alphabetical order used in European dictionaries could do: allow a reader to find a word without an inkling of its meaning. As a translator of Manchu documents, Takahashi needed a Manchu-reference work with such capabilities. Yet the arrangement of Manchu dictionaries from China had problems. The order of words differed between dictionaries and even within the same dictionary. The problem was noted by lexicographers in China, who conceptualized the Manchu dictionaries in reference to Chinese

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radical-and-stroke-order dictionaries, but it was explicitly tackled by Takahashi in Edo in the 1820s. With reference to alphabetical Dutch dictionaries, he set out to improve Manchu lexicographical arrangement.

Origins and Development of Graphological Manchu Dictionaries One major genre of Manchu lexicography—the topically arranged, at times encyclopedic dictionary—that emerged in Beijing around the turn of the eighteenth century will be the focus of Chapter 5. Yet topically arranged dictionaries were essentially vocabulary repositories. Readers evidently read them cover to cover, or at least section by section, in order to memorize Manchu words or their established Chinese translations. The marginalia left by readers in such books give little reason for thinking that they were used to look up unknown words encountered in reading or needed in composition. For instance, one manuscript dictionary arranged by topic, probably dating from the first half of the nineteenth century, has manuscript marks over practically every word. A reader probably put them there to mark off words as he learned them.1 An eighteenth-century book has such marks as well. Progressive dates at times accompany them, indicating the time when the reader (fl. 1748) memorized certain groups of words.2 Some readers excerpted the words into a personal vocabulary list, with one adding the note “written up to here” (xie zhi ci 寫至此) at the bottom of the page of a topically arranged dictionary.3 The words of the Mongol scholar Mingcang (fl. 1793) confirm that dictionaries arranged by topic were not considered as reference works, but as source books for Manchu vocabulary. In the preface to his version of a Chinese-Manchu dictionary arranged according to Chinese radical-and-stroke order, he wrote that some lexicographers “organize [their books] topically, which makes them convenient to read continuously in order to gather [words] belonging to the same category, but difficult to use for consultation.”4 What options were available for compiling a Manchu dictionary that allowed for easy consultation? With the notable exception of the book that will be the focus of Chapter 5, almost all Manchu dictionaries were at least bilingual and used by readers working in two languages. Depending on their linguistic abilities and the task that they were performing, they placed different demands on the dictionary. Someone who used the dictionary to translate a text from Chinese into Manchu, for example, would need to be able to look up

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Chinese words. Topically arranged dictionaries allowed that, to some extent, as the user could rely on his knowledge of the meaning of the Chinese word to find the section in which its Manchu translation could be found. In case the user did not know the meaning of the Chinese word in question, topically arranged dictionaries were of little help, but as Mingcang’s words quoted above indicate, they were in any case not very useful as reference works. The dictionary that Mingcang compiled with his associates enabled users to look up Chinese words conveniently and find their Manchu translations. The headwords it listed were Chinese-character expressions, arranged according to the structure of their first character. Such a book was convenient for someone who was translating from Chinese into Manchu, and for someone composing a text in Manchu but was more confident in Chinese. Yet this kind of book did not help a reader of a Manchu text needing to look up unknown words, or a Manchu speaker who wanted to look up the Chinese equivalent of a Manchu word he already knew. Mingcang’s dictionary, and the fledgling tradition from which it sprung, represented the extension of a specifically Chinese lexicographic genre to Manchu. This genre, however, was inalienable from the Chinese writing system. Only Chinese characters could be arranged according to its hierarchy of brushstrokes and brushstroke clusters (radicals). Chinese-Manchu dictionaries arranged in this manner did not tackle the challenge that the introduction of the Manchu script posed for information management. Another kind of dictionary did. Shen Qiliang’s Manchu Dictionary

Shen Qiliang (see Chapter 2) published the first graphological ManchuChinese dictionary, Da Qing quanshu 大清全書 (Complete book of the Great Qing), in 1683. At that time, topically arranged vocabularies probably already circulated in manuscript form, as did graphologically arranged dictionaries, which Shen used to compile Da Qing quanshu.5 Shen’s target audience included individuals like himself, who as Chinese civilians had only learned Manchu in adulthood as a second language, as well as “gentlemen already skilled in Manchu writing who are now engulfed in Chinese literature.”6 Both these groups benefited from a reference work that allowed for quick retrieval of Manchu words and their Chinese translations. Shen’s book offered this functionality by arranging Manchu words according to their graphic structure. The arrangement was similar to alpha-

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betical order in the Eu ropean lexicographical tradition. In both cases, words were first divided into smaller units, which in the Eu ropean case were letters. The words were then arranged in a list—the dictionary— according to the placement of their constituent letters in a familiar sequence, which in the Eu ropean case was the alphabet. In Eu ropean alphabetical order, the words were listed in a descending order according to the place of their first letter in the order of the alphabet, and if the first letter was the same, according to the place of the second letter, and so on down through the whole word. This arrangement was well known and much used in Eu rope by the late seventeenth century, but it had developed over a long period of time. Historicizing Eu ropean alphabetical order shows that it was not a given, but a certain solution to the problem of how to retrieve words from a book. Complete alphabetical order took a long time to develop in Eu rope. The Manchu tradition, by contrast, was new and initially localized to Beijing and the banner communities. The cumulative effort of perfecting the lexicographic arrangement was only rarely a priority in a context in which the dearth of dictionaries, not their imperfection, was the problem. In the Middle Ages, European lexicographers developed a dictionary order that reinterpreted the Latin alphabet as a “syllabic alphabet.” This alphabet orga nized the words not according to the initial letter of the word, but according to the initial syllable. All words whose first syllable contained a given consonant and vowel would be orga nized under the heading of that syllable; any consonant standing between the initial consonant and the vowel was ignored by the system.7 The alphabetical order with which we are familiar only became established in the centuries before Shen Qiliang. As late as 1604, an English lexicographer felt it necessary to urge his readers to “learne the Alphabet, to wit, the order of the Letters as they stand, perfecty [sic] without booke” in order to profit from the use of the dictionary.8 Shen Qiliang did not have to remind his readers to commit to memory the order of the Manchu script, because, like him, they already knew it. The arrangement of the Manchu words in his dictionary was based on the Manchu syllabary, which all Manchu literates had studied and presumably memorized. That does not mean, however, that Da Qing quanshu’s arrangement was intuitive to all of Shen’s readers. Through study of the syllabary, the dictionary’s audience had internalized a certain understanding of the Manchu script as consisting of subsyllabic units that Shen

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later theorized as “half blocks.” Analyzing words several syllables long into such half blocks and then anticipating their arrangement on the basis of the occurrence of the blocks in the syllabary probably took some practice. At least, Shen thought it necessary to explain the ensuing arrangement to his readers. Shen’s Chinese Model

The Manchu graphological order that Shen brought to print was analogous to alphabetical order in Europe, in that the spelling of words determined their placement in the dictionary. It could be variously conceptualized, however. In Japan, as I will show, it was eventually associated with phonological order. In China, by contrast, Manchu graphological order appeared in a written tradition based on the syllabic Chinese character. Neither Shen nor most of his readers knew of the Eu ropean alphabet, and none had probably seen a Eu ropean alphabetical dictionary. When Shen theorized Manchu graphological order, he associated it with what to him appeared as its Chinese equivalent: dictionaries arranged by radical-and-stroke order. Shen associated his dictionary with the graphologically arranged Chinese dictionary Zihui, whose analysis of Chinese characters also contributed to Shen’s and others’ analyses of the Manchu script in pedagogical texts. Zihui represented the perfection of a lexicographical genre that had its origins in an analysis of the composition of Chinese characters going back to the first century ce.9 It was based on so-called radicals, configurations of strokes that re-occurred in great numbers of characters. The radicals formed groups into which characters that contained them were seen to belong. As the radicals, no matter their number, formed a finite sequence, they could be arranged in a fixed order that could in turn be used to arrange all characters subsumed under them in dictionaries. In the second half of the first millennium, this system of character analysis and classification became established as a form of lexicographic arrangement intended for easy retrieval.10 Amid a flurry of lexicographic activity in the early seventeenth century11—a period of expanding literacy and printing—the arrangement based on radicals became firmly established as a bipartite system. Radicals had for some time been arranged in order by the rising number of strokes, which obviated the need to memorize an other wise arbitrary sequence from beginning to end. In Zihui, also the characters

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grouped under a given radical were orga nized according to their number of constituent strokes, resulting in a bipartite order in which Chinese characters were orga nized first according to radical, and second according to the number of strokes. This system was carried over into the most well-known Chinese dictionaries of the early and middle Qing period, including the imperial and normative Kangxi zidian 康熙字典 (Character standard of the [reign of] Secure Peace; 1716).12 From there, it was carried over to ChineseManchu dictionaries such as the one that Mingcang compiled with his colleagues in the late eighteenth century. Dictionaries like Zihui were associated with the ancient divinatory symbols of the Yijing 易經 (Change classic). The study of the divinatory symbols was the study of lines and numbers, which were also at the center of the lexicographic system perfected by Mei Yingzuo. His brother, Dingzuo 鼎祚, wrote in a preface to Zihui about Yingzuo’s study of the Change classic. Dingzuo wrote that “the Changes are divinatory symbols,” but it is also said that “the Changes are numbers.” Numbers were key to a dictionary like Zihui. According to Dingzuo, a characteristic feature of his brother’s dictionary was precisely that it “organized all [of the characters] according to their number [of strokes].”13 Shen Qiliang saw in this segmentation into strokes and their arrangement according to their number a similarity to the Manchu graphological system that he was pioneering in print. Shen, following Dingzuo’s preface to Zihui, referred to the divinatory symbols of the Change classic. Adopting a language familiar from the prefaces of Chinese dictionaries was a way for Shen to inscribe his Manchu dictionary in a preexisting tradition of Chinese lexicography. The itemization and quantification of the written representations of language was the link between lexicography and the study of the Change classic. Shen wrote that “although the order of Manchu characters lacks the separation by number of strokes seen in the Chinese Characters collected [Zihui], it does not differ by much.”14 He associated the organization of words according to half blocks and syllables in descending order, which he used in his Manchu dictionary, with Mei Yingzuo’s method. In order to compile his dictionary, Shen had to analyze, segment, compare, and rearrange words and phrases. Perhaps these motions evoked the operations of diviners or the manipulations of the demotic mathematical art of the counting rods. It certainly seems to have been related, in Shen’s mind, to the study of the divinatory trigrams—the “drawing of the eight trigrams”

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(hua ba gua 畫八卦) that he, following tradition, identified with the origins of writing15— and thereby to the segmentation and quantification of Chinese characters in Zihui. Shen’s Graphological System

Manchu graphological order, similar as it might seem to European alphabetical order, was from the beginning understood by Qing lexicographers as similar to graphological order in Chinese dictionaries. Both systems were based on the identification of atomic graphic units. From the Qing point of view, the fact that the atomic units of Manchu, unlike those of Chinese characters, represented subsyllabic sounds was incidental; Manchu graphological order was not, for Shen, an arrangement according to the pronunciation of words. It was an analysis of the graphic structure of Manchu words, not their sound structure, that lay at the basis of Shen’s arrangement. However, the subsyllabic components, which Shen later theorized as half blocks, did not form one single sequence in the manner of the European alphabet. The first syllable of the word manju, man-, subdivided into the half blocks ma-, the syllable’s onset and nucleus, and -n, its coda. The first half block occupied the sixty-second position in the conventional order of the Manchu syllabary’s inner sequence. The second half block, -n, by contrast, is not found anywhere in the inner sequence; it is found only in the outer sequence. The “upper” (first) and “lower” (second) half blocks, then, were arranged in two separate sequences, not one as in the European alphabet. The headwords in Shen’s dictionary were arranged on three levels.16 On the first or topmost level, words were arranged according to the place of the first “upper half block” (i.e., a-, e-, . . . na-, ne-, etc.). Shen marked this division by dividing the dictionary into chapters, each headed by one “upper half block.” On the second level, words that shared the same first “upper half block” were further arranged according to their first “lower half block” (i.e., -ø [zero], -i, -n, and down to -m). The order of the “lower half blocks” that Shen used generally followed the idiosyncratic order seen in the syllabary he printed in 1682, which differed somewhat from the order that became canonical. Shen grouped headwords that shared both the first “upper half block” and the first “lower half block”—in other words, words whose whole first syllable was identical—into sections each headed by the relevant syllable (in the first section:

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a, ai, etc.). “As in the heads [i.e., the Manchu syllabary],” Shen wrote, “the first [chapter of the dictionary] begins with a. It then follows [the order of the outer sequence] and ends with the twelfth section’s am.” The dictionary’s second chapter, conversely, “starts from the character e and follows [the order of the outer sequence] and ends with the twelfth section’s em.”17 On the third level, finally, the headwords were further arranged by the “upper half block” of their second syllables. Using the first section of the first chapter as an example, Shen wrote, “Furthermore, the words [lianzi 連 字; lit. ‘connected characters’] grouped under a follow a certain order. For example, the character a is linked to the character na, which forms the character ana. When the [words beginning with] the character ana are exhausted, ni follows. From there, we arrive at the character [or word] aniya.”18 Arrangement by “lower half block” was not practiced beyond the first syllable of words. The sequence akûci, “other wise”; akûngge akû, “there is nothing that is not there”; akûn, “ isn’t it?”; akûnambi, “to reach the opposite shore”; akûnarakû ba akû, “no place not reached”; akûmbumbi, “to exhaust,” shows that Shen did not place words with a second “lower half block” in -ng (akûngge) after one with a second “lower half block” in -n (akûn), or one with a zero (ø) second “lower half block” (akûnarakû) before one with a second “lower half block” in -m (akûmbumbi), as would be expected from the syllabary.19 Shen’s arrangement could, however, theoretically have been implemented there as well, as was later the case in Takahashi Kageyasu’s dictionary. Shen described a graphological system that could have been carried through with greater consistency than was actually the case in Da Qing quanshu. Words were found in the dictionary in places where they were not expected judging by Shen’s instructions. Shen knew that, of course. “ There are a few words [zi 字] that do not accord with the order,” he wrote, “which is because they were excerpted at different times and inserted throughout [the dictionary].” He added that “the reader should not consider the order to be completely inflexible.”20 Since Shen did not arrange the words according to differences beyond the second “upper half block” of words, his arrangement was, on that level, similar to the syllabic alphabet of the European Middle Ages. Furthermore, the order of the half blocks that determined the placement of words changed somewhat throughout the dictionary.21 At times, moreover, semantics also played a role for the arrangement; an adjective derived from a verb might follow immediately after that verb, even though an unrelated but similarly written word should have come between according to Shen’s principles. Similarly, unmarked verb forms (that is, the imperfect-finite

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form in -mbi) tended to precede marked ones (e.g., the imperfect converb in -me).22 Finally, some Manchu words were spelled in ways that made their arrangement on the basis of the syllabary less than obvious. The outer sequence of the syllabary recognized the second vowel of diphthongs as the “lower half block” of that syllable. In syllables such as ao or ai, the “lower half blocks” were, respectively, -o and -i. On the basis of such an understanding, what should one do with syllables that contain both a diphthong and a consonantal coda, such as ainci, “perhaps”? Shen did not discuss this problem, but from the placement of the word in the dictionary, it appears that he chose to disregard the final -n and arranged ainci as if its first syllable was ai-, not ain-.23 Manchu Graphological Arrangement After Shen Qiliang

Graphologically arranged Manchu dictionaries became one of the most popular genres of Manchu lexicography and remained so for the duration of the Qing period. In 1690, a few years after Shen published Da Qing quanshu, a book titled Man-Han tongwen quanshu 滿漢同文全書 (Complete book in standardized Manchu and Chinese writing) was published in Beijing and sold by several shops according to the common practice of Manchu publishers. It had an arrangement similar to Da Qing quanshu, but a simpler layout. Shen distinguished chapters according to the first half block of the words they contained, and then sections within the chapters according to the first and second half blocks. Man-Han tongwen quanshu, by contrast, distinguished only sections, each headed by the first and second half blocks. In itself, this change did not affect the sequence in which words were listed in the dictionary, merely how the lexicographic hierarchy was presented on the page.24 More dictionaries appeared in the eighteenth century. Kangxi’s Mirror from 1708—the imperially sponsored book that will be the subject of Chapter 5—was arranged by topic, but it contained an “index” (uheri hešen) that listed the headwords, without definitions, arranged on the basis of the syllabary in twelve sections. The emperor’s scholars, however, chose a system quite different from that seen in Da Qing quanshu. It is tempting to infer that the index was added as an afterthought to make the Mirror more useful as a reference work. Kangxi’s preface made no mention of the index, but one of the compilers’ postfaces noted that “after the [main] text, there is also an index in several chapters, the idea of which comes from the twelve heads.”25

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Nothing else is said about it. The very name of the index is informative, however. The Manchu word uheri hešen, although certainly inspired by the Chinese term zonggang 總綱, “the assembled mesh of a net; the overall system,” which it translated, might have been related to an understanding of Manchu words as woven together from threads represented by the inner and outer sequences of the syllabary. Such a reading of the connotations of uheri hešen implies that the compilers of the imperial Mirror thought of the structure of Manchu graphological arrangement as braided in the most literal sense of the word. The Mirror’s index was based on the syllabary in twelve sections, like Shen Qiliang’s dictionary, but the arrangement was fundamentally different. Shen’s arrangement was based primarily on the half blocks, with Da Qing quanshu’s first section containing all words whose first half block was a-. The Mirror’s index, by contrast, contained all words beginning with the syllable a, which contained two half blocks (a- and -ø) in its first section. The result was an entirely different arrangement of words. To use an analogy from the European tradition, it was as if the headwords in Da Qing quanshu and the Mirror’s index were arranged according to two different alphabetical orders.26 In Shen’s book, words with first syllables in a- (i.e., the half blocks a- + -ø) were followed immediately by words with first syllables in ai- (i.e., the half blocks a- + -i). In the index, by contrast, words with first syllables in a- were followed by words with first syllables in e- (i.e., the half blocks e- + -ø). Words with a first syllable ai- (i.e., the half blocks a- + -i) are found only 374 pages further into the book, after we-, at the end of the sequence within the syllabary’s first section. 27 Readers already used to Shen’s arrangement would thus have had trouble adjusting to the index. To make matters worse, there is no apparent order of the words listed within the index’s sections. On the basis of the syllabary, a reader could locate the section in which a word would be found, but then all he could do was to read the section from the beginning until he encountered the word he sought. From there, he would follow the reference to the section in the Mirror and find the definition, again, by scanning the section from beginning to end. The Mirror’s index contained one important innovation. Kangxi’s scholars appended a section to the end of the index that they titled “Outer characters such as sy, cy, etc.” (Ma. sy cy-i jergi tulergi hergen).28 The prefatory material in the Mirror made no mention of the institution of this category, but judging from the section’s title, a reader would assume that it contained words whose first syllable began with one of the special Manchu characters

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(sy, cy, etc.) devised specifically to transcribe foreign words (see Chapter 6). In reality, the section included more than that. Alongside transcriptions from Chinese, the section contained Manchu words that did not include any special characters, but whose syllabic structure was difficult to parse according to the syllables included in the syllabary. The institution of a category of “outer characters” had some influence on graphological dictionaries and Manchu pedagogy later in the eighteenth century, but the index never became a model for lexicographers. Private and commercial dictionaries that later appeared on the basis of the Mirror did not follow the index, but rearranged the contents according to a system more akin to that seen in Da Qing quanshu. The graphological genre that Shen pioneered flourished in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The arrangement of words developed somewhat, most importantly by adopting the conventional order of the “lower half blocks.” The essentials of the graphological system that was brought to print by Shen remained, however. Shen’s successors also followed Da Qing quanshu’s precedent in not applying the graphological arrangement beyond the first few half blocks. The result was that although the books were arranged according to the same principle, a reader could not locate a word with absolute certainty merely by relying on his knowledge of how the order functioned. Rather, once in the right section, a reader would home in on a word by flipping the pages back and forth in the general area where he expected to find the word. There was a fair chance that the word would be found either somewhere on the open pair of pages or on one of the neighboring pages.29 Considering that reality, Shen’s successors do not appear to have thought it worthwhile to invest the considerable amount of work needed to make the arrangement consistent down to the last half block. Some of them, however, responded to other challenges posed by the graphological system. The history of Manchu graphological dictionaries in the eighteenth century began with a reprint of Da Qing quanshu, which appeared in 1713, when Shen was probably already dead. Then, in 1722, Daigu (fl. 1702–22), an orphan reportedly without much formal schooling, published Qingwen beikao 清文備考 (Definitive collection of the Manchu language), with preand postfaces written by two southern Chinese civilians. Parts of Daigu’s composite book were orga nized similarly to Da Qing quanshu. Qingwen beikao was the product of Daigu’s own Manchu studies, which he only undertook in adulthood out of a sense of obligation to his ancestors and,  more impor tant perhaps, professional necessity. Once the soldier

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Daigu—“accomplished on the front line” (Ma. cooha de afara gung bifi; Ch. congzheng you gong 從征有功)—became a clerk (Ma. bithesi) in the office of the Chamberlain of the Imperial Bodyguard of the Right, a good command of written Manchu was an absolute must.30 The first edition of Daigu’s book was privately published.31 It was available for purchase in Beijing, however. At some point, the bannerman Zhu Kuang 朱㫛 (n.d.) wrote that “it is not easy to buy [this book] in the capital.”32 Zhu decided to have new blocks carved and the dictionary reprinted, since “copying [the book] out is very difficult” (chaolu you nan 抄錄尤難).33 Still, several manuscript versions of the dictionary exist, showing that, despite the alleged difficulty of copying by hand, it also circulated in that format.34 In 1724, a Chinese bannerman, an honorary licentiate (yinsheng 廕生) by imperial grace, and an erstwhile local magistrate in Sichuan and Fujian, Li Yanji 李延基 (fl. 1693–1724) of “the capital metropolis” (jingdu 京都), privately published Qingwen huishu 清文彙書 | manju isabuha bithe (Manchu collected).35 The first, private edition of Li’s dictionary is very rare, but after its commercial reprint in 1750—by at least three publishers—and then again in 1806 and 1815, it reached many readers.36 Li’s dictionary, like Daigu’s, was picked up by people in Beijing who realized that it had a potential readership greater than the limited group reached by a private publication. Li’s dictionary was more successful than Daigu’s, however, remaining in print for many decades after its initial appearance. It was based on the imperial Mirror from 1708 (see Chapter 5). Li replaced the Manchu definitions with Chinese translations and changed the arrangement by topic into a graphological arrangement.37 Li explained the changes he made to the Mirror’s contents and the way in which the resulting dictionary was arranged, writing that he “carefully glossed and translated [the Mirror’s headwords], relying on the order of the twelve heads.”38 Li’s dictionary followed the simple division into sections that was used in Man-Han tongwen quanshu, not Shen Qiliang’s division into chapters and then sections. Li called the words and phrases in his dictionary “collected” (hui 彙) because “in general, [words] that are arranged together [in this book] all show similarities,”39 associating his work to Mei Yingzuo’s Chinese dictionary that similarly “collected” (hui) graphically similar characters into the same chapter. At least one reader of Li’s dictionary also associated its arrangement with the system based on the radical-and-stroke order used in Zihui, marking his copy of Li’s book as “Qingwen zihui” 清文字彙 (The characters collected in Manchu writing).40

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Later in the century, the prominent Mongolian bannerman Fügiyün (1749–1834) extended Manchu-Chinese graphological lexicography to encompass Mongolian, and the imperial clansman Yi-xing 宜興 (1747–1809) expanded Li Yanji’s dictionary in order to account for the changes in Manchu vocabulary introduced by the bilingual Manchu-Chinese successor to Kangxi’s Mirror that Qianlong published in 1772–73.41 Fügiyün, in addition to continuing and publishing his father’s Manchu-Chinese-Mongolian dictionary Sanhe bianlan 三合便覽 (Book made from a combination including three languages), for a time served in the empire’s newly acquired territories in western Mongolia, where he privately worked on Oirad lexicography.42 Fügiyün stressed the thoroughness with which the arrangement had been carried out in Sanhe bianlan, writing that “not only” had the sections of the dictionary been “arranged according to the characters [half blocks?] of the twelve heads [Ma. juwan juwe uju; Mo. čaγan toloγai, lit. “white heads”], but the characters of every head [i.e., section] have also been arranged in that order, making it very easy to search despite the large number of volumes.”43 The lexicographic arrangement, although a selling point of Fügiyün’s dictionary, was not based on graphological order beyond the second “upper half block,” however. In the sequence akûn; akûnambi; akûmbumbi; akûnjimbi, “to arrive on this shore or side,” for example, the second “lower half block” -n precedes the second “lower half block” zero (ø), which in turn precedes the second “lower half block” -m.44 The syllabary, by contrast, listed these half blocks as -ø, -n, -m, which would have given a different arrangement of the four words. Yi-xing, rather than claiming to have used the established graphological system with great consistency, made an innovation in the arrangement that reflected insights from Manchu pedagogy as it had developed during the eighteenth century. When Yi-xing published Qingwen buhui 清文補彙 (Manchu collected, supplemented), the erstwhile clerk (Ma. bithesi) was a vice president at the Board of Rites in Mukden.45 Since the publication of Li Yanji’s dictionary, the Qianlong emperor’s new bilingual Mirror (to be discussed briefly in Chapter 5) and other imperially sponsored Manchu books had introduced many new words, Yi-xing explained,46 creating the need for a supplement to Qingwen huishu, which Yi-xing published in 1786. In 1802, he produced a second, privately published edition of the supplement, revised by his nephew at the compiler’s request.47 The indexes to the imperial Mirrors, as well as the pedagogue Wu-ge, distinguished what were called “outer characters” to describe Manchu words

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that could not straightforwardly be subdivided into the syllables included in the standard syllabary. Yi-xing criticized how earlier lexicographers, working in the tradition of Da Qing quanshu, handled these outer characters. Earlier dictionaries dealt with such characters in various, unexplained ways, effectively making it impossible for a reader to predict their placement.48 Yi-xing wrote that words with irregular structure “were . . . previously all haphazardly included in the sections [of Li Yanji’s Qingwen huishu], making it somewhat difficult to search.”49 Yi-xing thus followed the precedent of the indexes to the Mirrors and placed such words in a separate section for outer characters. Dictionaries arranged according to the Manchu script continued to develop in the nineteenth century, but these innovations never transcended the medium of the manuscript, which had a limited reach. During the century that separated Shen Qiliang from Yi-xing, Manchu graphological order had become established as the most popular way of arranging Manchu words in dictionaries. In the early nineteenth century, some of those dictionaries reached Japan, where a group of scholars under the leadership of Takahashi Kageyasu took the genre in new directions.

Manchu and Dutch Dictionaries in Japan Increased tension in the waters around Japan in the early nineteenth century led to a group of scholars in Edo, the seat of the Japanese shogunal government, to study Manchu. What happened was a remarkable confluence of the European and Chinese traditions of Manchu-language study with the Japanese lexicographical tradition, prompted by an international crisis. As Japa nese explorers traveled to Sakhalin and the Manchurian coast, Eu ropean vessels explored the Northeast Asian littoral and sought the right to enter Japa nese ports. Russia, desirous to advance its position vis-àvis its European rivals, attacked Japanese outposts in the North and demanded that Japan establish trade relations.50 In their repeated attempts to negotiate with the shogunate, the Russians sent several letters. Unable to produce proper and consistently intelligible Japa nese letters,51 they appended translations in several other languages, including French and Manchu. French was, of course, the international language of diplomacy in Eu rope at this time. As for Manchu, it was routinely used by the Russians in their interaction with the Qing empire on the overland route through

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Mongolia, so it was much better known by Russian diplomatic personnel in the Far East than Japa nese was.52 In Japan, however, Manchu was not well known. Nor was French. Japa nese government personnel were skilled primarily in two foreign languages. Interpreters working for the shogunate, and for the lords of some domains, maintained a knowledge of vernacular Chinese and Dutch, because the bakufu (the shogunal government) allowed Chinese and Dutch East India Company ships to trade in Nagasaki. This foreign-language competence, and the access to books published in the Qing empire and Eu rope that the trade routes to Ningbo and the Netherlands offered, enabled scholars working for the shogunate to translate the Manchu letters that the Russians sent them.53 The political imperative to translate the letters was the immediate reason Japanese scholars embarked on the study of Manchu at this time,54 but other intellectual concerns clearly contributed to the research once it was under way. One of the resulting products of the government-sponsored Manchulanguage study was a manuscript dictionary compiled under the direction of Takahashi “Globius” Kageyasu 高橋景保 (1785–1829).55 Born in Ōsaka, Takahashi moved to Edo in 1795, following his father Yoshitoki 至時 (1764–1804), who entered the shogunate’s ser vice as an astronomer working on calendar reform. Takahashi’s father studied European astronomy, mediated through Dutch books written in a language he could not properly read.56 Yoshitoki had his son also study these subjects, and Kageyasu became a shogunal astronomer in 1804. He received further mentoring, including by his father’s student, the cartographer Inō Tadataka 伊能忠敬 (1745–1818). After the death of his father, Takahashi was ordered to make a world map, which necessitated consultation of Eu ropean geographical literature and maps brought back from Russia by repatriated Japanese castaways. Takahashi was helped in that and other endeavors by interpreters of Dutch brought up from Nagasaki. The maps were finished by 1810, but Takahashi continued to interact with visiting European geographers and to translate Dutch texts after that. In 1811, upon Takahashi’s recommendation, the bakufu founded an office for the translation of Dutch books at the astronomical bureau.57 In his work on Manchu, which he carried out in the aforementioned institutional setting, Takahashi enjoyed the assistance of several interpreters trained in Chinese, Dutch, and perhaps even in Manchu. Baba Sajūrō 馬場佐十郎 (1787–1822) and Yoshio Chūjirō 吉雄忠次郎 (1787–1833) were both Dutch-studies interpreters from Nagasaki. Ishizuka Kakusai 石塚確齋

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(1766–1814/17) had been that as well, before he was recruited as a retainer by a lord in Satsuma. He completed a work on world geography and provided Chinese linguistic expertise for what appears to have been a lexicological work of some kind. Takahashi called Ishizuka a “pronunciation expert” (onka 音家), because he knew the Beijing accent. It is not impossible that Ishizuka also knew some Manchu.58 Matsumoto Tokizō 松本斗機蔵 (1793– 1841), a fellow scholar, was also involved in the work on the Manchu dictionary. Matsumoto studied Manchu with Takahashi, and made good use of it, relying on Qianlong’s bilingual Mirror to investigate the Manchu nomenclature of the camel, an exotic beast that the Dutch introduced to Japan in 1821.59 Urano Motochika 浦野元周 (born c. 1780), who acted like a kind of secretary for Takahashi, also made important contributions to the neat manuscripts produced at the astronomical bureau, even if he might not have known Manchu.60 Several books about the Manchu language were written or compiled under Takahashi’s supervision. None of them were ever printed. Indeed, the Manchu studies at the shogunal astronomical bureau were cut short when Takahashi died in prison in 1829, perhaps by his own hand. Takahashi had been imprisoned for giving one of Inō Tadataka’s maps of Japan to Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796–1866), a German physician visiting Edo as a member of the Dutch embassy. The bakufu’s harsh treatment of Takahashi and others involved in the affair might have served to strengthen shogunal control over Dutch studies.61 Manchu studies, however, clearly suffered more from Takahashi’s death; at least in Edo they appear to have ceased. Takahashi and his collaborators used several Manchu-studies books acquired from Chinese traders in Nagasaki, as well as European books that to some extent dealt with Manchu or Mongolian. The lexicographical tradition that had developed in Japan on the basis of the kana syllabaries provided a reference point for compiling a Manchu dictionary, as did the Dutch language and dictionaries. The Edo scholars found it useful to compare Manchu grammatical structures to analogous structures in Dutch. Not only were Dutch and Manchu written languages that had developed independently of the tradition based on Chinese characters. Both languages were written using scripts whose ultimate roots lay in the consonant alphabets of the Near East. The historical relationship between the scripts was reflected in some degree of structural similarity, which Takahashi and his collaborators saw. The lexicographical technology of alphabetical arrangement, which was based on the European script, therefore lent itself to transfer to Manchu lexical

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material. Known to the Japanese scholars through Dutch dictionaries, European lexicography proved a useful precedent for how to arrange a dictionary for a language like Manchu. The drafts toward a Manchu dictionary—with Chinese translations marked up with Japanese kunten marks to allow them to be read in Japanese, organized graphologically on the basis of the Manchu script, and inspired by Dutch dictionaries—constitute but one group of texts produced by Takahashi and his collaborators. They also wrote annotated translations of the letters sent by the Russians, texts on Manchu grammar, and topically arranged dictionaries and encyclopedic compendia. Qianlong’s bilingual Manchu-Chinese Mirror was important for the production of all of these texts, and but its index did not impress the Edo scholars and was not used as a framework for making the graphological Manchu-Chinese-Japanese dictionary. Japanese Lexicography and Takahashi’s “Storehouse of Qing Rhymes”

The work toward the Manchu dictionary began in 1808 (Bunka 5) in conjunction with the translation of the Russian letters. Two years later, Takahashi wrote that he was in the process of completing a work titled Shinbun infu 清文韻府 (Storehouse of Qing rhymes). The phrase “storehouse of rhymes” was not Takahashi’s invention, but a reference to a certain kind of rhyme book. The Chinese Yunfu qunyu 韻府群玉 (Amassed jades of the storehouse of rhymes) from 1307 and its famous successor, the imperially sponsored Peiwen yunfu 佩文韻府 (Storehouse of rhymes from the Admiration of Literature [Studio]) from 1711, both listed Chinese phrases for use in poetry, arranging them in rhyme order.62 By choosing this phrase for the title of his Manchu dictionary, Takahashi associated his book with a lexicographical tradition that was usually not invoked by Manchu lexicographers in China. Shen Qiliang and Li Yanji thought of their dictionaries as similar to the Chinese graphological dictionaries as represented by Zihui. Whereas they conceptualized the arrangement of Manchu words on the basis of the syllabary in twelve sections as akin to an arrangement of Chinese characters according to their composition of radicals and strokes, Takahashi associated it with the arrangement of literary Chinese phrases according to their pronunciation. Besides, unlike dictionaries like Zihui, the lemmata in “storehouses of rhymes” were several characters long, which made them similar to the words and phrases listed in Manchu dictionaries.

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At this time, Takahashi had access to the graphologically arranged ManHan tongwen quanshu and other lexicographical works,63 but the basis for his dictionary was the Qianlong emperor’s Manchu-Chinese Mirror. Having used this book in his work on the letters, Takahashi reworked it by excerpting all the entries listed in the index and matched them with the complete entries to which they referred in the topically arranged main body of the dictionary. In this way he made a new work that he modeled on a popular Japanese dictionary. He wrote that “I made one great whole out of it in the manner of Setsuyōshū 節用集 [Collection of words for everyday use], which is arranged in iroha order.” The purpose of such a time-consuming endeavor was to make it “convenient to search.”64 The book on which Takahashi modeled his Manchu dictionary, Setsuyōshū, dated from the second half of the fifteenth century and went through hundreds of printings from the seventeenth century onward. Its popularity made its title virtually synonymous with “dictionary,”65 so Takahashi might not have had the original version in mind when he modeled his Manchu dictionary on it. Whatever the case, Takahashi mentioned Setsuyōshū, or books of its type, because of their arrangement according to iroha. Books in the tradition of Setsuyōshū arranged words, generally written in Chinese characters, according to their transcription using the Japa nese kana syllabary. The order of the syllables followed “Iroha uta” いろは歌, a song (uta) or poem thus named for its first three syllables. The poem is not interesting for its literary qualities, but for the fact that each of the syllabic signs in use at the time of its composition in 1079 occurs in it, and occurs there only once. It thus constituted a linear sequence comparable to the alphabet in Eu rope. In the context of the poem itself, the three syllables— written in hiragana as いろは—are to be interpreted as “(As for) the colors,”66 but the two Chinese characters chosen to represent the phrase in the title of the dictionary translates as the “colored leaves.” In later dictionaries, and in Takahashi’s wording, the phrase was written as 伊呂波, using three Chinese characters that cannot be read for their meaning but only for their sound value, iroha. Already before Setsuyōshū, Japa nese dictionaries arranged their lemmata by placing all words beginning with i- in a first section, followed by a second section in ro-, and so on. Beneath this toplevel arrangement by syllable, headwords were often arranged by topic, as was also the case in Setsuyōshū. In such dictionaries, Takahashi found a model for how to compile a Manchu dictionary that could be intuitively used by a Japa nese reader.

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There is, unfortunately, no way of knowing exactly how Takahashi’s Shinbun infu was arranged. In 1813, a fire in the astronomical bureau consumed the all-but-finished manuscript along with many other books.67 Did Takahashi simply adopt the arrangement of Setsuyōshū in his dictionary?68 It is not easy to see how iroha order could have arranged Manchu words consistently throughout all syllables. Most of the eleven consonant codas seen in the syllabary in twelve sections had no counterpart in the “Iroha uta,” which, naturally, reflected the phonotactics of Japanese. My guess—as good as any other—is that Shinbun infu arranged the Manchu words in iroha order according to their first half block, without consideration of the consonantal codas, because they could be more easily matched onto the Japanese syllables, which were similarly open (excluding those ending in -n). Dutch Lexicography and Takahashi’s “Compiled Manchu Rhymes”

The loss of his books and manuscript was probably devastating for Takahashi, but he rebounded. Around the time of the fire, he changed the name of the Manchu-dictionary project to Manbun shūin 滿文輯韻 (Compiled Manchu rhymes). New sources kept arriving in Edo. A cache of eleven Manchu books purchased by the bakufu through the Ningbo-Nagasaki trade route in 1814 (Bunka 11) helped offset the losses incurred in the fire.69 Compiling the new dictionary on the basis of these sources, Takahashi and his collaborators drew inspiration not just from Japanese dictionaries with syllabic arrangement, but also from Dutch dictionaries. The new dictionary was finished in the spring of 1816 (Bunka 13). Around the same time, Takahashi got access to Li Yanji’s Qingwen huishu, from which he chose to incorporate new vocabulary. Work on the dictionary thus continued until the fall of 1820 (Bunsei 3), when he presented a clean copy transcribed by Urano Motochika to the bakufu.70 Takahashi’s purpose was his long-standing will to “open up the scripts and writings of the myriad states to my contemporaries, in order to prepare for [future] emergencies,”71 by which he meant, probably, further incursions by foreign gunboats. In 1816, Takahashi entrusted Matsumoto Tokizō to ghostwrite the preface for the new dictionary. Takahashi was, it appears, not entirely satisfied with Matsumoto’s text, because the preface in the finished copy is an edited version of it.72 Takahashi’s definite preface is less deferential than Matsumoto’s original and, more interestingly, places greater emphasis on the improvement in lexicographic arrangement that Manbun shūin represents over

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its Qing predecessors. Matsumoto wrote that the topical arrangement of books in the style of the imperial Mirror “makes word retrieval very cumbersome,” and that a new book had therefore now been “compiled according to the sounds of the character heads, following the example of the records of Dutch expressions.”73 Takahashi added the fact that arrangement according to the Manchu syllabary was indeed seen in Qing dictionaries, but he clarified that Manbun shūin represented an improvement over them. Takahashi wrote that the bilingual Mirror had an index in the appendix, which “allows for searching in rhyme order” to determine the section in which a lemma would be found, but it was “not enough to make translation convenient.” Takahashi acknowledged that Man-Han tongwen quanshu, which he, unlike the Qing lexicographers, considered to be “arranged in rhyme order,” was “more convenient to search.” Yet it was still insufficient. This book, he wrote, “only arranges [words] into categories on the basis of their character-head being the same.” That is, as long as two expressions began with the same sound, they were listed in the same chapter. However, ManHan tongwen quanshu “makes no discrimination on the basis of the rhyme sequence of every expression, with the consequence that this [book] is equally confused.” Takahashi agreed that the arrangement of Man-Han tongwen quanshu lent itself well for quick word retrieval; the problem was merely that it did not take the arrangement to its full potential by applying it throughout all the syllables of its lemmata. Takahashi wanted to take Manchu graphological arrangement further. And it was the “imitat[ion of] the Dutch phrase books” that made Manbun shūin different from the Qing book on which it was based.74 Matsumoto, and Takahashi following him, mentioned Dutch dictionaries as the model for Manbun shūin. When the scholars at the shogunal astronomical bureau came in contact with Dutch dictionaries, they had a history of a few centuries. Dutch lexicography began largely as attempts to establish Dutch as an independent literary language in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, by adding Dutch translations to dictionaries in other languages.75 In the eighteenth century, Latin was replaced by French as the most common language into which Dutch was translated,76 which explains that Dutch-French dictionaries played an important role in the development of Dutch lexicography in Japan. Indeed, important sources for Takahashi’s and his collaborators’ knowledge of Dutch lexicography were undoubtedly the Dutch-Japanese dictionaries compiled on the basis of François Halma’s (1652–1722) Woordenboek der

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Nederduitsche en Fransche Taalen | Dictionnaire Flaman et Français. Building on earlier efforts to make a dictionary on the basis of another Dutch-French work, Inamura Sanpaku 稲村三伯 (1759–1811) and a group of collaborators in 1792–99 compiled a Dutch-Japanese version of Halma’s book, titled F: Halma, Nederduits woordenboek, that was published in Edo. An abridged version was published in 1810. Baba Sajūrō, who worked at the astronomical bureau, was well acquainted with this liter ature and himself published several works of Dutch-language learning. He was, in this period, occupied by the translation of a Dutch encyclopedia (also identified, in its Dutch title, as a woordenboek).77 Judging by his own account, then, the example of the alphabetically arranged Dutch-Japanese dictionaries available in Edo in the 1810s inspired Takahashi to compile a Manchu-Japanese dictionary. In his own words, it “follows the rhyme order of the twelve character heads to divide up the arrangement.” “Furthermore,” he continued, “each phrase has been arranged according to its rhyme order from front to back.”78 In terms of the vocabulary covered, Qianlong’s bilingual Mirror was the main source for Manbun shūin.79 Yet the division of chapters in Takahashi’s dictionary did not follow the indexes of the imperial Mirrors. Rather, Takahashi wrote, the arrangement of Manbun shūin, although devised independently, “very much agrees with” (hanahada gassu 甚合) what Li Yanji used in Qingwen huishu.80 Similarly to Li—and the compiler of Man-Han tongwen quanshu before him— Takahashi divided the lemmata list into sections according to their first two half blocks, which amounted to their first syllable. Takahashi included example sentences following some entries, marked in the layout by their placement in double columns and often beneath the line. These remained outside the arrangement, as did, here and there, top-level lemmata.81 Takahashi’s ambition, however, is more interesting than occasional divergences from the order in the final product. In order to arrange words according to their structure from “front to back,” Takahashi added subsections that grouped words whose first and second syllables were the same. A few entries from the dictionary, excluding intervening example sentences, show the arrangement. In the subsection akû, Takahashi included akûmi, “clothes made of fish skin”; akûci; akûn; akûnjimbi; akûngge, “that which is not there”; akûngge akû; akûmbuha, “already exhausted”; and akûmbumbi, in a series that clearly illustrates the arrangement.82 Notably, the placement of syllables ending in -n, -ng, and -m, reflecting the order that these codas have in the syllabary’s “outer sequence,” shows that Takahashi took the fourth half

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block (the second “lower half block”) into consideration when organizing the words. Shen Qiliang, for example, did not find it worthwhile to arrange the words beyond the third half block. European dictionaries of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, applied alphabetical order throughout the syllables of a word, as did Takahashi here. Yet it is the placement of “outer characters” that shows the influence of European lexicography most clearly. Rather than going the route of Yi-xing, whom he had not read, Takahashi did not institute a separate section for these words. Although their arrangement was not easy to infer from the point of view of the Manchu syllabary, they posed no particular problems for an alphabetical arrangement. Hence ainci was placed last of all words whose first syllable was ai-, because it was the only word in that section to have a consonant at the end of its first syllable. The fact that ain was not a syllable seen in the Manchu syllabary did not matter from this point of view.83 This arrangement was consistent with European alphabetical order. Yet Takahashi did not explicitly describe the Manchu script as consisting of alphabetical letters like those of the European alphabet. After all, the words in Manbun shūin were alphabetically arranged only on a second level, within the sections headed by syllables. Still, it is tempting to infer that in addition to Dutch dictionaries, Takahashi’s perusal of the European writings on Manchu or Mongolian (see Chapters 7 and 8), which he consulted for the dictionary project, influenced the arrangement of the “outer characters.”84 Takahashi’s work on graphological—or, as he saw it, phonological— Manchu lexicography did not end with Manbun shūin. At the time of his death in the aftermath of the Siebold affair, Takahashi was working on a second edition of the dictionary. In addition to adding new entries, he was also perfecting the arrangement, which in some instances had lapsed in the first version.85 It is worth asking why Takahashi chose to invest such considerable effort in perfecting the arrangement of his Manchu dictionary. After all, the dictionary would conceivably be used only by his own editorial team and whatever scholar the bakufu would charge with studying the language in the context of some future “emergency” (fugu 不虞). No one outside his own circle would appreciate the effort. It is telling that in Beijing, where Manchu dictionaries were published in several editions by commercial presses, arrangement on the level of detail advocated by Takahashi does not seem to have been worth the lexicographers’ time. It is true that Japanese dictionaries in the Tokugawa period developed toward an arrangement extending beyond

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the first elements of words. Ōmushō 鸚鵡抄 (The annotated parrot), finished in 1685, for example, arranged its lemmata not only by their first, but also by their second syllable.86 Yet it is hard to believe that this trend would have been enough to inspire such a time commitment at the bakufu’s astronomical bureau. Probably, the only reason Takahashi saw it feasible to spend so much time on lexicographical arrangement was his access to a team. One authority has written that Takahashi was first and foremost “a politician, the high-level official type, rather than a scholar.”87 Takahashi had men at his disposal, and that probably made a difference.

Conclusion Work toward perfecting Manchu graphological arrangement ceased in Japan with Takahashi’s death. Manchu was periodically studied also later in the Tokugawa period, but I have found no evidence that Manchu studies ever progressed to the point that the organization of dictionaries became the order of the day. In China, Manchu lexicography continued to be practiced in the nineteenth century. In fact, comprehensive Chinese dictionaries arranged in Manchu graphological order, made possible by transcribing the Chinese headwords into the Manchu script, are extant only from the nineteenth century. This original genre of Chinese lexicography might have developed only in that period. Manchu printing witnessed a decline in the nineteenth century compared to the productive decades of the eighteenth. In a reflection of this situation, the new Chinese dictionaries based on Manchu graphological arrangement were never printed and did not circulate widely.88 Similarly, improvements to Manchu graphological arrangement in the nineteenth century never made it into print. The Mongol scholar and official Sayišangγ-a (1797–1875), son of an amateur lexicographer,89 in 1851 finished a Mongol-Chinese-Manchu dictionary, partially based on Fügiyün’s Sanhe bianlan, in which the Mongol headwords were written using the Manchu script. It was never printed in its compiler’s lifetime. In a tattered copy of this “Mongolian collected” (Ma. monggo hergen-i isabuha bithe; Mo. mong γol üsüg-ün qariyaγsan bičig—the Chinese title varies between manuscripts), a reader has taken considerable steps to improve the arrangement. In its present state, the annotated manuscript can be described as a second edition of Sayišangγ-a’s dictionary at the draft stage: the Chinese-language marginalia

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show that it was annotated with the purpose of recopying it in revised form. Sayišangγ-a, in the original, made little mention of graphological arrangement, writing simply that he “arranged and wrote out the heads of the characters according to Qingwen huishu, collecting and compiling” them.90 Arranging the Mongolian vocabulary in this manner following the order of Li Yanji’s dictionary was made possible by first transcribing it using the Manchu script.91 The annotator of the copy that I call a draft second edition had more to say on the matter. Many of the changes that the annotator made to the dictionary, in the form of marginalia, involve its graphological arrangement. On the cover of one volume, a note says that the “columns have all been properly arranged” (hang ju pai tuo 行俱排妥) and that the volume in question is ready to be transcribed. An earlier, crossed-out note on the same volume reminded the anonymous lexicographer that “the columns of this volume that contain the character head fa were originally not arranged properly.”92 Whoever wrote these notes considered the original graphological arrangement insufficient, and added instructions throughout the volumes for rearranging the headwords. These instructions, consisting of numbers added beneath the Mongol words, rearranges the words down to their second “upper half block.” Moving the lemmata in Sayišangγ-a’s dictionary around according to the numbers would have regularized the word order substantially.93 This dictionary project, seemingly never completed, shows that Manchu graphological order remained an issue for some scholars in nineteenth-century China. Had the fate of the Manchu language in China—or at least the fate of its script, even as used to transcribe Mongolian or Chinese—been different, perhaps an improved arrangement would eventually have appeared there in print.

Chapter 5

Leibniz’s Dream of a Manchu Encyclopedia and Kangxi’s Mirror, 1673–1708

[And that] some day a great, free and curious prince, a lover of glory, or perhaps himself rather enlightened . . . will cause to undertake under the best auspices what Alexander the Great commanded Aristotle to do . . . what the Emperors of Constantinople . . . tried to have done . . . and finally what Almansor or Mirandolin, the great Arabian prince, ordered done in his country; namely, that the quintessence of the best books be extracted and joined to the best observations, not yet written, of the most expert in each profession, in order to build systems of solid knowledge for promoting man’s happiness. — Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) in 1680 We think that [the dictionary] is an indispensable tool for knowledge, and that’s true; but it’s also a machine for dreaming. —Roland Barthes (1915–80) in 1980

In the fall of 1699, Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730) of the Society of Jesus wrote from Beijing to Leibniz that the Kangxi emperor of China “is currently commanding work on a Manchu Tartar dictionary, which, containing also Chinese, will offer knowledge of both languages simulta neously once translated” into a Eu ropean tongue.1 The book then in the making at the Qing court eventually appeared as Mirror of the Manchu language in

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1708, and it is the focus of this chapter. Leibniz, who knew very little about the Manchu language and its script, saw the editorial project that yielded the Manchu Mirror as a way to bridge a gap in knowledge between Eu rope and China. Since the Qing emperor was Manchu, Leibniz envisioned him as being at a remove from China and its cultural tradition, and in that sense in a position similar to that of the Eu ropeans. Compiling a dictionary for Manchu could therefore, in Leibniz’s eyes, be turned into a joint Manchu-European project of collecting Chinese knowledge. This chapter will discuss Leibniz’s dream for Manchu’s mediating role in a babelized world, and the very different idea of the Manchu dictionary expressed by its instigator, the Kangxi emperor. Like Leibniz, Kangxi was very much aware that the Manchu language existed in a plurilingual environment and in dangerously close proximity to Chinese. Yet unlike Leibniz, he perceived this situation as problematic, and accordingly had the dictionary made as an attempt to endow Manchu with a literary infrastructure of its own. Kangxi arguably ultimately failed in this regard, as the plurilingual reality of his empire was later reaffirmed when the Mirror was reworked into first bi- and then multilingual works of reference by successors to his throne.

Leibniz’s Dream: Academies, Dictionaries, Encyclopedias Bouvet first arrived in China in 1688, left Eu rope for his second journey there in March  1698—“with favorable wind on a [French] Royal 40- Cannon frigate”2— and had thus just gotten back to China when he was writing to Leibniz. Bouvet knew Manchu well and spoke to the Kangxi emperor in that language.3 Yet he does not seem to have been up to date with the emperor’s dictionary project. No Manchu- Chinese dictionary was ever produced on Kangxi’s order, but an imperial instruction of a few years earlier, of which Bouvet might have been aware, indicated that the final product would be a bilingual dictionary arranged for easy word retrieval. Bouvet’s report gave Leibniz an idea: what if the Jesuits, who had conveyed so much European knowledge to the Qing court, would convince the emperor that they could be of use for the dictionary project? They could help turn it into a universal lexicon, both general and specific, containing descriptions and illustrations of the best of China’s knowledge in all fields. The

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Jesuits could then translate the resulting book into Latin and French, send it to Europe, and thus alleviate the deficit in the Sino-European knowledge exchange. An encyclopedic dictionary produced at the Qing court with Jesuit assistance would enlighten Europe. Leibniz’s dream is interesting for the tenacity with which he advocated it in his correspondence over several years, but also because the decades that followed were indeed a period of grand-scale lexicography and encyclopedism. In Eu rope’s eighteenth century, Denis Diderot’s (1713–84) Encyclopédie, called by its authors a dictionnaire raisonné, emerged as a symbol of the Enlightenment, whereas a series of compendia and thesauri in several languages were printed or carefully transcribed by hand at the Hall of Martial Valor in the outer palace of the Qing rulers Kangxi, Yongzheng (1678–1735, r. from 1723), and Qianlong. Superficially at least, Eu rope and China seemed to be traveling on converging tracks by the turn of the eighteenth century, or the situation could be thus construed by a cosmopolitan polymath like Leibniz. However, Leibniz’s suggestion seems to have fallen on deaf ears, if not with the Beijing Jesuits, then with the Qing court. The Jesuits indeed exerted a certain influence on the editorial projects undertaken at court, if only because the emperor used their knowledge in astronomy and mathematics as a source of intellectual authority independent of the learning of his Chinese officials.4 Yet insiders in the Qing capital would have known that the motivations behind the great editorial projects of the court were ultimately irreconcilable with Leibniz’s ecumenical plan to collect all the empire’s knowledge into a book for general, international use.5 Leibniz was not, after all, alone to have dreams for the eighteenth century. Toward century’s end, the then-reigning emperor’s dream was for an “eternal heavenly mandate” (tian yong ming 天永命) for the Manchu house,6 and that ambition permeates much of the encyclopedic work undertaken in China on imperial orders in the period. Upon its publication in 1708, the first monolingual dictionary of Manchu served as the model for a series of linguistic reference works produced in Beijing in an increasing number of languages. When the Kangxi emperor ordered the compilation of an official Manchu dictionary, it was in order to invent something new. During the decades when the project was under way at the palace, the form that this book would take was still an open question. Leibniz, aware of the novelty of Manchu, thought he had a chance to give the project direction. His failure to do so does not signify that the appearance of

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the Manchu book was determined beforehand; on the contrary, it was the result of choices made by its editors in reference to a varied tradition of Chinese encyclopedias, word repositories, and translation aids. Leibniz’s expectations regarding the Manchu dictionary were shaped by intellectual trends in Europe in his time and the polymath’s own projects for academies, encyclopedias, and dictionaries. Toward the end of the seventeenth century, when Bouvet was writing to Leibniz, a distinction— still shared by our “bourgeois mind” today7—was emerging between dictionaries, intended to clarify and prescribe language use, and encyclopedias intended to offer the reader facts.8 Yet the distinction was not set in stone: rather than a binary of dictionaries (for words) and encyclopedias (for facts), some European scholars of the seventeenth and even eighteenth centuries operated instead with a threeway separation of reference works for words, things, and facts, represented in dictionaries, encyclopedias, and alphabetized biographical collections.9 Leibniz’s contemporaries thought of these categories of reference works as generically similar, as did the man himself, discussing “nomenclatures, or name-books” (Nomenclatoren, oder Nahm-Bücher) in the context of works displaying the “richness of [a] language” (Reichtum der Sprache). According to Leibniz, the arrangement appropriate to these nomenclatures was thematic.10 Arrangement by theme or topic was also still the norm in seventeenth-century encyclopedias, which had only recently received that designation.11 In Leibniz’s time, however, the arrangement of encyclopedias had started to change. Scholars who exerted an important influence on Leibniz from the 1670s onward spent much ink on attempts to create a universal order of human knowledge that could be used in encyclopedias and serve as a key to learning.12 Yet with the topical organization differing from book to book, encyclopedias created the impression that no fixed and definite organization of knowledge existed.13 The result was a turn toward alphabetical order. Medieval scholars had found alphabetical order to be the worst kind there was, as it was not, in fact, an order properly speaking.14 In the seventeenth century, however, alphabetical order became more widespread, as first bilingual and then monolingual dictionaries appeared in greater numbers. Beginning in Italy and then going transalpine, learned societies and increasingly institutionalized academies made efforts, some sustained and some abortive, to compile dictionaries of Eu rope’s national languages.15 Dictionaries

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entered the center of learned debate and formed the object of very heated discussions.16 From there, alphabetical order was introduced into encyclopedias as earlier models of thematic organization lost credibility, if only because it was the only alternative.17 Leibniz’s own ideas reflected this ongoing change. Despite his belief that a semantically arranged encyclopedia mirroring the order of nature was possible, he preferred alphabetical order at least for some sections and for as long as our knowledge of nature remained insufficient.18 Learned societies and academies had considerable success as producers of dictionaries, but Leibniz saw in academies an organization for producing encyclopedias as well. Leibniz was, in fact, one of the most vocal advocates for academies in late seventeenth-century Eu rope. Among several proposals, one was eventually realized. A plan for a learned body to oversee and direct book production at Frankfurt, with the purpose of creating a comprehensive library and eventually a universal encyclopedia, led nowhere, as did subsequent international and national (German) proposals for academies to direct both scientific research and manufacturing in a mercantilist spirit. These were ambitious ideas, but they were in line with the general development of academies, toward the turn of the eighteenth century, into organs of absolutist governments.19 Leibniz eventually helped found an academy in Berlin in 1700, and he played a key role in it until 1711, 20 precisely during the years during which he was corresponding regarding the Manchu dictionary. Thus, the association of academies with the writing of both dictionaries and encyclopedias, as well as the converging formal characteristics of the two kinds of books, had the consequence that the distinction between encyclopedias and dictionaries was partially erased in Leibniz’s time. Leibniz’s dreams for the Manchu dictionary reflect the fluid boundary between dictionaries and encyclopedias and his faith in academies as producers and systematizers of knowledge. Leibniz’s letters show that what he wanted was a Manchu-Chinese analog to Antoine Furetière’s Dictionnaire universel (1690), but with illustrations, or in other words something similar to Alembert’s and Diderot’s Encyclopédie of the mid-eighteenth century: a collection that included technical terms from the various professions and accurately drawn illustrations. Leibniz referred to this kind of encyclopedic compilation as a dictionary. Indeed, the Encyclopédie, standing on the shoulders of the early eighteenth century, owed a lot to books that we today consider dictionaries.21 Reading in Bouvet’s letter about a Manchu-Chinese

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“dictionary” probably made Leibniz think of a conveniently arranged reference work, compiled by a learned society and imparting knowledge about more than words. The Letters on the Tartar Dictionary

Leibniz’s communication with the Jesuits, stretching over several years, was made difficult by the disturbances that the war of the Spanish succession (1701–14) caused for the European postal networks.22 In the case of Bouvet in particular, communication was hampered by the Jesuit’s relegation to Canton and the society’s censorship of his correspondence after 170223 and the curious fact that none of Leibniz’s five letters to Bouvet written between 1702 and 1707 ever reached him.24 In 1701, before war and personal conflicts prevented Leibniz from getting through to Bouvet, the Jesuit wrote a second letter to Leibniz regarding Kangxi’s dictionary. “The Translation of the Chinese dictionary into Tartar, that the Emperor is having carried out by very able individuals, is not yet completed,” he wrote. “As soon as it is, one of us [Jesuits in Beijing] will translate it into Latin or French in order to offer Europe the knowledge of three foreign languages all at the same time,” since, in addition to Manchu, written and spoken Chinese amounted to two different languages. 25 Once the letter reached its addressee, it clearly made an impression on Leibniz. In addition to answering Bouvet, Leibniz began writing about the dictionary to his Jesuit correspondents. These letters show that Bouvet’s idea of a dictionary capable of imparting three languages in Leibniz’s mind had grown to an encyclopedic project. Leibniz Asks the Jesuits to Get Involved

In the summer of 1704, Leibniz wrote to Jean de Fontaney (1643–1710), who had come back from China earlier that year,26 about what Bouvet had told him, adding that once the book was translated, “the whole thing should be printed in Paris.” Such a dictionary “would be like a key to the [China] missions.”27 The following year, Leibniz wrote to Pierre Jartoux (1669–1720), who had traveled to China in 1701. The letter gives a sense of what such a key might look like: I have learned that the Emperor has ordered work toward a big Tartar-Chinese dictionary, in order to give the Tartars easier

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access to the characters and doctrine of the Chinese. This seems to me a good occasion to get the emperor to commit to something which would matter also to us, and would serve an aim that we should have, in part in order to alleviate the burden that we take upon ourselves by transmitting our sciences to them: to obtain other knowledge [lumiere] in exchange. For in suggesting to the Emperor to have a complete dictionary made that would contain not only a simple translation, but also an explanation, supported by instructional figures and explaining not only the ordinary characters, but also technical ones appropriate to people of every profession, we would be given the opportunity to produce a collection of the best Chinese knowledge. And, since no one could serve the Emperor better in these descriptions than our Europeans, learned in these matters, because they are the best suited to make comparisons and provide accurate figures, the Emperor will be delighted to employ them for this task. Thereby they will, by his very command, enter into research that would be so useful both to him and to us. I beg you, my Reverend Father, to have this idea bear on the R.F. Bouvet and any others who could be in a position to plant this idea with the Emperor.28 Not only should the Jesuits be content to translate the finished ManchuChinese dictionary, as had been Bouvet’s suggestion, but they should actively contribute to its compilation and at the same time steer the project in a direction most useful to a European Republic of Letters hungry for knowledge of China. In Leibniz’s conception, they would create an encyclopedia rather than a dictionary, in which both the emperor and curious Europeans could learn about things, not words. Leibniz’s suggestion that the Jesuits were best suited for producing “accurate figures,” and would be appreciated for this work, accorded with the reality on the ground in Beijing, as Matteo Ripa’s (1682–1746) practice of copper engraving at court shows. Sometime before 1713, Ripa attracted Kangxi’s attention by his—at first only theoretical—knowledge of engraving. With the emperor’s support, awareness of this technology for producing printed illustrations spread at court. Jesuit illustrations and figures were used in court publications.29 Yet Leibniz overestimated the Jesuits’ ability to steer official editorial projects in their desired direction, not the least one with such close ties to

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the self-presentation of the court and the Manchu elite as the dictionary. The day after he wrote to Jartoux, Leibniz wrote a letter to Antoine Verjus (1632–1706), in which he expressed his desire for “research on the antiquities, languages, [written] characters, History, philosophy, and Sciences of China.” Such research could be produced, if only some of the missionaries, “skilled in all sorts of professions,” would engage in research to “make comparisons between what is practiced in China and what is practiced here.” Kangxi could be brought onboard: “Being Tartar and of a Nation different from the Chinese, he would be delighted that we produce collections and descriptions of all of Chinese knowledge in order to share it with the Tartars.” The ongoing dictionary project would be one step in that direction.30 Judging by this letter, Leibniz wanted Kangxi’s dictionary to merge with a research project carried out mainly by the Jesuits, who would systematize Chinese knowledge for the Manchus and in the process acquire all that knowledge for themselves. Leibniz was serious in his plans. He referenced his letter to Verjus in one sent to Bouvet, writing that he thought that Kangxi should be presented “with the plan of a complete dictionary enriched by figures and descriptions, in which the Tartar nation would be heavily invested and the participation of Europeans would be necessary.” Leibniz even had an idea of whom to involve in producing the dictionary, which “would be the key to it all.” For the job, he suggested Claudio Filippo Grimaldi (1638– 1712), whom Leibniz had met in 1689 when the Jesuit was temporarily in Rome following a twenty-year stay in China,31 and Jean-François Gerbillon (1654–1707), who was skilled in Manchu.32 “As familiar and esteemed by the Monarch and the Tartar Lords as they are,” Leibniz thought, they “should be able to insinuate [the plan] with skill.”33 A Manchu Termini Technici

Having written to Bouvet, Leibniz reached for his quill once more two days later, this time to write to Claude de Visdelou (1656–1737), then in China. Suggesting a two-step and perhaps less ambitious project, Leibniz might have been anxious that it would not be possible to carry out his grand plan. However, Leibniz’s new suggestion resonated with another project from a few years earlier. Writing to Visdelou, Leibniz reiterated that the imperial “TartaroChinese dictionary would represent a good opportunity to obtain fairly complete information [éclaircissement] on Chinese learning, if we got this

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great prince, for the honor and interest of his own nation, to order this dictionary made as complete as possible.” If not, Leibniz suggested, another, “technical” (technique) dictionary could be made upon the completion of the general reference work.34 These words echo Leibniz’s plans for a German dictionary. In a text from 1697, he had drawn up a plan for a German dictionary in three parts: of current vocabulary (durchgehende Worte), old and regional vocabulary (alte und Land-Worte), and technical vocabulary (Kunst-Worte). This latter part he wanted to arrange thematically, thus in the manner of the encyclopedias of the era.35 In 1700, he had written about the creation of a German technical vocabulary (termini technici), which would be facilitated by consulting several foreign works, including Furetière’s universal dictionary, published in the Netherlands in 1690, and Pierre Surirey de Saint-Remy’s (1645–1716) treatise on artillery from 1697.36 These two works together embodied the qualities that Leibniz wanted to see in the Manchu-reference book. Furetière, the author of the first of Leibniz’s two models, said that he had not had the intention of writing a dictionary of words (mots), but of things (choses); an “encyclopedia of the French language” (une Encyclopedie de la langue Françoise), a statement that nicely illustrates the fluidity of the term “dictionary” in the late seventeenth century.37 Indeed, the posthumous first edition of his dictionary claimed on its title page to include “terms from all the arts and sciences,” including entries on mathematics, geography, rhetoric, painting and sculpture, agriculture, the mechanical arts, East-West relations, poetry, and the origin of idioms, to mention but a few.38 As for Surirey de Saint-Remy’s book, it explained the technical vocabulary of a specific field with the help of numerous illustrations. Leibniz wanted to base the German dictionary on such sources. His letter to Visdelou reads like a projection unto Manchu of these plans for German termini technici. Leibniz, Manchu, and the Academies

Leibniz continued his letter to Visdelou by suggesting the organizational form that he thought the dictionary project ought to take. “Perhaps [the emperor] would find it fitting to create an assembly to this effect,” Leibniz wrote, “where not only Chinese and Tartars, but also Europeans would be employed, who would in fact give this great affair its soul and purpose” because of their special skills. “And once finished and printed in Chinese and Tartar, it would not be that difficult to translate the dictionary into some European language.”39

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In light of other projects under way around this time, it appears that Leibniz was thinking of the Manchu-Chinese dictionary as something like the collective product of a learned society or academy. It is true that, to some extent, the Jesuits were involved in comparable projects in China. Notably, with Jesuit participation, Manchu and Chinese teams were reforming the calendar, mapping the realm, and building clocks and automata for the Qing court. It has even been claimed that the workshops that Kangxi had established in Beijing to manufacture these devices were modeled on Louis XIV’s Académie Royale des Sciences, but this might have been merely how matters appeared to some of the Jesuits.40 Indeed, the conversation with Grimaldi in 1689 had given Leibniz hope for a global republic of letters forged through a global expansion of academies.41 Now, Leibniz wanted the missionaries to give the lexicographical project such an organization, probably thinking also of the dictionaries made by European academies such as the Académie Française, notwithstanding Leibniz’s dissatisfaction with the Académie’s exclusion of technical and professional vocabulary from their dictionary.42 While Leibniz was hoping that the Jesuits would collaborate with Kangxi’s court scholars to produce an encyclopedic Manchu-Chinese dictionary, he made efforts to direct his own fledgling Berlin academy toward contact with Beijing. The Manchu-dictionary project was crucial for that purpose. In a memorandum—or possibly the draft of a presentation—for the academy, dated 1701, Leibniz stressed the importance of overland contact between Prussia and China for the purpose of scientific and commercial exchange. He expected that the necessary linguistic competence for such an endeavor could be gained with the help of Kangxi’s forthcoming and “very comprehensive Manchu-Tartar dictionary” (ein Mantschou-Tartarisches sehr ausführliches dictionarium).43 A Final Attempt: Leibniz Tempts Kangxi with Mathematics

Leibniz made one more attempt to push through his plans for the ManchuChinese encyclopedia before it was published. This time, he offered to trade his advances in mathematics for Kangxi’s consent to his ideas for the lexicographical project. In 1707, Leibniz wrote to Bouvet to “beg” him to make the dictionary project come to fruition, preferably with Jesuit involvement along the lines he had written previously.44 Suspecting, perhaps, that his idea was not being favorably received in Beijing, Leibniz suggested that Kangxi (“Your Emperor” [Vostre Empereur]), who he had heard had some knowledge of

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algebra, might be interested in Leibniz’s own work on calculus. “But I think that he would if need be do something for the sake of this discovery, and I would hope that he would show his recognition, for all that Europe has sent him, by means of this Dictionary, executed as outlined above.”45 Leibniz was willing to trade for his Manchu-Chinese encyclopedia: Give me the dictionary, he tried to convey to Kangxi, and I will give you my math. Leibniz’s suggestion to use mathematics as a lever to get Kangxi to steer the Manchu-dictionary project in his desired direction did not just reflect Leibniz’s own strength in this area. Leibniz knew that a group of Jesuits had tutored Kangxi in mathematics some fifteen-odd years earlier. Although Kangxi’s interest had since cooled, he would make use of Jesuit mathematics again from 1711  in view of a calendrical publication. At the same time, he told Bouvet to study the Change classic, whose hexagrams so interested Leibniz. Under the emperor’s direction, Bouvet’s mathematical interpretations of the ancient divination manual influenced a major NeoConfucian book project then under way at the palace. Yet to what extent this episode represented the missionaries’ success in using mathematics to further their own agenda is questionable. As he had in the late 1680s, Kangxi again used Jesuit ideas as a check against the learning of his Chinese officials, safeguarding the intellectual independence of Manchu imperial power.46 Kangxi turned to the expedient of Jesuit mathematics when it served his political agenda; it is difficult to see how a Manchu encyclopedia à l’européenne would fit in it, regardless of any personal interest Kangxi might have had in Leibniz’s calculus.

A Mirror of the Manchu Language Kangxi did not get the message that Leibniz tried to convey through his letter to the Jesuits. Less than a year after Leibniz wrote to Bouvet about trading his calculus for a finished encyclopedic dictionary, Kangxi’s lexicographical project was completed. The resulting book, with a preface dated to 8 April 1708 (Kangxi 47/6/22) and titled Han-i araha manju gisun-i buleku bithe (Imperially commissioned Mirror of the Manchu language), was published by the imperial printshop in Beijing.47 It was not bilingual, as Bouvet had indicated. In fact, it contained no Chinese characters at all. The compilers’ “main goal,” Dominique Parrenin (see Chapter 6) later (1723) wrote from Beijing, “was to have some sort of collection of the entire [Manchu] language, so that the latter

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would never perish.”48 The immediate reason for compiling the book was the court’s fear of attrition of the Manchus’ facility with the dynastic language: “The old Tartars gradually died in China, and their children more readily learned the language of the conquered Land than that of their fathers, because their mothers and servants were almost all Chinese.”49 Parrenin’s source was probably the Kangxi emperor himself, who half a century earlier (27 May 1673; Kangxi 12/4/12) expressed the concern that “we cannot be sure that our sons and brothers of later generations will not learn Chinese and eventually forget Manchu.”50 Furthermore, the Qing administration was bilingual, and although, Kangxi reminded his court, “today’s translators still know the words and diction, and use them with deliberation, our sons and brothers of following generations might not.” In order to maintain the knowledge of Manchu within the ruling elite and ensure the smooth functioning of the empire’s bureaucracy by standardizing the relevant Manchu terminology, Kangxi ordered his high civil officials to compile a Manchu dictionary with reference to Mei Yingzuo’s Zihui, a Chinese book then in wide circulation. There was “no need to hurry” (bu bi tai ji 不必太急); a carefully produced work would be more useful to future generations.51 Indeed, only after several decades did the book leave the imperial printshop. Kangxi’s order to produce a Manchu dictionary came soon after the establishment of the Manchu-Chinese Translation Office (Ma. Dorgi bithe ubaliyambure boo; Ch. Nei Fanshu Fang 內翻書房) around 1671. The office was charged with translating the Chinese classics and histories into Manchu and imperial and central government documents written in one language into the other.52 Like the Mirror, the office was part of a larger effort to regulate the Manchu language and transform it into a literary language on a par with Chinese. Bouvet, whose letters to Leibniz were written before the Mirror’s publication, was not entirely wrong. Bilingual Manchu lexicography was a reality; during the decades that passed between Kangxi’s initial order and the finished product, several Manchu-Chinese dictionaries appeared in print. After all, the emperor did order the compilation of a Manchu dictionary based on a Chinese model, and the work was carried out with great care by a group of scholars attached to the court. Yet Kangxi intended his dictionary to support Manchu rule in China, not further general enlightenment by the collection of facts of various kinds. As far as I know, Leibniz never saw the finished Mirror. I am fairly certain, however, that even if he had, the book would have failed to meet his expectations.

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Leibniz’s hopes for the Manchu-reference work were conditioned by his own academic program and the lexicographic and encyclopedic works being produced in Europe in his time. Kangxi’s expectations, similarly, were shaped by realities in Beijing. The Manchu Mirror was published in a context of an emerging Manchu lexicography and a long history of Chinese imperial encyclopedias. The Background, Making, and Makeup of Kangxi’s Mirror

Kangxi’s Mirror cannot easily be classified either as an encyclopedia or as a dictionary, according neither to the conventions of Qing China, nor to the current acceptance of these terms in Western bibliography. The book was certainly not the kind of encyclopedic-cum-lexicographic work that Leibniz dreamed of. Some time probably passed between Kangxi’s order and the beginning of compilation. When Kangxi commissioned a Manchu-reference work in 1673, a Hanlin scholar who had already been involved in Manchu translation, Fudari 傅達禮 (fl. 1667–75), was made the man in charge. But, busy with other tasks and soon caught up with the great civil war that shook China in the 1670s,53 Fudari never worked on the Mirror.54 Work on the Manchu dictionary probably began in the mid- to late 1780s. In the first of the two postfaces that officials involved in the Mirror’s compilation appended to the book, they wrote that “the officials of the Hanlin Secretariat received an imperial order, which, after twenty years of compiling documents by assembling categories, they had been unable to complete.” Then the emperor intervened and brought the project to completion “in a few years’ time.”55 The Mirror and “Classified Writings”

Twenty years spent “compiling documents by assembling categories” (duwali acabume bithe banjibure)? To an educated reader in Qing China, this turn of phrase would have brought to mind books of “categorized” or “classified writings” (leishu 類書), a term that since the eleventh century had designated Chinese encyclopedias. Retrospectively, the term served in bibliographies to group also older thematically arranged compilations intended for “imperial perusal” (huanglan 皇覽), which themselves did not carry the label of leishu.56

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Indeed, the practice of assembling Manchu words and sorting them according to their meaning brought Chinese classified writings to mind for lexicographers of the era. In 1700, the Manchu clerk (bithesi) Sangge (fl. early 1680s–1700) published Man-Han leishu 滿漢類書 (Manchu and Chinese classified writings) in Shanxi, using precisely this phrase in its title (simply transcribed into Manchu as man han lei šu). Other books appearing during the first peak in Manchu lexicographic activity around the turn of the eighteenth century were also known as classified writings. Ling Shaowen in 1699 used this term to refer to a Manchu manuscript vocabulary that he had acquired in Beijing.57 Sangge worked on his dictionary for about seventeen years, six or seven of which were spent working in the Hanlin Secretariat, in proximity to Kangxi’s lexicographical project. However, because of his participation in “the army’s campaign outside the border,” probably Kangxi’s campaign against the Western Mongol leader Galdan (1644–97), Sangge had to put off printing the work until he was posted to Shanxi.58 He published the book first privately, then in an edition sponsored by the provincial governor’s office there.59 The case of Sangge shows that members of Kangxi’s agency for editorial work thought of this kind of Manchu lexicography as the compilation of leishu. Especially in light of Sangge’s trajectory and his conceptualization of the Manchu lexicographer’s craft, the description that the Mirror’s compilers made of their own working method evokes the production of a collection of “classified texts” for the emperor’s eyes. The structure of the Mirror shows the connection even more clearly. Books of classified writings were over the centuries joined by collections for the literati and even subelite literates, but the imperially sponsored encyclopedias that appeared during the Song and Ming dynasties, such as Taiping yulan 太平御覽 (Imperial digest [from the era of Rousing the State through] Great Tranquillity [taiping xingguo 興國]); 977–83 ce),60 were the most voluminous of the genre. Collections of classified writings such as Taiping yulan had a hierarchical structure that greatly influenced the Mirror’s arrangement of entries according to the meaning of the headword. Without being identically structured, Taiping yulan and the Mirror shared an arrangement that was in line with the Confucian worldview, progressing from heaven and its seasons, to the earth, its rulers and officials, human civilization, material culture, and botany and zoology. Having a “philosophical arrangement”61 rather than one based on the pronunciation or spelling of words,

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the Mirror and its Chinese leishu predecessors had some similarities to the encyclopedias of seventeenth-century Europe. A book in the tradition of classified writings would thus appear to accord with Leibniz’s view of encyclopedias. Indeed, Leibniz could easily have added Taizong (r. 976–97) of the Song, who commissioned Taiping yulan, to his list of historical monarchs who had commanded encyclopedic projects (see the list quoted in an epigraph for this chapter), were it not for one important circumstance: the Chinese imperial encyclopedias did not join extracts from the “best books” with the “best observations,” as Leibniz wanted, but were collections of a cumulative and often conservative nature, in which, like in twentieth-century Western encyclopedias,62 records of direct observations had little place. Before the sixteenth century, Chinese encyclopedias did not include illustrations, which was another of Leibniz’s desiderata. Yet even when they did—such as in an influential, early seventeenth-century encyclopedia that contained all sorts of maps, portraits, schemata, and drawings—they still accorded with a worldview inherited from ancient sources.63 Kangxi’s Mirror, similarly, included few observations and no illustrations. It did, however, include specialized vocabulary. Leibniz wanted a repository of Chinese learning, including technical subjects that lay outside the purview of ordinary polite conversation. He would have been pleased with certain innovations in the Mirror’s arrangement. Kangxi’s scholars added subsections for subjects that were often not explicitly recognized in Chinese classified writings for general use. These subjects included animals of economic importance to the Manchus (e.g., for their pelts) and the methods of making use of them (e.g., hunting). They also included weapons manufacture and different kinds of archery,64 which Leibniz would probably have considered desirable technical knowledge. Leibniz was not, however, particularly interested in “Tartar” learning per se; he wanted to gather Chinese technical knowledge into one printed repository. Long-standing Chinese categories such as medical remedies, agriculture, or manufactures were indeed represented in the Mirror. In using an arrangement close to that of earlier imperial encyclopedias, and a language evocative of classified writings, the compilers of the Mirror placed the book in a long and illustrious tradition. Their book was in Manchu, but its models were Chinese, and they were old. Raymond Queneau (1903–76) wrote that “encyclopedias seem to be the fruit of finishing civilizations.” He thought they were like “heavy tombstones, under

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which agonizing cultures are laid out, and which will soon crack under the hooves of the horses of the Barbarians.”65 There are no barbarians in this story. Quite the contrary: Kangxi, whose predecessors had conquered China, sought to portray Manchu as a literary language, carrier of a long classical civilization. To achieve that goal, he had to borrow the classical tradition of China and incorporate it in both the structural framework and the contents of his Mirror. Books as Mirrors

Unlike the arrangement, the title of Kangxi’s Manchu reference work did not give the impression of an encyclopedia. It is true that the generic term of classified writings or its variants (e.g., leichao 類抄, “classified excerpts”) did not occur in book titles with the same frequency as “encyclopedia” did in Europe from the seventeenth century onward. Rather, a variety of terms were used that allowed readers to identify a book as a leishu.66 Kangxi’s Manchu reference work used neither of these, however. Rather than overtly referring to the tradition of Chinese encyclopedias or dictionaries, the title of Kangxi’s reference work—Manju gisun-i buleku bithe—evoked mirrors, objects that had been valued by Chinese and Inner Asian elites since antiquity.67 From around the time of its appearance, although not anywhere on or in the book itself, the reference work was referred to in Chinese as Qingwen jian 清文鑑, “Mirror of Qing [or Manchu] writing [or literature].” The Manchu word buleku and the Chinese jian 鑑 both meant “mirror.” The earliest occurrence of the Chinese character used to write the word jian seems to anticipate its later use as a metaphor in book titles. The archaic character shows “a figure gazing into a basin,” referring to “the act of selfreflection rather than to an object that reflects.”68 The Manchu word has a different history. Cognates of Manchu buleku in other Tungusic languages refer to the light-reflecting properties of silver or gilded ornaments. This shade of meaning is seen also in the Manchu verb bulgiyambi, “to gild,” etymologically related to buleku.69 Kangxi’s Mirror itself defined buleku as “what is made from cast bronze, polished bright, and [used for] looking at the reflection of one’s own appearance. . . . [Mirrors] are also made from glass or stone.” 70 Both jian and buleku were found in the titles of several other books. The Chinese word had been used for centuries, occurring in the titles of several

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works of medicine,71 the Song edition of a Liao Buddhist dictionary of Chinese characters,72 and, famously, in Zizhi tongjian 資治通鑑 (Comprehensive mirror for the aid of government), “the first universal history of China in a thousand years” at the time of its completion in 1084 ce. A groundbreaking work, its title used a familiar metaphor of history as a mirror of the present.73 Zizhi tongjian was translated into Manchu and published as Hafu buleku bithe (Comprehensive mirror) in 1664, using the same word for “mirror” as in the later dictionary.74 To a Eu ropean reader in Leibniz’s day, the word “mirror” would have conjured the Latin word “speculum” that was found in the title of some of the most well-known medieval books retrospectively identified as encyclopedias. The use of “speculum” in reference to books followed upon earlier metaphorical usages of the word.75 Mirror metaphors were based on two different uses of mirrors: the mirror as a tool for self-contemplation and improvement (makeup, grooming), on the one hand, and, on the other, the mirror as a tool to see where the naked eye cannot (around a corner). This second usage inspired metaphors of mirrors allowing contemplation of the divine, normally far removed from the human realm. Scripture became a mirror in that sense, aided, perhaps, by the physical similarity of an open codex to a mirror.76 When “speculum” appeared in book titles in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, it was at the same time as other metaphors, whose popularity stemmed in part from the reading of Greek and Near and Middle Eastern literature, in part from the rise of allegorical ways of expression, and probably in part from the reintroduction of glass mirror production in the West at this time. “Speculum” did not refer to what can be grasped with the human eye in one glance, but a kaleidoscope of images—or a hall of mirrors77— assembled and presented by the author. Despite the visual metaphor, “speculum” was synonymous with “summa,” a systematic presentation of the knowledge in a given field;78 collections of “specula” were, according to some, capable of replacing whole libraries.79 The meaning of the term changed over time: in Germany, the figurative sense of the word (Spiegel) changed from “reflection” to “model” and “example,” with different trajectories in the other vernaculars.80 The word featured in the title of many pedagogical manuals written for rulers, including in Leibniz’s own “Miroir de prince.”81 The association of “speculum” with encyclopedias might have contributed to Western scholars’ imputation of “mirror” to the titles of early Chinese leishu when they translated them.82 After all, like many European specula,

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several Chinese classified writings aspired to be authoritative and often explicitly declared the sovereign their reader. Associations of the word jian would, however, have been somewhat different for Manchu and Chinese readers from around the turn of the eighteenth century. Existing books carrying “mirror” in their title, both in Chinese and in Manchu, were annalistic historical works. They shared the ambition of comprehensiveness with the Manchu Mirror, but not its topical arrangement. Yet Kangxi’s Manchu reference title was not the first compilation to borrow the word “mirror” from Zizhi tongjian. Already in the twelfth century, an anthology of literature written under the current dynasty, arranged according to genre, had been named Songwen jian 宋文鑑 (Mirror of Song writing [or literature]), a title that was mirrored (yes) in the retrospective Chinese appellation Qingwen jian for the Manchu compilation from 1708. In an echo of the European mirrors for princes, the Song collection had been thus named because, just like Zizhi tongjian, it was useful for the management of human affairs.83 In the years around the turn of the eighteenth century, furthermore, the word jian (re)appeared in the title of a Chinese dictionary,84 and, as part of the name of one of the Kangxi emperor’s studios, Yuanjian Zhai 淵鑑齋 (Studio for profound reflection), and for that reason also in an imperially sponsored encyclopedia, an anthology (translated into Manchu), and a few other works.85 In reference to the Manchu dictionary, buleku was intended to convey both that the book was a mirror of the language, but also, by extension, that it was the product of the reflection—literally, a mirroring (bulekušembi)—of matters in the mind of someone, such as the emperor, placed at an elevated vantage point. In reference to the Manchu Mirror, Kangxi’s officials wrote that “since there is nothing that [our] enlightened [emperor] has not reflected upon, the smallest points have been clearly distinguished” in the book.86 There was nothing in this usage that would have immediately associated the word with encyclopedias in the sense of classified writings, but the metaphor of someone looking down as if bent over a mirror to grasp the totality of the world below is, I think, encyclopedic.87 A Mirror of Language

It was the Manchu language that was “mirrored” in Kangxi’s dictionary, which was published to strengthen it. Parrenin, as mentioned, later wrote that it was immersion in a predominantly Chinese environment, leading to

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a decline in Manchu-language ability, that motivated the book’s compilation. In the Mirror’s preface, Kangxi indeed expressed the idea that the Manchu language was deteriorating as a motivation for the project, but he did not, as he had in conversation with his officials back in 1673, mention the Chinese language as the reason: “Now that the old men and my seniors are no longer appearing [before me], rare words and hidden meanings slowly fade. Mistakes are carried along and errors follow; what is learnt is not verified. Thus the writing of some words gets lost and their pronunciation cannot always be properly recalled.”88 This decline of the language, Kangxi argued, would be detrimental to the administration of the state. To a certain extent, the professed fear of linguistic decline was part of the rhetoric of dictionary-making. In the preface to the Mirror’s Chinese homolog,89 Kangxi zidian, which was published eight years later (1716), the imperial preface asserted that the proliferation of lexicographic works throughout Chinese history had led to a situation in which “ later scholars made inferences based on personal opinion, leading to many discrepancies. Examples include . . . the accumulation of meanings of a single character, which is not clear, or of multiple readings to one character, which are not all covered.”90 The difference was that, in the case of Manchu, Kangxi focused on bringing a vanishing oral heritage to print, whereas confusion regarding the Chinese language stemmed from a literary tradition that was long and varied. The emperor’s statement was more closely related to current Manchu lexicographical practice than to the work that went into Kangxi zidian. As old Manchus became a rare sight in court audiences, Kangxi and his lexicographers had to actively seek them out. Later in the preface, Kangxi wrote that he “always added proof based on the classics and histories, or asked among the elderly, or verified and checked it in the old records.”91 Sangge, who pioneered the phrase “classified writings” in the context of Manchu print, claimed to have done something similar a few years earlier. Sangge wrote that he had “saved every single one of the words and characters” that he and his friends “obtained either from books, the histories and classics, or from asking elderly people.”92 Even the wording is very close between the two descriptions of the Manchu lexicographer’s craft. Sangge’s work was not acknowledged by Kangxi, but it is not impossible that it was known to the emperor or his court scholars. As a monolingual publication compiled to codify the Manchu language, the Mirror could not serve as the gateway into Chinese learning that Leibniz wanted. “As this book is written in Tartar language and letters,”

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Parrenin later wrote, “it is of no use for beginners, and can only serve those who already know the language and want to perfect their knowledge of it or compose a text of some kind.”93 However, despite the monolingualism of the Manchu Mirror, the Chinese literary heritage—and, to some extent, the Chinese language— curiously played an impor tant role in it. In some sections, the court scholars saw it fit to complement their sometimes scanty definitions by giving a transcription of the Chinese translation of the lemma.94 Furthermore, Kangxi, like Sangge, wrote that he (read: his team of scholars) had made use of old documents and the classics and histories. To be sure, asking Manchu native speakers and consulting the Manchu documentary record, which reached back more than half a century into the pre-conquest period, were reasonable means for producing a book such as the Mirror. The “classics” and “histories,” however, referred to corpora in Chinese, parts of which had been translated into Manchu since the second quarter of the seventeenth century and with increased imperial attention since the establishment of the ManchuChinese Translation Office. The dictionary’s compilers, with Kangxi’s approval, appear to have included them because of their perceived literary quality. The imperial preface addressed the importance of literary style in its closing passage: Students of this book, encountering these many years of my hard work, will, knowing the pronunciation, find how characters are written and, knowing how they are written, will arrive at literary style. From now on, promulgated edicts, submitted memorials, communications to distant places, and inscriptions on shining [i.e., polished] stone, will all have a model to follow in this great way and precedent [of imperial rule]. Following the complete models contained in every word, every thought expressed here, the writings of our state will endure forever through ten thousand generations, endure in between heaven and earth like the sun and the stars and the Milky Way.95 The inclusion of quotations from the translated Chinese classics, then, was due to the Mirror’s role as a model for administrative prose and public pronouncements, which borrowed from the language of the classics. Indeed, in the main body of the Mirror, quotes from these texts abounded, whereas older Manchu texts and native informants, both important for the develop-

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ment of the Manchu language and its actual usage, were only very rarely explicitly cited as such.96 In one of the book’s two postfaces, Kangxi’s officials asserted that everything between heaven above and earth below had been collected in the book. The emperor would have “thoroughly examined the actualities of both past and present” (julge te-i jurgan be mohobume kimciha),97 which reads like a declaration of encyclopedism. The imperial preface, however, struck a more lexicographic note. It stated that the book had been compiled by “searching for the origin of pronunciations and investigating the bases of the writing of characters”98 (formulations later echoed in the preface’s closing passage, quoted above). This professed thoroughness was distinctly lexicographical. Unlike Chinese encyclopedias in the tradition of classified writings, the Mirror did not include chronologically arranged excerpts, which, two centuries after Leibniz, frustrated Karl Himly (1836–1904) when he wanted to use the Manchu-reference book to learn about Chinese games.99 Indeed, at the level of the individual entry, Kangxi’s Mirror looked more like a repository of words than of things. The contents of the technical sections served better for learning Manchu vocabulary than for learning about the activities that the words described. In the subsection on “the various tools used by craftsmen” (faksi sai baitalara eiten agûra), subsumed under “economic activities” (boigon hethe), the reader was presented with the Manchu names of tools such as the small iron hammer (folho), the drill (tuyeku), and the big, small, and double-edged axes (suhe, suhecen, and juwe jeyengge suhe). This was the definition of the “big axe”: suhe: A tool for chopping wood. The handle is inserted into a hole [in the metal part of the axe]. The blade protrudes from one side and is balanced on the other side. It chops things such as wood and can also be used for hammering.

In the piece on the “Southern Hill [Nanshan 南山]” in the “airs of Qi [齊]” in the Poetry classic, it is said: “How does one split wood? Without a big axe, it cannot be done.”100 The word defined is generic, as is the definition. One could presumably learn how to construct an axe on the basis of it, but there were sources a lot more

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accessible than the Manchu Mirror for acquiring such knowledge. Moreover, the example sentence given in the entry is from an ancient and canonical Chinese collection that had been translated into Manchu and published in early 1655.101 Such quotations were very common in the Mirror, but they did not clarify the thing described so much as exemplify its usage in what the court authorities now held to be proper written Manchu. At least the definition was clear and accessible; it would have been useful for a learner of the Manchu language.

Conclusion Both Leibniz and Kangxi knew that the editorial project that concluded with the publication of the Imperially commissioned Mirror of the Manchu language in 1708 represented the invention of something new. The Qing government had not previously sponsored a linguistic reference work of any kind. Leibniz hoped that the book’s format was not decided beforehand and could still be modified with Jesuit involvement. In the Eu rope of his time, dictionaries and encyclopedias were multiplying and changing.102 “Dictionary wars” raged among lexicographers,103 and the genre played an impor tant role in the development of critical scholarship, a process in which Leibniz was involved.104 In 1722, a few years after Leibniz’s death, one lexicographer even characterized the era as “the century of Dictionaries” (le siècle des Dictionnaires).105 Encyclopedias developed at the same time and under the influence of the dictionaries, with Diderot’s Encyclopédie appearing as “the summa of a great intellectual movement” in the latter half of the century.106 The Qing eighteenth century was a great age of imperial encyclopedias and Manchu topically arranged dictionaries. The Manchu court took great editorial initiatives. The Chinese graphological dictionary, after many new titles and developments from the late fifteenth century onward, received its canonical form with the normative Kangxi zidian. Collections of classified writings published by the court and topically arranged anthologies (congshu 叢書) compiled under its auspices also surpassed in scale anything previously produced in China.107 The Manchu Mirror counted among the first of the Qing court’s lexicographic and encyclopedic publications. It set a trend. Responding to the difficulties of using an essentially monolingual Manchu work, albeit one with

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a number of Chinese translations quoted in transcription, the scholar Mingdo compiled a Manchu-Chinese thesaurus on his own initiative. His book from 1735 used the Mirror’s division into categories. It was repeatedly reprinted from the commercial publishers in Beijing (one reprint is dated 1757) and remained in print for some time.108 Official new editions of the Mirror appeared throughout the century, in all of the languages that the court considered politically important: Manchu-Mongolian editions in 1717 and 1743, a Manchu-Chinese one in 1772–73, a trilingual Manchu-Mongolian-Chinese edition in 1780, and the list does not end there.109 Later editions kept the original structure, but the entries became shorter and more language-focused. Whereas Jiang Qiao compared Kangxi’s monolingual Mirror to Diderot’s Encyclopédie,110 Denis Sinor (1916–2011) compared the later Manchu-Chinese Mirror to Roget’s Thesaurus (1852).111 Kangxi’s Mirror had a great influence on Manchu book culture. Yet it was the only one of its kind; in the plurilingual culture of the Qing court and in a context of weakened Manchu abilities among bannermen, bilingual dictionaries made more sense than dictionaries in Manchu only. The book that Kangxi initially described as a Manchu-Chinese equivalent of Mei Yingzuo’s Chinese dictionary Zihui was published as a monolingual dictionary in the tradition of imperial Chinese encyclopedias. Like Leibniz’s vision, it was something new, but ultimately conservative in structure and purpose. Its most radical characteristic, its attempted monolingualism, not entirely achieved even in the first edition, did not survive in subsequent versions. The monolingualism of Kangxi’s Mirror was incongruent with Leibniz’s idea of what a Manchu dictionary could do. The place of Manchu between China and its language on the one hand, and Europe on the other, was precisely what made Manchu a good candidate for a work that, functioning as a bridge, would convey knowledge from one end of Eurasia to the other. Leibniz was acutely aware of the political importance of Manchu in China, but he knew next to nothing about the language and its script. In the context of the envisioned encyclopedic dictionary, Manchu itself was an empty entity, merely the connecting tissue that would tie China and Europe together. Later in the eighteenth century, other European scholars made Manchu less of a blank space and in the process brought it even closer to European ideas of languages and scripts. Chapter 7 will tell of Gottlieb Bayer’s description of the Manchu script as an alphabet, not unlike the Eu ropean writing systems. Chapter 8, furthermore, will show how the alphabetical understanding of Manchu allowed the script to be integrated into Eu ropean printing

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technology. The latter happened in the context of printing a ManchuFrench dictionary in Eu rope. That dictionary was a far cry from the illustrated encyclopedia replete with up-to-date Chinese knowledge of which Leibniz dreamed. However, appearing decades before the first printed Western dictionary of Chinese, the published Manchu-French dictionary in a sense proved Leibniz right: Manchu could be a bridging language between China and Europe, and it was certainly more easily integrated into European print culture than Chinese was.

Chapter 6

The Manchu Script and Foreign Sounds from the Qing Court to Korea, 1720s–1770s

A Conversation in Manchuria Sometime around 1705, the Jesuit missionary Dominique Parrenin (1665–1741) was in Manchuria, the ancestral homeland of the Qing empire’s ruling elite. Parrenin, who had left his native France for China in 1698,1 was traveling in the company of his Manchu patrons. Prince In Jy (Yinzhi 胤禔; 1672–1734), the oldest son of the ruling Kangxi emperor, summoned the French Jesuit to his tent on a pretext. During their conversation, the prince let it transpire that he was interested in discussing linguistic issues with Parrenin. The prince’s invitation prompted a lengthy discussion of the merits of Manchu, Chinese, and European languages, in which Parrenin, by his own account (dated much later, on 1 May 1723 in Beijing), managed to convince In Jy that European languages were, if not superior to Manchu, at least superior to Chinese. Purportedly, the anecdote records a discussion between a European missionary and a Qing nobleman. The anecdote shows the European exaltation of the Roman alphabet as a superior writing system and the persistent belief among the China missionaries that the Manchu script was a syllabary. It also exemplifies the importance of phonetic transcription in situations of concurrent use of several written languages, and the need for techniques to successfully transfer sounds from one script to another. The conversation began with In Jy telling Parrenin:

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When I look at your books from Europe, I find that the binding is well executed, and that the illustrations are well engraved. However, the characters are truly displeasing to me; they are small and few in number, poorly distinguished from one another, and they form a kind of chain with twisted joints. Or, rather, they are similar to the remnants left by flies on a varnished table covered with dust. . . . Our characters, by contrast, and even those of the Chinese, are beautiful, neat, clearly distinguished. They are numerous, and one can choose among them.2 Parrenin disagreed. Following a few words of praise for the prince’s native Manchu, Parrenin countered the prince’s claims by appealing to linguistic relativism: I thus agreed with the Prince that the Tartar language was fairly majestic and fit to describe noble acts of war; to praise the Greats; to write serious pieces; to compose history. I agreed that it possessed names and expressions for all things known by their ancestors, but I also said that one should be wary of being too protective of one’s own language without prior consideration. “You prefer your language,” I added, “to that of the Chinese, and I think you are right in this regard. But the Chinese who know both languages, as far as they are concerned, do not agree, and in reality one cannot maintain that the Tartar language would be without drawbacks.” These words, uttered by a foreigner, surprised the Prince, but without giving him time to respond, I added some small details regarding the drawbacks I had noticed. “You agree,” I told him, “that the Chinese, with all their thousands of characters, cannot express the sounds, the words, the phrases of your language without disfiguring them to the extent of rendering a Tartar word both unrecognizable and unintelligible as soon as it is written down in Chinese. And from that you conclude with good reason that your letters are better than the Chinese letters, although even fewer in number, because they express Chinese words very well. But the same reason ought to also make you agree that the characters of

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Eu rope are better than the Tartar characters, although fewer in number, since by using them we can easily express Tartar and Chinese words, and many more still that you would not be able to write.”3 The criteria used by Parrenin to judge the merits of a script were (1) its number of basic units and (2) its ability to faithfully record as many and as varied speech sounds as possible. Parrenin valued a small inventory of characters— as long as it was great enough to satisfactorily fulfill his second criterion. Comparing the number of characters in the Manchu script and Roman alphabet, Parrenin stated as a matter of course that the characters of Europe are “even fewer in number” (en plus petit nombre) than the characters of Manchu. Parrenin’s statement only makes sense as a comparison of the Roman alphabet with the Manchu syllabary, the “twelve heads” comprising more than a thousand characters that the Manchus used in order to teach their children to read and write. In our day, the Manchu script is commonly understood as an alphabet comprising twenty-eight letters, with an additional seven letters reserved for the transcription of foreign words.4 That understanding is the product of Manchu’s European decipherment, which I will treat in Chapter 7. Parrenin, however, had learned Manchu according to Manchu custom, and he thought of the script as a syllabary. Parrenin took the Manchu syllabary for granted; he just did not like it very much. The reason was that the Manchu syllabary did not match with the Roman alphabet. Both the Manchu and the European scripts recorded sounds, but the unit according to which sound was measured was not the same in the two writing systems. Other Jesuit scholars before Parrenin had been vexed by this incommensurability. Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–88), who wrote a Manchu grammar in the previous century, thought that the Manchu script, construed as the syllabary in twelve sections, could accommodate only words from the Manchu language. When the Manchus transcribed words from languages other than Manchu into their own script, they had to adapt them to fit the structure of the syllabary. Verbiest gave the example of diplomatic correspondence with European countries: “For example, when Legations from foreign Nations, such as the Portuguese, Russians, Dutch, etc., bring letters, the Tartars customarily translate them into their own language. They then largely insert the necessary

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vowels among the consonants in the following manner: they write the words Petrus and Andreas, for example, as Peterus and Andereas. Thus, if they are to write the sentence Plebs est prostrata, they write Plebes esut porosutarata, and so on.”5 Using the alleged inability to transcribe these Latin words as a charge against the Manchu script is curious, for who would have been responsible for the transcriptions if not the Jesuits themselves, who interpreted for the Qing court in relations with the European powers? Yet Parrenin, several decades later, repeated it. He discarded In Jy’s claim that the aesthetic qualities of the Manchu script gave it merit, and he brought up the issue of transcription instead: “Your reasoning,” I added, “regarding the beauty of characters proves little or nothing at all. Those who invented the Eu ropean characters did not aspire to create paintings meant to please the eye; all they wanted to do was to create signs to represent their thoughts and to express all the sounds that the mouth can produce, and this was the desire of all Nations at the moment that they invented writing. Furthermore, the simpler the signs and the fewer their number, as long as they suffice, the more admirable and easy to learn they become. In this regard, abundance is a fault, which is why the Chinese language is poorer than yours, and yours in turn is poorer than the languages of Eu rope.” In Jy was of a different opinion. Instead of countering Parrenin with an argument based on a different aspect of the script, such as its visual beauty, he accepted Parrenin’s premise that the successful transcription of the sounds of other languages was a quality relevant to the matter at hand. Yet unlike Parrenin, In Jy believed that Manchu did this job very well: “ ‘I don’t agree,’ the Prince said, ‘that we would not be able to write words from foreign languages using the Tartar characters. Do we not write the Mongolian language, Korean, Chinese, and that of Tibet? etc.’ ” Parrenin’s response to In Jy’s claim was essentially a repetition of what Verbiest wrote in his grammar decades earlier: “ ‘ That is not enough,’ I responded. ‘You would also have to be able to write ours. Try, for instance, and see whether you can write these words: prendre, platine, griffon, and friand.’ This he could not, because, in the Tartar language, one cannot join two consonants in a

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row; between the two, one must place a vowel, and write perendre, pelatine, geriffon, feriand, etc.”6 The nature of the record of Parrenin and In Jy’s conversation—a letter written by the European party for a European audience—makes it difficult to accord it too much value as a source for linguistic ideas current among the Manchu elite. Yet some statements, such as In Jy’s opinion of European languages as “a constant twittering similar to the dialect of Fujian province” (un gazouillement perpétuel assez semblable au jargon de la province de Fokien),7 accord with current sentiment at the Qing court, such as the incomprehension and intolerance of Fujian dialect from In Jy’s brother, the Yongzheng emperor In Jen (Yinzhen 胤禛).8 It is possible that other parts of the conversation in Manchuria were also truthful to the reigning sentiment of the time. Regardless of whether Parrenin misrepresented In Jy, the problem of transcription, which Parrenin identified and with which he as an interpreter knew well, was real. In Jy, if Parrenin quoted him correctly, might not have realized the complexity of writing Mongolian, Chinese, Korean, or Tibetan in a language other than their native scripts. Still, the prince was correct to note that the transfer of speech sounds across writing systems was routinely practiced in the Qing bureaucracy. This chapter discusses the development of phonetic transcription between Manchu and Chinese in China and then Korea. First, the Manchu script was adapted to better record Chinese sounds as the Qing administration expanded and scholars created a liter ature of translations from Chinese. Second, in the first half of the eighteenth century, the phonographic Manchu script became a source for inspiration for the improvement of fanqie spelling, that is, the recording of Chinese subsyllabic sounds by means of Chinese characters. Third, in the second half of the eighteenth century, Chinese techniques of transcription were further adapted under Manchu influence to better specify the pronunciation of Manchu words in court-sponsored dictionaries and other government publications. Fourth and fi nally, some of these government-sponsored publications reached Korea, where their use of the Manchu script to transcribe Chinese impressed interpreters working for the Chosŏn court and stimulated the writing of a Korean Manchu-Chinese dictionary in which the Qing and Korean traditions of phonological study merged. Parrenin took it as a matter of course that a Chinese transcription of a Manchu word made it “both unrecognizable and unintelligible,” and that

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the Manchu script was ill-suited to the task of transcribing at least European languages. Later, after a century of phonological research at the Qing court, scholars in Korea and Eu rope disagreed with Parrenin on each of these points.

The Manchu Script and Chinese Sounds in Beijing Written Manchu was almost from its inception adapted to record not only the sounds of the Manchu language, but also the sounds of other languages, especially the forms of northern vernacular Chinese spoken in Jianzhou and the areas into which the Manchus expanded in the early seventeenth century. From the Mongols, the Manchus inherited a tradition of adapting the script to suit foreign sounds. The Buddhist imperative for such adaptation, which contributed to the development of the Mongolian galik graphs, played a role with the Manchus, especially in the eighteenth century.9 At the time when the Manchus were still establishing their written language before the conquest of Beijing, however, the focus was on adapting the script for the transcription of Chinese as the young polity sponsored translations of Chinese books into Manchu and extended its rule to the largely Chinese Liaodong Peninsula. Discussed briefly in Chapter 1, Dahai’s reform of the Manchu script in the early 1630s consisted of the standardization of foreign toponyms and personal names, two kinds of words whose pronunciation was not always intuitive even to native Manchu speakers. It has been proposed, convincingly in my opinion, that the Korean alphabet influenced the reforms that written Manchu underwent at this time, including both the introduction of diacritics and of new graphs to transcribe Chinese sounds.10 The Korean alphabet might thus have inspired Dahai and his colleagues in pre-conquest Manchuria. A century and a half later, scholars in Hansŏng, the Chosŏn capital, revised their hangul transcriptions of Chinese on the basis of a Manchu tradition of linguistic study. When Manchu came into sustained contact with Chinese after the conquest, the script was adapted further. Dahai, in that context, was seen as having done more than standardize the writing of names. In the early postconquest period, a narrative was cultivated according to which Dahai did more than regulate the use of diacritics for some Manchu graphs. A stele erected in Manchuria in 1670 on the order of the Kangxi emperor to commemorate Dahai claimed that he not only added diacritics, but “also

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accommodated [i.e., transcribed] the Chinese language by adding characters to the fifth section.”11 The fifth section here referred to the section of the Manchu syllabary that had a coda in -ng. Like the section that had a coda in -i, it contained extra syllables that had no counterparts in the other sections. The reason was that syllables such as nioi, jioi, and hiong—all ending either with -i or -ng—were used to transcribe Chinese sounds that did not exist in Manchu: nü, ju, and xiong, in this case. Such transcription syllables occur already in the earliest extant syllabaries,12 but their number increased over time. The early appearance and increasingly prominent place of non-Manchu syllables in pedagogical works highlight an important reality: from its very inception, written Manchu was used in a plurilingual context. Simply recording the sounds of the Manchu language was not enough for government servants and translators. The Manchu script was routinely used to write elements of the Chinese language as well. The use of the Manchu script to record Chinese sounds led Qing scholars to associate the new script with the syllabic spelling (fanqie) used in Chinese phonological studies. Yang Bin wrote that the Manchu syllabary “is of a similar type as the fanqie of the Chinese.”13 Furthermore, one Wu Jing 吳暻 (presented scholar in 1688) wrote that “the phonology of our dynasty’s state script is roughly like the syllabic spelling of the ancients.”14 Liu Dou, in 1668, listed “additional characters for Chinese sounds” (zengbu Hanyin zi 增補漢音字) at the end of his syllabary.15 In 1699, Ling Shaowen and Chen Kechen similarly highlighted the importance of such syllables by setting them off on separate pages in their compendium Qingshu quanji. Ling and Chen’s book also contained longer lists of Manchu transcriptions of Chinese. When the Manchu syllables used were also found within the syllabary, they were called “corresponding sounds” (duiyin 對音). When they were combinations of syllables that were not as such found in the syllabary, they were called “spelled sounds” (qieyin 切音) in reference to Chinese syllabic spelling.16 This notion is closely related to what other pedagogues and lexicographers called “outer characters.” It was not just Chinese phonological terminology that was used to describe the phonographic properties of the Manchu script in Qingshu quanji. Ling and Chen also used Chinese characters in a way analogous to how they used the Manchu script. For the benefit of Manchu learners, the sounds of Manchu words and phrases were recorded alongside the Manchu words in Chinese characters. This practice, of using Chinese characters to write words from non-Chinese languages, went back to the early history of the Chinese

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writing system. It became prominent and to some extent theorized during the large-scale translation of Buddhist texts into Chinese in the medieval period. In such transcriptions, the often polysyllabic foreign words were written down using Chinese characters in what approximated their original sound. Sometimes one Chinese character alone could stand for the foreign sound. At other times the transcription used two or even three characters for what in the source language was only one syllable. The Buddhist scholars theorized the method, describing it as “tripartite” (sanhe 三合) spellings (that is, three characters combined to spell a single foreign syllable).17 Later, the glossaries of Jurchen, Mongolian, and other languages produced by the Ming government agencies responsible for the reception of foreign envoys also used this technique to represent foreign words. Whether the encounter with Buddhism influenced the development of fanqie (used for Chinese—not foreign—words) is not a settled issue. Yet it is clear that Buddhism, and its related techniques of transcribing foreign words using Chinese characters, played a part when scholars in the late Ming period worked to make Chinese syllabic spelling more intuitive. In the context of speculative Confucian thought, the study of non-Chinese scripts, and musical theory and practice,18 scholars revived the term “tripartite spelling.”19 They attempted to make syllabic spelling more intuitive by allowing the reader to simply read the two spellers in quick succession off the page. Ling and Chen, a few generations younger than the late Ming fanqie reformers, did not use the term “tripartite spelling.” Yet like other Manchu pedagogues around the turn of the eighteenth century, they tried to make their Chinese spellings of Manchu accurate, and to this end they used several Chinese characters for one Manchu syllable. Similarly to Shen Qiliang and, before him, the Ming vocabularies of Inner Asian languages, 20 they furthermore used diacritic marks to more confidently guide the Chinese reader to the proper Manchu pronunciation. For example, the Manchu word durgiya, “morning star,” was transcribed as duer[g]ia 杜而加 (the nonpalatalized articulation of the initial of the syllable now pronounced jia was still standard at this time), with a diacritic drop-shaped mark next to er to indicate the trilled sound of the -r.21 Yet in their three-character transcription, there was no indication of how the sounds represented connected to form syllables. The first Manchu syllable, dur-, was transcribed using two Chinese characters (duer-), whereas the second and third syllables, -gi- and -ya, were represented using only one syllable (-[g]ia). In the eighteenth century, after Chinese syllabic spelling had been rethought in

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light of the Manchu script, this type of Chinese-character transcription for Manchu was regularized. Books such as Ling and Chen’s elementary textbook taught future clerks and scholars how to transpose linguistic material between the very different scripts of Chinese and Manchu. The students appear to have learned well, for it was only several decades later that the court intervened to explicitly regulate the practice. There were many moving parts. Since the Manchu script recorded sound at the subsyllabic level, and thus with much greater detail than the syllabic characters used for Chinese, transcribing Chinese sounds using “corresponding” and “spelled sounds” reduced the pronunciations that were possible for a Chinese character. Functioning like a pronunciation gloss, the Manchu transcriptions defined and fixed the pronunciation of the Chinese original. Efforts at regulation were therefore inherently twofold. They determined what Chinese characters corresponded to what Manchu syllables, and vice versa, thus standardizing the notation used. Yet in so doing, they also implied a choice with regards to what pronunciation of the Chinese character should be the basis for the transcription. These two aspects of Chinese-Manchu transcription had great influence on the spelling of Chinese speech sounds first in China, then in Korea. Syllabic Spelling on Manchu Principles: Li Guangdi and Wang Lansheng’s Dictionary

The theorization of the Manchu script in terms of Chinese phonological studies was an early feature of Manchu-language pedagogy in China. In the early eighteenth century, the phonographic character of the Manchu script also influenced phonological studies that were exclusively concerned with Chinese, not Manchu. A Manchu influence is very prominent in Qinding yinyun chanwei 欽定音韻闡微 (Imperially authorized elucidation of the subtleties of phonology), compiled by the highly placed scholar-official Li Guangdi and his protégé Wang Lansheng for the Kangxi emperor. Printed in 1726, after both Li’s and Kangxi’s deaths, it was a rhyme book of Middle Chinese and contemporary northern reading pronunciation. Yinyun chanwei was the last of Kangxi’s linguistic projects, which began with the Manchu Mirror. In compiling a rhyme book, Kangxi followed the precedent set under earlier dynasties. The founding emperor of the Ming dynasty, whom the early Manchu rulers respected greatly, 22 famously sponsored a rhyme dictionary titled Hongwu zhengyun 洪武正韻 (Correct rhymes

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of the Hongwu [period]) in 1375. Its chief compiler associated the project of standardizing character readings with the emperor’s civilized rule.23 Commissioning Yinyun chanwei was similarly a way for Kangxi to make the reach of his imperial rule manifest. The rhyme book and the discussions that preceded it demonstrated not only the potential of Manchu learning for Chinese phonological studies, but also the difficulty of reforming the authoritative tradition of Chinese rhyme lexicography. Xiong Shibo, an idiosyncratic scholar and in some ways among the last of a list of scholars who since the late Ming applied Chinese phonological studies to non-Chinese materials, could include a study on Manchu in his encyclopedic book, but it proved difficult even for scholars working at the Manchu court to reform Middle Chinese rhyme lexicography along Manchu lines. Yet phonological techniques pioneered in the work on Yinyun chanwei were later carried further in specifically Manchu dictionaries produced at the court, which then reached Korea. Li Guangdi 李光地 (1642–1718), head of Kangxi’s project for a rhyme dictionary, fulfilled several important functions at court. He was the Kangxi emperor’s consultant on matters pertaining to his home province of Fujian. When this inaccessible mountainous province on the southeastern coast tried to break away entirely from Qing rule, Li proposed a plan for a Manchu invasion.24 In addition, Li was a Neo-Confucian philosopher reacting to the speculative thought of the sixteenth century by reaffirming an unambiguous standard of interpretation of the classical corpus as the basis for Confucian beliefs. 25 He also took an interest in mathematics and astronomy. 26 Through studies in Beijing after 1670, Li was, like several other Chinese southerners in Qing ser vice, a speaker of Manchu.27 The year after Li began his studies of the “dynastic script” (guoshu 國書) of Manchu, he also began studying the most recent findings in Chinese historical phonology.28 According to his grandson, having studied Manchu, Li could more easily grasp difficult issues in phonological studies: “The letters, treatments, and other pieces on phonology that he wrote in his later years . . . derived many of their insights from the dynastic script.”29 Indeed, Li relied on his knowledge of Manchu in phonological studies he completed long before Kangxi ordered him to compile an official rhyme book;30 his interest in Manchu was not feigned to please the emperor. Having spent some time in Fujian, Li served in high office in Beijing permanently from the 1690s onward. In 1696, when Li was serving as an education officer in the Metropolitan District around Beijing, he discovered the talented young student Wang Lan-

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sheng 王蘭生 (1680–1737). Wang, a native to the area, was from a family that had formerly served the Ming but became impoverished during the dynastic transition. Wang then worked under Li on several scholarly projects under way at court, including what became Yinyun chanwei. Li, Wang, and arguably even Kangxi himself contributed to the rhyme dictionary project. Li initiated it as a project under his own name.31 Li wanted to improve the key technique employed in rhyme books: syllabic spelling. Since its invention in the first millennium ce, language change had made the syllabic spellings used in the early, canonical rhyme books difficult to interpret for speakers of the late imperial Chinese vernaculars. The rhyme tables were developed in part to alleviate these difficulties. Yet the proper manipulation of rhyme tables was specialist knowledge; not everyone who wanted to look up the pronunciation of a Chinese character had the knowledge or phonological curiosity of a Xiong Shibo. Li was influenced by the advances made by opera theorists in the late Ming. He believed that their attempt to enable the reader to read the syllabic spellers linearly, essentially transforming the characters into a subsyllabic phonographic notation, intuited a principle that was also manifest in the Manchu syllabary.32 Kangxi, no stranger to Manchu, thought that his scholars should look even further afield for inspiration and sent Wang Lansheng home with Korean, Tibetan (lama 喇嘛), and “Muslim” (huihui 回回) literature, and especially pointed him toward the Korean script as the origin of some innovations in late imperial phonological analysis. It is unclear how much actual use Wang and Li made of this material. Yet at least Wang and Kangxi became convinced that the current analysis of the northern Chinese vernacular vowel system, a variant of which inspired Xiong Shibo in his analysis of the Manchu vowel sequence, had its origins in Korean phonological studies.33 Li, for his part, believed that the new rhyme dictionary needed a system of syllabic spelling that was as simple as the pairing of “half blocks” in the Manchu syllabary. A few months before his death,34 he reported to Kangxi that the spelling ought to be so simple as to make rhyme tables superfluous, because using them “is more than beginners and young students can manage.” Manchu was the solution: “Only in the method of connecting characters of our dynasty are two characters matched together to obtain the true pronunciation; one can interpret them without first knowing the genera of the tables.”35 Li passed away, however, and the task of finishing the book fell to Wang Lansheng.

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The finished rhyme book did not turn out as radical as would be expected from the preparatory discussions. To make the syllabic spellings truly simple and intuitive, they would have to represent a language that could actually be spoken and learned by the reader. The finished Yinyun chanwei, however, attempted to represent phonological distinctions both in the officially sanctioned northern reading pronunciation of the day, as well as distinctions inherited from the Middle Chinese rhyme books.36 Surprising as it may seem, Kangxi, the Manchu emperor, appears to have been the one who held back Li’s wish for a rhyme book of the contemporary language, opting instead for a middle-of-the-road conservative work.37 The simplicity of the Manchu script, which when used to write Chinese recorded only one form of the language, typically a currently spoken one, was not carried over to the Chinese syllabic spellings. Furthermore, the compilers of Yinyun chanwei, although cognizant of the tripartite spellings used by musical theorists, never seem to have considered abandoning the two-character model used in traditional fanqie. Spelling Chinese syllables using three characters would have brought their usage closer to that of the Manchu script. It would also have made it easier to have all the desired phonological characteristics represented, as there would have been more characters and thus more graphic information available within one written syllable. Only later in the eighteenth century were Chinese characters used in this way in court publications. At this time, their purpose was no longer to spell Chinese words, however, but Manchu ones. The Standardization of Manchu-Chinese Transcription at the Qianlong Court

Chinese syllabic spelling was modeled entirely on the Manchu script not in monolingual Chinese rhyme dictionaries, but in phonological treatises with an Inner Asian focus and in dictionaries focused on the Manchu language. To be sure, scholars continued to compare the Manchu script with Chinese syllabic spelling even after the publication of Yinyun chanwei. Du-si-de 都四德 (n.d.), for example, compared the functioning of the Manchu script with fanqie in Huangzhong tongyun 黃鐘通韻 (Rhymes to be used with the yellow bell tonic; 1753), writing that syllabic spelling “works the same way in Manchu writing: the head of the character is the initial and the tail of the character is the final. For example, the character gu 姑, when used with the syllable wo 窩, can spell guo 鍋.”38

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However, such comparison did little to advance syllabic spelling beyond what had already been achieved in Li, Wang, and Kangxi’s rhyme book. New developments of fanqie spelling did not appear from within Chinese phonology proper until the late nineteenth century. In the eighteenth century, the tradition of Yinyun chanwei was primarily taken up and adapted in phonetic transcriptions that used Chinese characters to spell words in Manchu, Mongolian, Tibetan, and other Inner Asian languages in imperial dictionaries and transcription manuals. Yet the choice to use the modified fanqie to spell Inner Asian languages rather than Chinese did not mean that Manchu-inspired transcriptions were no longer used for Chinese words. Rather, the influence of Manchu became even more manifest, as the Qianlong court’s lexicographers chose to use the Manchu script directly to transcribe Chinese sounds. In so doing, they extended even further the practice of using the Manchu script to write Chinese, which had become more and more prominent in Manchu syllabaries during the past century, as “corresponding” and “spelled sounds” took place alongside native Manchu syllables in textbooks. It was the opinion of the court scholars that the Manchu script could connect all possible language sounds.39 To endow Chinese characters with the same capabilities, their usage was mirrored on that of Manchu, which made them into a spelling system that a Chinese reader could use to access the pronunciation of a Manchu or Mongolian word. The basis of the new fanqie-like spellings was in this usage no longer an analysis of the spelled syllable into two parts, but into three. Analyses of that kind had, as I mentioned, been practiced in Buddhist phonology for a long time before being taken up by several late Ming and early Qing scholars. Now, such an analysis was, as in the medieval period, applied to spellings of non-Chinese sounds, represented this time by Manchu. The system was kept user-friendly by graphically distinguishing the spellers as part of a transcription system where the usual rule of one Chinese character corresponding to one full syllable no longer applied. In 1750, Qinding tongwen yuntong 欽定同文韻統 (Imperially authorized rhyme systems in standardized writing) appeared on imperial order. The book included tables and charts of transcriptions between languages and scripts of political significance to the Qing court. The editors explained that they “followed the phonological model of Yinyun chanwei.”40 They outlined the application of a Manchu-inspired syllabic spelling method: “The fanqie has been added underneath [every lemma]. In cases where several characters are

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cumulatively written together [to spell one syllable], the character representing the final [shousheng] [of a syllable] is written in large script. The several characters preceding it [and representing the initial and medial of the syllable] are written in small script.”41 The method, which used three Chinese characters to spell one syllable, was later used in imperially sponsored dictionaries as well. The original imperial Manchu Mirror that appeared in 1708 contained no Chinese text, let alone transcriptions of the Manchu lemmata. In 1773, the Qianlong emperor’s Manchu-Chinese bilingual revision of that book appeared under the title Han-i araha nonggime toktobuha manju gisun-i buleku bithe | Yuzhi zengding Qingwen jian 御製增訂清文鑑 (Imperially commissioned mirror of the Manchu language, expanded and emended).42 The Manchu headwords were transcribed using Chinese characters and translated into Chinese.43 At the same time, the emperor commissioned an official transcription manual, which received the title Qinding Qing-Han duiyin zishi 欽定清漢對音字式 (Imperially authorized Manchu and Chinese characters presented in corresponding sounds; 1773).44 It was intended to guide officials and clerks in the rendering of Manchu names in Chinese script. Its utility led to it being often reproduced thereafter. A decade after these books were published, the Manchu-Chinese Mirror was followed by a trilingual dictionary, Yuzhi Manzhu, Menggu, Hanzi sanhe qieyin Qingwen jian 御製滿珠蒙古漢字三合 切音清文鑑 (Imperially commissioned Manchu, Mongolian, and Chinese script mirror with tripartite spellings), which in addition to Manchu and Chinese included also Mongolian.45 The spelling method used in these books moved beyond traditional fanqie also in name. In Chinese, the new technique was called by the name of the old Buddhist practice: sanhe qieyin 三合切音, “spelled [qie] sounds that combine three.” The expression was translated character by character into Manchu as ilan acangga hergen-i ešeme mudan, or more freely as ilan hacin-i mudan acaha, “three kinds of sounds combined.” In Mongolian, finally, it was γurban jüil-ün ayalγu neilekü, a term that translates like the Manchu variant. The translation of qie as “cut” by the Manchu translators appears to be based on a misunderstanding of the meaning of qie in this context, where it originally meant “fit together.”46 Tripartite spellings were added throughout the lemmata lists in the bi- and trilingual Mirrors to transcribe Manchu and Mongolian words by means of Chinese characters. In form, the new spellings followed many earlier attempts at fanqie reform in that they used a fixed and small number of spellers, ideally using

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only one Chinese character to spell a given sound across the vocabulary. They were also innovative, picking up the idea of combining several characters in the space normally allotted to one character on the printed page to indicate to the reader that the characters did not represent full syllables, but subsyllabic sounds. For example, in the Manchu-Chinese Mirror, a Manchu syllabary preceded the main body of the dictionary (see Figure 2). It gave tripartite transcriptions for all the syllables in the syllabary in twelve sections. The Manchu syllable mat, to name one at random, was transcribed using the three Chinese characters ma, a, and te. The three characters were written together into the space normally allotted to one character: ma 瑪 and a 阿 on top, and te 特 centered underneath. Since one Chinese character normally corresponded to one syllable, the reader was to infer that the three parts of the composite spelling character, each of which occupied less space than one regular Chinese character, were not to be read as whole syllables in their own right, but only as parts of a syllable. The syllabary at the beginning of the dictionary included Manchu transcriptions of Chinese syllables, as was common in Manchu syllabaries by this time. The Chinese syllable xiong, for example, was transcribed into Manchu as hiong, as in Ling and Chen’s book. Although written as one syllable, the editors of the Manchu-Chinese Mirror clearly understood it to consist of three parts, because they transcribed the syllable back into Chinese using three Chinese characters, just as they did with properly Manchu syllables like mat. In the syllabary, the Chinese syllable xiong (hiong) was transcribed as xi 希 plus wu 烏 plus eng 鞥.47 The placement of the characters—which could all be read quickly off the page as Li Guangdi wanted—suggested to the reader that they should be read as the single syllable xi-u-ng (i.e., xiong; see Figure 3A). The fact that the system recognized three parts, and not just two, showed that it had definitely moved beyond the phonological analysis underlying both traditional fanqie and the analysis of Manchu syllables as consisting of two half blocks. Syllabic spelling was originally based on a segmentation of the syllable into two parts: initial and rhyme. Here, by contrast, it was segmented into three parts, each corresponding respectively to the onset, nucleus, and coda. Furthermore, the transcriptions were, like the Manchu script spellings of Chinese phrases contained in the main body of the dictionary, based squarely on northern vernacular Chinese. Unlike in Kangxi’s rhyme dictionary, where characters were chosen as spellers in consideration of their pronunciation in both the contemporary vernacular and in Middle

Figure 2. A page from the bilingual syllabary in Qianlong’s Manchu-Chinese Mirror (1772–73). Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, East Asia Department, shelf number: Libri sin. 135/142. Courtesy of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

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Chinese, here they were used only for their vernacular sound value. The decision to describe only one form of Chinese was, like the decision to use three characters per syllable, one that made the system more intuitive. Both of them represented the influence of Manchu-language studies. The Manchu transcriptions, which did for the Chinese words what the Chinese tripartite spellings did for the Manchu words, represented only Mandarin pronunciation. In Qianlong’s Manchu-Chinese Mirror, the “morning star” was translated into Chinese as liang xing 亮星, “the bright star” (see Figure 3B). Next to the Chinese characters, the Mandarin pronunciation liang sing was noted in Manchu script. The first of these syllables was a “spelled sound,” a single syllable in speech that was represented in writing by two syllables (li and yang) drawn from the syllabary in twelve sections. The choice to represent the sounds of Mandarin was what later made the dictionary so interesting to Korean scholars. In the tripartite spelling system, both the Chinese and Manchu characters were essentially used as alphabets. The appearance of the Chinese characters set them off from surrounding Chinese text and made it clear to the reader that what he was looking at was not in fact Chinese characters at all, but a set of phonographic signs derived from them. The Manchu characters looked no different than their ordinary appearance, but their transcriptions into Chinese showed that they were understood as tripartite, and not bipartite as in the syllabary in twelve sections and in most Manchu-language pedagogy. Verbiest and Parrenin complained that the Manchu transcriptions of Western words and names failed to properly represent consonant clusters. As I mentioned, the failure might have been theirs, as they were the experts on European languages and Western doctrine. Whatever the case, as used in the Manchu-Chinese Mirror, neither the Chinese characters nor the Manchu script had any trouble representing several consonants in a row. Latin words such as plebs or French ones such as prendre were for obvious reasons not found in the dictionary, so their particular consonant clusters—occurring inside syllables—were not found there. However, Qianlong’s court scholars had no trouble unambiguously transcribing Manchu durgiya, which contained consonant combinations that caused the ambiguous transcription seen in Ling and Chen’s book. In the Manchu-Chinese Mirror, the word was transcribed as d-u-[r]|[g]-i|y-a 都烏哷基伊鴉阿, where the placement of the characters suggested the syllable boundaries, indicated in my transcription with vertical lines.48

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Figures 3A and 3B. Chinese and Manchu words in tripartite transcription. (a) The Chinese syllable xiong (hiong) and (b) the Manchu word durgiya in tripartite transcription and Mandarin Chinese liang xing in Manchu transcription (liyang sing). Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, East Asia Department, shelf number: Libri sin. 135/142. Courtesy of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

The system of phonetic transcription in Qianlong’s bilingual Mirror, which went beyond both Chinese fanqie and the syllabic analysis seen in Manchu-language pedagogy, impressed Korean scholars because of its technical sophistication. The linguistic contents of the transcriptions mattered as well. Because the reference works of the Qianlong court followed the practice of having the Manchu script transcriptions be based on Mandarin Chinese, and even extended it to apply also to the Chinese characters that transcribed Manchu or Mongolian, these reference works were excellent sources for the pronunciation of the form of Chinese favored by the Qing court. Accessing this Chinese pronunciation was what led scholars in Hansŏng to invest the resources necessary for making their own hangul transcription on the basis of the Qing originals.

Manchu Transcriptions, the Korean Alphabet, and Mandarin Chinese in Korea The transcription system used in Qianlong’s Manchu-Chinese Mirror, which Korean envoys purchased in Beijing,49 influenced the Korean-script transcriptions adopted in a Chosŏn re-edition of that work from the 1770s. Titled Han-, Ch’ŏngmun’gam 漢清文鑑 (Mirror of the Chinese and Manchu

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languages), the Korean work clearly advertised its close relationship to the Qing original, but the new book was more than simply a Korean annotation of the Qing dictionary: “Above all, it is a one-of-a-kind, comprehensive research monograph on Yuzhi zengding Qingwen jian,” written by individuals having a “profound and extensive knowledge of the Manchu and Chinese languages.”50 The research that went into the new book largely concerned the phonetic transcriptions. The Chosŏn scholars who worked on the book numbered around forty individuals, but most of the work appears to have been carried out by Yi Tam 李湛 (later changed to Su 洙; 1721–77), a specialist in Mandarin Chinese.51 On the basis of a long tradition of Chinese phonological study using the indigenous Korean script, and a shorter but important tradition of Manchu-language study, Yi Tam and his team added new transcriptions written in the Korean alphabet. The resulting book counted among one of the last great scholarly achievements of the Chosŏn government interpreters. Since its establishment in 1392, the Chosŏn government maintained a staff with a working knowledge of continental languages, including Mandarin Chinese, which the Koreans needed to communicate with the new Ming regime in China.52 The Korean alphabet hangul was invented at the Chosŏn court in 1443 in this context (see Chapter 1), whence date also the earliest products of Chinese phonological study from Korea. The new script was immediately used in several royally sponsored rhyme books. The new dictionaries in which hangul was used served either to standardize the reading of Chinese characters inside Korea, or impart knowledge of the prestigious reading pronunciation used in China at the time. The book Hongmu chŏng’un yŏkhun 洪武正韻譯訓 (Correct rhymes of the Hongwu [period], translated and glossed; 1455), based on the Ming founder’s official rhyme book, presented Chinese pronunciations for Korean readers. Sasŏng t’onggo 四聲通考 (Comprehensive examination of the four tones; before 1450) was an abbreviated version of the Hongwu rhymes made for easy consultation. It listed Chinese characters first according to their transcription into the Korean alphabet (as opposed to some Chinese phonological feature or other), which made it easy for Korean users to look up characters.53 The great lexicographic endeavors of the fifteenth century were continued in the early sixteenth, with Ch’oe Sejin’s 崔世珍 (1473–1542) revision of Sasŏng t’onggo as Sasŏng t’onghae 四聲通解 (Comprehensive explanation of the four tones; 1517).54 Ch’oe’s book is extant only in a version from 1614. The

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book described a form of northern vernacular Chinese that was, however, no longer current by the eighteenth century outside the context of poetic recitation (Ch’oe’s book marked the Middle Chinese entering tone using a glottal stop, long lost in eighteenth-century Mandarin).55 Ch’oe did not follow his Chinese sources in their analysis of the syllable as consisting of two parts, however. Rather, he described Chinese syllables on the basis of the Korean alphabet as consisting of three parts: “In general, all characters have an initial, a medial, and a final sound. The three sounds must be combined and merged to form a character [i.e., a syllable]. For example, the initial sound t- ㄷ, the medial sound -u- ᅮ, and the final sound -ng ᄋ combine and merge to form tung 둥, which is the sound of the character 東.”56 In the book, the transcriptions of the Chinese character headwords took this form. Ch’oe provided each character with a single-syllable hangul gloss. Ch’oe found an audience for his book among the Chosŏn court’s Chinese interpreters, who used it to learn Mandarin. Yi Tam, the leading scholar in the group that reworked Qianlong’s Manchu-Chinese Mirror, was one such interpreter. Yi and the other official interpreters gained their professional status by passing an examination (yŏkkwa 譯科) in their language of specialization. Examinations were held for the politically important languages spoken in Korea’s vicinity, including Mandarin Chinese, which was Yi’s specialization, and later Manchu.57 The main task of these interpreters was to accompany and assist the Korean missions that, numbering several hundred individuals, traveled regularly overland from the Korean capital of Hansŏng to Beijing at a rate of about three per year. Many culturally and politically prominent figures took part in the embassies, in which the interpreters held various relatively low positions.58 The Chinese interpreters needed literature to gain and maintain their knowledge of Mandarin, and Ch’oe’s book was one of their most useful resources. In Chosŏn, the study of Manchu was cultivated in the same institutional context as Mandarin Chinese: by interpreters working for the court. Chosŏn’s long history of interaction with the Jurchens, who were the Manchus’ ancestors,59 led to the Manchu language being studied there earlier than in China. Korea was involved in the Chinese-Manchu conflict and was twice invaded by the emerging Qing in the 1620s and 1630s.60 During the eighteenth century, scholars among the interpreters produced several Manchu textbooks as well as reference works that contained Manchu in addition to Mandarin Chinese and other languages. Han-, Ch’ŏngmun’gam was among

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the last of these, and it was made as much in order to improve the study of Mandarin Chinese as of Manchu. To this end, the compilers placed particular attention to the system of phonetic transcription in two scripts that was used in Qianlong’s Manchu-Chinese Mirror. Unlike many other books produced by the Chosŏn government interpreters, the three extant copies of the re-edited Mirror do not contain a preface. The reader is thrown directly into a “Statement of editorial principles,” divided into twenty-one points. The first point makes clear the interpreters’ purpose in reworking Qianlong’s bilingual dictionary. The Mirror of the Manchu language was “originally produced in order to rectify the Manchu language, which it consequently treated as paramount.”61 Mandarin Chinese served merely to elucidate the Manchu. Yi Tam and his colleagues, however, were as interested in Mandarin as in Manchu. They therefore added explanations of Mandarin words and phrases not easily understood by Chosŏn readers trained only in literary Chinese and Korean. Learning vernacular Chinese vocabulary and diction was crucial for improving the interpreters’ Mandarin skills, but pronunciation was at least just as important. To some extent, Mandarin learners in Korea were learning from textbooks, which meant that they had to find a way to arrive at the correct Chinese pronunciation on the basis of written language, be it in Chinese characters or hangul transcription. Acquiring sound from a book alone is not self-evident. “Whenever those among us [ain 我人] fail to make themselves properly understood when socializing in vernacular Chinese [Hanŏ 漢語],” the editors wrote, “it is precisely the result of inappropriate pronunciation of the characters.” The editors explained that in their day, many Korean students of Chinese “as a rule learn[ed] Chinese pronunciation” using the rhyme book Sasŏng t’onghae, then more than two centuries old and “already very different” from Yuzhi zengding Qingwen jian both in the sound value of the characters and the method of their transcription (sŏgŭm chi pŏp 釋音之法). The older Korean rhyme book indicated the Chinese pronunciation using a hangul gloss. The Qing dictionary, however, used the new Manchu method. Yi Tam and his colleagues considered the bilingual Mirror’s Manchu script transcriptions of Chinese sounds to be part of the same system as the modified, three-character fanqie, because they used the term “tripartite” in reference also to the Manchu script forms. “The phonetic glosses to the

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Chinese characters in the Mirror all use Manchu,” they wrote. “Some use one character [i.e., one Manchu syllable], others use bipartite spelled sounds, and others tripartite spelled sounds.” The editors gave the example of the characters shang 商 and xiang 相, which are both pronounced sang in Korean. In Sasŏng t’onghae, which aspired to describe Mandarin pronunciation, “both of these are glossed as syang 샹.” In the Mirror, however, shang was glossed as šang in Manchu, transcribed in Korean script as syang 샹 in Han-, Ch’ŏngmun’gam, whereas xiang was glossed, using bipartite spelling, as siyang in Manchu, corresponding to Korean-script siyang 시양 in the Chosŏn re-edition of the Mirror.62 Yi Tam and his colleagues created extended hangul syllable blocks on the basis of the bipartite and tripartite spellings seen in Qianlong’s bilingual Mirror, thereby transcribing the Chinese to Korean not directly, but through mediation of the Manchu script transcriptions of the Chinese seen there.63 It is not surprising that the interpreters, familiar with Sasŏng t’onghae’s understanding of syllable structure as tripartite, were receptive to the spelling system of the Manchu-Chinese Mirror. Bipartite spellings of syllables were, as in the parlance of the Manchu pedagogues in China, said to be “spelled,” whereas spellings that used only one written Manchu or hangul syllable were “not spelled” (pu chŏl 不切).64 All it took to re-create the syllable on the basis of these “spelled” syllables was to read them quickly off the page. Once a reader “knows the method, then he can approximate the pronunciation of a character.”65 The Manchu script, phonographic at the subsyllabic level, had been a source of inspiration for reformers of Chinese syllabic spelling in the Qing empire since the early eighteenth century. Li Guangdi, Wang Lansheng, and the Kangxi emperor reformed fanqie in reference to Manchu. Later, as scholars working at the Qianlong court set out to make Kangxi’s monolingual Manchu Mirror into a Manchu-Chinese bilingual reference work, the radical, tripartite fanqie that Li Guangdi had envisioned but never fully realized was introduced as a means to transcribe the pronunciation of Manchu and other Inner Asian words using Chinese characters. Chinese words, meanwhile, were transcribed using the Manchu script in a system that the court scholars saw as analogous to the tripartite fanqie. The tripartite spellings were a model, built from Chinese characters, of the phonographic Manchu script; the hangul transcriptions that Yi Tam and his colleagues made for Han-, Ch’ŏngmun’gam were as well. The Manchu script was the link between the hangul transcriptions in the Korean re-edition of the Mirror and the Chinese-

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character spellings, shown most clearly in the many “spelled sounds” that the Qing scholars added to the syllabary in twelve sections that preceded the main text of their bilingual Mirror (exemplified by the syllable xiong in Figure 3).

Conclusion When Yi Tam and the other interpreters compiled Han-, Ch’ŏngmun’gam in the 1770s, Mandarin Chinese had already become more interesting and relevant to Korean students of continental learners than Manchu. The great attention that they paid to the Manchu transcription of the Chinese words, based on their Mandarin pronunciation, proves as much. Yet the attention to these transcriptions also proves the relevance of the Manchu script for the development of linguistic technologies in East Asia. The Manchu script provided Korean learners with a more fine-grained recording of the sounds of Mandarin. A few generations later, Eu ropean scholars made the same realization as Yi Tam and the Korean interpreters. It has been argued that the focus of European interest in Asia shifted from China to India during the eighteenth century,66 as European intellectuals’ view of China became less positive.67 Yet at least in the case of the capabilities of the Manchu script, Verbiest’s and Parrenin’s dissatisfaction of the early eighteenth century was, thanks to the sophisticated transcription systems of the Manchu-Chinese Mirror and Qianlong’s transcription manual, replaced by an admiration for both the Manchu script and the Chinese tripartite spellings based on it. According to Parrenin, both he himself and his interlocutor prince In Jy found the Chinese script incapable of representing Manchu words. With the appearance of Qianlong’s bilingual reference works, that view became more difficult to sustain. Similarly, the understanding of the Manchu script as coterminous with the syllabary in twelve sections, reflected in the conceptualization of written Manchu syllables as subdividing into two half blocks, was with the advent of these books joined by another way to understand the Manchu script. The tripartite Chinese transcriptions of Manchu syllables—and, as Yi Tam and his team noted, the Manchu transcriptions of Chinese syllables— went beyond the analysis into merely two parts that had also been the norm in Chinese fanqie, even as used in Li, Wang, and Kangxi’s rhyme

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book. This development led to a reappraisal of Qing transcription practices by Eu ropean scholars. In 1837, a certain William Huttman (d. 1845),68 who worked as a teacher of Chinese in London,69 wrote to the editor of an Asian studies journal about the system of tripartite spellings used in Qing publications to indicate the pronunciation of Manchu words. Huttman called the system a “syllabarium,” listing the sounds it represented in Roman transcription. “I take the liberty of sending you the Chinese system of expressing Manchu letters and words,”70 he told the editor, explaining the system for his English readers: “All the Manchu vowels, and the syllables commencing with a consonant, are represented by single Chinese characters, as are also the syllables terminating in i, n, ng, and o; but those ending in r, k, s, t, p, l, m, are expressed by the union of the sounds of the two characters, there being no Chinese words terminating with these consonants.”71 Thus Huttman described the single-syllable transcriptions and the “spelled” or “cut” bipartite transcriptions of Manchu words using Chinese characters. Having described the Chinese transcription of Manchu, Huttman declared that he would “on a future occasion—should such an article be acceptable—send the Manchu system of expressing the sounds of Chinese characters,”72 meaning the Manchu script transcriptions with which Yi Tam and his colleagues had also been preoccupied in the “Statement of editorial principles” to Han-, Ch’ŏngmun’gam. It seems that the article on the Manchu transcription of Chinese never appeared. Interest in at least the tripartite spelling system remained among European scholars, however. Joseph Edkins (1823–1905), a grammarian of Mandarin Chinese, went further than Huttman in his praise. Edkins wrote that the tripartite system used “Chinese characters . . . to express sound representing single letters instead of syllables.” Edkins had no doubts about how to characterize such a system: “This,” he wrote, “is alphabetic spelling.”73 Through Manchu inspiration, Chinese characters, so alien to Western scholars, had been brought very close both to the European and Korean scripts.

Chapter 7

The Invention of a Manchu Alphabet in Saint Petersburg, 1720s–1730s

This is not, properly speaking, to paint speech; it is to analyze it. —Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78), on alphabetic writing

As the discussion about Leibniz’s correspondence with the Jesuits in Chapter 5 showed, Europe learned of Manchu soon after the Qing occupation of the Ming lands. The Qing conquest itself was the “first big Chinese event reported in the Western world.” The collapse of Chinese power at the hand of Inner Asian invaders seemed “awesomely important” to European observers.1 Reports and specimens of the written Manchu language reached Europe from the missionaries in China from the 1650s onward. Books written in the language followed. During the next three quarters of a century, European scholars struggled to make sense of the new script. Was it a relative of Chinese characters? Was it hieroglyphic, at least in part? Or syllabic, “in a very peculiar way,” to use Leibniz’s formulation? When the script, including all its elements, was for the first time described in print by Gottlieb Bayer in Saint Petersburg in the 1730s, it was as an alphabet, the hallmark of Western written culture. In this chapter, I will tell the story of the Manchu script in Europe up until its alphabetic decipherment. Before European scholars could learn, teach, and properly study Manchu texts, they had to decipher the writing system. That a language spoken by tens of thousands and read by many, including by Europeans, had to be deciphered is at first surprising. Why not just learn Manchu from Manchus or, failing that, from trained missionaries? Yet when scholars in Eu rope set

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out to study Manchu, almost everybody competent in the language was in the Qing empire. Some European scholars, such as Gottlieb Bayer (the focus of this chapter), were fortunate enough to interact with Manchu speakers, who provided them with written samples and glosses. However, as I will show, without sustained interaction with Manchu, Chinese, Mongol, or seasoned missionary scholars, such encounters were not necessarily as helpful as one might assume. Regardless of the degree of access to Manchu speakers, before research into Manchu documents could be undertaken, European scholars needed an accurate description of the script. It thus became an object of study in its own right. To describe the Manchu script was to articulate an understanding of its basic, underlying structure. As such, the history of the Manchu script, even though it was the script of a living language, was in early modern Europe a history of decipherment. Decipherment was deeply anchored in seventeenth-century European culture.2 It was associated with antiquarianism, or the description, in isolation, of cultural artifacts made exotic by the passage of time or their transportation far from where they were produced.3 Jacob Spon (1647–85), whose “science of Antiquity” was centered on the ancient Mediterranean, included decipherment (dechiffrement) of old manuscripts within one of its eight subfields, and the study of Egyptian hieroglyphs within another.4 Bayer was part of such an intellectual milieu, occupying a position as a professor of antiquities.5 The decipherment of scripts has been presented as one of the great success stories of eighteenth- and, especially, nineteenth-century scholarship, most famously represented by Jean-François Champollion’s (1790–1832) decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs.6 Deciphering unknown scripts was in its early stages a process of observation and identification of elemental components. In addition to the anchoring of the scripts in historical time, decipherment was also related to cryptography and the development of a semantic notation beyond individual languages. This creation of a universal language has an obvious place in the history of early modern science,7 and as this chapter will show, Manchu studies were in one instance connected to it.

Manchu and Chinese in Europe The decipherment of previously unreadable writing, including Manchu, was part of a long process of assimilation of foreign scripts by European scholars from the fifteenth century onward (long before Manchu was even commit-

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ted to writing). A greater visibility of different languages and scripts accompanied the new era of print.8 European vernaculars were codified in grammars and dictionaries,9 and during the course of the sixteenth century, Egyptian,10 Hebrew,11 Arabic,12 and the written languages of the Christian Levant and Africa, including Syriac and Ethiopian,13 were described in print, as were American languages that were not natively written.14 Ottoman Turkish,15 (South) Indian languages,16 and modern Persian became more visible in Eu ropean publications toward the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth.17 The Devanagari script, used for Sanskrit, appeared in print in Europe in 1667.18 The Eu ropeans treated the hieroglyphs, the storied, purported sacred writing of the Egyptian priesthood, as clusters of ideas to be deciphered without reference to any particular language. Hieroglyphs came to permeate the culture of the period,19 but they were not the only script to be more than just a record of language for Renaissance scholars. Christian kabbalists, for instance, also invested the Hebrew letters with hieroglyphic or mystic significance.20 Knowledge of Chinese reached Europe before knowledge of Manchu. Medieval travel records mention that Chinese writing recorded whole words. In the second half of the sixteenth century, Chinese characters started to appear in Portuguese publications based on materials sent from the missionaries in Japan. Descriptions of the Chinese language soon followed. Similarly to several of the Near Eastern scripts, Chinese characters were transmitted to Europe along with a language that could potentially be pronounced and spoken. Chinese characters, strung together to form Chinese sentences, could be read by Europeans willing to learn the language. Still, some attempted to describe the characters as a form of ideography.21 The diversity in regional pronunciations by people using the same written language contributed to the impression that the Chinese script did not have a direct relationship to the Chinese language in the manner of the European alphabets.22 Certain ideas regarding the script, then current in China, lent support to this belief. 23 Such ideas were not helpful for learning the language. Early descriptions of the structure of the Chinese script were opaque and are difficult to translate, owing to changes in the understanding of writing since the time when they were written. Gaspar da Cruz (fl. 1548–70) explained the multitude of Chinese letras (characters, or words?) as a consequence of them being built from figures (figuras), which we can perhaps read as meaning

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drawings.24 Information about the script that would ultimately prove more useful to its study by Europeans came from Álvaro de Semedo (1585/86– 1658), who made the important remark that Chinese characters, although numerous, were all composed of a limited number of strokes in various combinations.25 The First Mentions of Manchu in Europe

When the Manchu script appeared in reports in the latter half of the seventeenth century, its association to China and the Chinese language confused European observers. To some scholars in Europe, the language of the (eastern) “Tartars,” as the Manchus were often called, was a novum, taken at face value as presented by the Manchus to the missionaries and by them to the Eu ropean reading public. Others associated it with known languages and scripts, notably Syriac, an affinity that enabled them to create their own framework for understanding Manchu, thereby making the new language and script more familiar. The missionaries, who encountered both Chinese and Manchu in situ, often found the latter easier for being grammatically more similar to European languages than was Chinese.26 In a brief passage that would be of some influence, Martino Martini (1614–61), who considered Chinese characters to be hieroglyphs,27 wrote that the Manchu language was “simple” (facilis) and its script similar to Arabic. He also noted that the script could be understood as an alphabet, but that the Manchus themselves treated it differently, always joining consonants and vowels together.28 Somewhat later, in a tremendously influential description published in 1670 and known to a majority of the educated reading public in Europe within a few decades,29 Juan de Palafox y Mendoza (1600–1659), who, unlike Martini, did not go to China, likened the Manchu script to Japanese writing rather than Chinese, remarking that it was less obscure and mysterious than Chinese characters. The Manchu script was, however, alien and similar to the writing of Egypt: “All the [Manchu] letters are surrounded by dots in the front and back, as in Hebrew; they are therefore not letters as much as Hieroglyphs,”30 a puzzling statement probably influenced by current ideas of the Chinese script and earlier mystifications of Hebrew. Little in the description gives any idea of what the Manchu script was actually like. It was not yet deciphered. As the world’s diversity in language and script became increasingly apparent to Eu ropeans faced with numerous descriptions of non-Western

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languages and the erosion of Latin’s monopoly as an academic medium, some scholars tried to create universal and rational languages that could rise above the reigning linguistic confusion.31 Manchu was one of the many points of reference for scholars undertaking such projects. John Wilkins’s (1614–72) famous proposal for a “real character” was, certainly, at its core a semantic notation in which units of meaning were matched to the corresponding sounds in the language of the reader. However, Wilkins recognized that proper names were arbitrary and could not be represented in a purely semantic notation. In a kind of inverse process of decipherment, Wilkins created a complementary phonographic script. He had probably not seen examples of Manchu, but knew of it from Martini’s description. Wilkins thought that Manchu (“Tartarian”) was “a long and troublesome Alphabet”32 and, by being less economical, inferior to the notation he proposed in his book. To the purportedly large number of Manchu graphs, Wilkins preferred a grid with internal regularities. In the following century, European scholars made great efforts to break down the Manchu syllabary and rearrange it into such a grid. Chinese Studies Until the Early Eighteenth Century

Seventeenth-century scholars like Wilkins had East Asian languages on their horizon. They were informed by, among others, the Jesuits, who passed letters from Beijing to Europe and occasionally visited the continent in the company of Chinese converts, such as Arcadio Hoang (Huang Jialüe 黃嘉略; 1679–1716) and Michael Xin (Xin Fò çum, viz. Shen Fuzong 沈福 宗 c. 1657–91).33 Yet a working reading knowledge of Chinese, let alone Manchu, was difficult to attain for Europeans at the time. An early desideratum were reference works for the study of Chinese. The need for a convenient means to locate unknown Chinese characters in a dictionary, without recourse to their pronunciation, stimulated research into regularities in the structure of the Chinese script. When Eu ropean scholars later became more familiar with Manchu, they used that language as a bridge between their alphabetic, Judeo-Christian world and China. The idea that the Manchu script was an alphabet similar to that used for Syriac, from which it descended, was an important building block in this regard. Yet even before Europe knew much of Manchu, the ground was prepared for such inferences through attempts to make China and its history familiar by associating it with Syriac and the Near East.

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Before Manchu became known in the West, Eu ropean scholarship on China intersected with the accumulated knowledge of the Near Eastern scripts in the description and study of a Christian bilingual stele found in northwest China in 1623 or 1625. The stele had been erected in 781 ce by the Nestorian church and contained text in both literary Chinese and Syriac. One Jesuit’s successful translation of the Syriac was sent by letter to Europe,34 but all the missionaries in the field who published on the stele for a Eu ropean audience around the time of its discovery were able only to read the Chinese text. Athanasius Kircher (1602–80), a Jesuit in Rome who never went to China, but had access to the translation and study guide that Michael Boym (1612–59) had prepared for the stele’s Chinese text,35 was the first to translate and explicate the Syriac text in print. The stele was not “a sort of Chinese Rosetta Stone,”36 as Joscelyn Godwin has claimed. The stele was a bilingual artifact whose study in Eu rope presents a case where research into an alphabetically written language, with Mediterranean or Near Eastern roots, appeared as an inroad to China. Yet as a mediator between an unknown culture and a more familiar one, the stele was not entirely unlike the stone later used for the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Kircher’s treatment of the stele shows that a few generations before Manchu was deciphered in Europe, Syriac offered one possibility of connecting China to the Western world. Syriac was not widely read in Europe, but it was read, unlike Chinese. Kircher belonged to a school of thought that accorded Egypt primacy among ancient civilizations, and the Near Eastern character of Syriac allowed him to connect China to Egypt. Kircher at one point (1666) wrote, as translated by Marion Leathers Kuntz (1924–2010), that “whoever knows Hebrew will learn this language [Syriac] without difficulty in a short time.”37 To Kircher, Syriac acted as a tool for the explication of the Far Eastern monument. Kircher was entirely dependent on the missionaries in China for the interpretation of the Chinese text, but on the basis of preexisting scholarly literature, he was able to attempt an explanation of the Syriac part with references to other Near and Middle Eastern sources.38 Approaching China through Syriac was one way for Eu ropeans to make China less sui generis. Once Manchu had been deciphered and made known in the West, later generations of scholars there used this language instead as a bridge to connect China to the alphabetic civilizations of western Eurasia.

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Yet whatever the merits of Syriac studies for seventeenth-century proto-Sinologists, this language and the Nestorian monument did not help Eu ropeans learn Chinese. Gaining a command of Chinese required other measures. In Berlin, Andreas Müller (1630–94) claimed, but never proved, to have found a “key” to the language (clavis sinica), which would have enabled a student to learn how to read Chinese relatively quickly. The key was probably a list of Chinese characters, translated but not transcribed, and arranged for easy retrieval by a Eu ropean user.39 The dream of a clavis sinica, which properly speaking died with the Berlin Sinologists in the late seventeenth century, in a sense came closer to realization in Paris in the early eighteenth, where scholars worked on both a Chinese dictionary and a set of wooden movable type to print it (see Chapter 8).40 What happened was a kind of technology transfer: a segmentation of Chinese characters into recurring structural elements (bu, later bushou 部首, in Chinese or, unsurprisingly, “keys” [clefs] in the French of the time), perfected by Chinese scholars in the seventeenth century and used to arrange dictionaries (see Chapter 2),41 became known to Europeans partially through missionary testimony (Semedo) and partially through conversations with educated Chinese (Hoang). The European scholars involved, however, conceptualized it as their own discovery, amounting to a decipherment of Chinese.42 Nicolas Fréret (1688–1749) claimed that he, leaning, as it were, over Hoang’s shoulder,43 discovered “from the first moment of inspection” (dez la premiere inspection) the structural elements of the Chinese script among the many characters on the printed page.44 Fréret applied the same discerning eye to the Manchu script, which was becoming known in Paris in his time following two decades of accumulation of information regarding the eastern Tartars and their language in Western Eu rope. Jesuit Reports on Manchu in the Late Seventeenth Century

Beijing-based Jesuit Ferdinand Verbiest’s Manchu grammar was published without attribution of authorship in Paris in 1686.45 It was subsequently published in a more widely circulated edition in 1696. Both editions used only a few engravings to illustrate the Manchu script. Because the editor of that edition also printed a sketch of Mongolian grammar in the series that contained Verbiest’s grammar, several later scholars confused Mongolian and Manchu, believing that the Manchu grammar treated the former.46 Just how much Verbiest’s grammar advanced the knowledge of Manchu is thus

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debatable. At the very least it did not teach the script in any detail. Verbiest explained the “classes of spoken monosyllables, with their different ways of connecting among themselves,” which constituted the Manchu script, and identified a series of letters within those classes.47 Yet without Manchu type to accompany the description, it remained abstract to Verbiest’s readers. Verbiest’s readers included Leibniz, whose interest in Manchu was a consequence of his research into the origin of Eurasia’s languages and peoples (the familiar “Scythian hypothesis”).48 In 1689, Leibniz met with Claudio Grimaldi in Rome. Grimaldi told Leibniz that the “Mangiò” script was derived from Arabic and that the Manchus “have characters for the vowels and syllables, but no separate ones for consonants, and that they have a fixed number, about 1200, of syllables.”49 The Jesuits, whose reporting was not always accurate,50 were not Leibniz’s only sources on Inner Asian languages. Indeed, during these years, a great amount of information on Inner Asia was made available to a wide readership with the publication of Nicolaas Witsen’s (1641–1717) encyclopedic work on the region.51 Witsen’s book contained specimens of several writing systems, among them Manchu. Leibniz had his own network of contacts, however. Through academicians in Berlin and Dutch scholars, he also got information on the Manchus and Mongols from Russia.52 Leibniz was promised the Jesuit Tartar grammar, copied “by means of a ruse” (par stratageme),53 a few years after Verbiest’s editor had promised (but failed) to send Leibniz a copy.54 While Leibniz was waiting for the grammar, information kept streaming to Hannover regarding the Manchu script. Johann Baptist Podesta (fl. 1674–95), interpreter for the Austrian emperor and a professor of Turkish, wrote to Leibniz of the “Tartary of Cathay” (Tartarica Chitaiana), apparently the vast Mongolian territory and Manchuria, and how it possessed “a special, semihieroglyphic character.” He had seen a letter written by the Kangxi emperor to the Austrian monarch in this script, “a character similar to that of Syriac.”55 Leibniz for some time remained confused exactly as to who among the many groups of Tartars used the languages and scripts described to him.56 In 1697, however, Leibniz wrote that he had “acquired a fragment of the grammar of the language of the Tartars of China,”57 referring to Verbiest’s book. He found the script fascinating, neither alphabetical nor hieroglyphical: “The characters in it are interesting. They do not express things like those of the Chinese, nor letters like ours, but syllables, in a very peculiar way.”58 Leibniz’s statement is perhaps a reflection of the fact that the simple distinction between alphabets, representing sound, and scripts that in-

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cluded a semantic element could no longer, in the eyes of linguistically interested Eu ropean scholars, satisfactorily describe the variety of scripts that circulated in the republic of letters. By the time Leibniz was writing, this circumstance inspired new typologies and universal histories of writing, to be discussed presently. To Leibniz and the many individuals in his network of correspondents, it was clear that both the Manchu language and script were related to Mongolian, but unclarity and fascination with the “semihieroglyphic” script remained. For instance, the English scholar of Persian Thomas Hyde (1636–1703), who received a Manchu-Chinese bilingual from Michael Xin, in 1700 wrote that the Tartars (including the Mongols) “have separate Characters for each word that are read from top to bottom in the way of the Chinese and Japanese.” Not much in this description is accurate, but Hyde was correct to note that the columns ran from left to right, contrary to the Chinese.59 Knowledge of the Manchu script had thus accumulated by the time Fréret directed his eyes toward it in 1718, but it remained somewhat of a mystery. As he had purportedly done in the case of the Chinese script, Fréret proceeded through careful observation. He noted that the Manchus “have a unique kind of script,” and that “we have a fairly large number of their books, but only a very imperfect idea of their writing system.” He noted that “they clearly separate the words, which are written in connected strokes, so that they appear to form but a single character in the Chinese manner.” Yet they were fundamentally different from Chinese, which Fréret understood by looking carefully at the page: “but when the characters are examined closely, it becomes clear that each word is a collection of letters in the way of our script, composed by characters intended from the beginning to express the sounds of a spoken language.”60 Fréret’s descriptions, both here and in the case of the Chinese script, show him at first mystified by the foreign script, but then, upon close examination of the page, discerning a hidden structure. When a Prussian scholar in Saint Petersburg directed his discerning eyes toward the Manchu script a few years later, Fréret’s inference was confirmed.

The Development of Grammatological Terminology The mystery of the Manchu script, which seemed similar both to Chinese characters and Near Eastern alphabets, contributed to the development of  a more refined grammatological terminology in Eu rope. Throughout

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most of the period covered in this chapter, Eu ropean scholars operated with a basic distinction between alphabets, on the one hand, and pictographic or ideographic writing, on the other. It has been proposed that it was Fréret who made explicit the dichotomy between scripts that represent sounds and those that represent ideas.61 Alphabets in this conceptualization included all kinds of glottographic writing (writing that records human language). However, the encounters with non-Western scripts, ongoing since the Renaissance, had by the eighteenth century inspired universal accounts of the development of writing that distinguished several types of phonography. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, scholars produced inventories of languages that sometimes arranged them in hierarchies in attempts to identify the languages used by the actors of the Old Testament.62 Writers of the period relied on ancient authorities to theorize the building blocks of language as elementa, which an ancient authority had distinguished from literae, but which others used in reference to the written letters along with their pronunciation in a given language. The lit[t]erae, similarly, were seen as having the three characteristics of graphical form, pronunciation, and name. The term could thus be used in reference to speech, but an association with writing was inherent in the concept.63 Julius Caesar Scaliger (1484–1558), for instance, proposed that the word littera had evolved from *lineatura, since letters are made up of small lines.64 Furthermore, the diacritic “points” (puncta) that Semitic consonant alphabets, such as Syriac and Arabic, used to indicate the vowels were by some considered equivalent with the vowels in the Roman script, but they were not, like them, referred to as letters.65 Even the Chinese script, which Europeans from the very beginning described as fundamentally different from their own alphabet, was, as I mentioned, often described as consisting of letters. Yet “letters” was not an uncontroversial term in relation to the Chinese script already by the early seventeenth century, with some writers preferring “hieroglyphic characters.” Furthermore, elementa was even less common in reference to Chinese. The early observer Filippo Sassetti (1540–88), for example, asserted that the Chinese had figure, not an alphabet or elements.66 Eu ropean grammatological terminology could thus early on distinguish the Chinese script from the Greco-Roman alphabet. Distinguishing alphabets from syllabaries was more difficult, however. Ethiopian (Ge‘ez) was among the earliest scripts known to Europeans that are now commonly

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considered syllabaries or neosyllabaries.67 Its student Johann Potken (early 1470s–1524) called it an “Alphabet, or rather Syllabary” (Alphabetum, seu potius Syllabarium), but without making a point of separating the two as different script types.68 The Indic scripts of South Asia (Devanagari) and Southeast Asia (Siamese, i.e., Thai) later became known in Europe through similar descriptions.69 Heinrich Roth (1620–68) wrote about the former that “the Vowels are never put apart except in the beginning of enunciation [of the script]; elsewhere they are always in an altered shape combined with a preceding Consonant.”70 Despite the occasional exaltation of the Chinese script, the prevailing view in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries placed Chinese characters relatively low on a ladder of development going from pictography to the Greco-Roman alphabet.71 Scholars tried to situate the known scripts between these two poles, which is what led to the differentiation of alphabets and syllabaries around this time. Yet the process was not simple, and proposals circulated that presented a typology that was very different from the later consensus, which we still live with today. Louis Bourguet (1678–1742), a Swiss scholar and a correspondent of Leibniz’s who planned, but never published, a “Histoire Critique de l’origine des Lettres,” 72 read several descriptions of the Manchu script, which he tried to fit into his emerging typology. The latter operated with two types, or “different combinations of letters,” each in turn subdividing into two kinds. The first kind of the first type, which Bourguet called the “letter-by-letter” (litteraire) kind, was characterized by “placing the letters one after the other, as do the Europeans and some of the Asian peoples.” In the other kind, “every letter constitutes one syllable, also arranged in the same way.” Bourguet saw this kind represented in the Ethiopian and Siamese scripts. The second type was “monogrammatic,” of which the first kind wrote all the letters of a word together, “be they simple or syllabic,” to form a single “monogram.” The second kind used one letter to represent “several words at once,” as in some kinds of shorthand, heraldry, and magic. The Chinese monograms remained outside the whole system, standing “only for things,” not words. Bourguet wrote that Manchu characters were monograms of the first kind, probably in reference to the joining of all the graphs in a word into a single stroke. However, some mentions in the published or circulating Jesuit correspondence made him suspect that written Manchu consisted of letters, and he found this “conjecture” confirmed when he read Martini’s description. Yet he was still searching for further

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confirmation by the time he was in contact with Leibniz.73 The kind of confirmation that Bourguet was searching for came from Saint Petersburg a few decades later.

Bayer’s Decipherment of Manchu Gottlieb, or Theophilus, Siegfried Bayer (1694–1738), of the Prussian city of Königsberg but later active in Saint Petersburg, was, according to LouisMathieu Langlès (see Chapter 8), “the first scholar in Europe to try to decipher [déchiffrer] the Manchu syllabary.” 74 Bayer described the relationship between Mongolian and Manchu, deriving both from Syriac, thereby relating them to the cultural history of languages and scripts known to the JudeoChristian tradition. More important, he presented the elements of the script in the form of an analytical table, which was the expected presentation of a script, real or imagined, in this period.75 Bayer gave one lecture and then published two articles on Manchu. Through the descriptions and tables he included in his lecture script, notes, and articles, Bayer’s analysis of the Manchu script departed, in steps, from the presentation in twelve groups seen in Qing syllabaries. Bayer made the segmentation into the European category of letters more important than segmentation into syllables, which were the units of the Manchu syllabary. The result of his studies was not an alphabet in unilinear order, in the manner of the Greco-Roman alphabets, but it fit on a single page and was a much more elaborate and analytically refined conceptualization of the Manchu script than the Jesuits had produced. Bayer made simple what was considered complicated and thereby inferior. His contemporaries thought that a great number of graphs lessened the value of a script. Notably, Dominique Parrenin, a correspondent of Bayer’s, reported (see Chapter  6) that he had told the Kangxi emperor’s oldest son that the Manchu script was inferior to the European alphabet because it contained a greater number of graphs. For the same reason, Manchu was, of course, superior to Chinese. Parrenin, who had learned Manchu through the pedagogy current in Qing China, was content to accept the relative complexity of Manchu writing and, conversely, assert the superiority of the European alphabet. Others tried, like Fréret, to “examine the characters closely” and simplify the script. An example is found in the manuscript grammar that Jean Domenge (1666–

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1735) sent from Beijing to Étienne Fourmont in 1729. The grammar, which remained unknown to Bayer, presented parts of the Manchu script as twodimensional grids that highlighted regularities. The grids were not an alphabet, but they represented a reduction of the more than one hundred written syllables commonly presented in Chinese textbooks to only seventeen structurally similar groups.76 As described in Chapter 3, Xiong Shibo in southern China and Ogyū Sorai in Japan created similar grids. In the early eighteenth century, then, several attempts were under way to describe the Manchu script or fit it into a hierarchy of writing systems. Through travels in western Prussia and later employment in Saint Petersburg, Bayer was well placed to solve the problem. Bayer had access to a scholarly network, but his task was not self-evident. Before turning to the decipherment of Manchu, he worked on other Asian languages, including Chinese, whose script he saw as a system of elementary parts that could be arranged in a rational way for use in dictionaries.77 His quest for the elements extended to other scripts. In principle helpful, the wealth of linguistic specimens could also cause confusion. In 1716, when Bayer was still in Germany, Maturin Veyssière de la Croze (1661–1739), a Protestant French savant resident there, gave Bayer access to Verbiest’s Elementa. The book helped the Regiomontian to advance in his Manchu studies.78 Yet Bayer started from a position of almost no knowledge of either Manchu or Mongolian. Initially, he did not clearly distinguish the two, glossing Manchu words like biya, “month,” and moo, “wood,” as being Mongolian.79 Figuring out the direction of writing in the Uighur-Mongol script was, even that, a task that demanded some research. In 1717, writing to La Croze from Leipzig, Bayer could, against erroneous testimony to the contrary, confirm that Hyde was right to say that the direction of Mongolian writing was from left to right. Bayer gleaned it from a script sample written—“albeit roughly” (quamquam rudius)—by “Gabriel the Mongol.”80 A sheet with some Mongolian syllables and words said to be in Gabriel’s hand is found among Bayer’s papers.81 This Gabriel was probably a Christian Mongol (or Kalmyk or Buriat), who evidently worked as an interpreter between Russia and the Qing empire. Bayer had received a few notes in Gabriel’s hand from the priest Kaspar Matthias Rodde (1689–1743), a Rus sian subject whom the Great Northern War had displaced from Narva to Siberia, where he had met Gabriel.82 The study of Gabriel’s materials helped Bayer establish that the UighurMongol script was, at the very least, a phonographic writing system. Podesta,

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Hyde, and others had, as mentioned, maintained that Manchu writing worked similarly to Chinese. Bayer had to sort out what was correct and what not in the accounts available to him. In 1722, Bayer weighed Hyde’s statement on the direction of Manchu writing against other authorities.83 In 1725, however, Bayer wrote a letter to Johann Burckhardt Mencke (published in 1729), which shows that his understanding of the Uighur-Mongol script had advanced further. Bayer was still working with Gabriel’s material, and Hyde was a point of reference. Bayer was not satisfied with either Gabriel or Hyde. According to Bayer, Gabriel was “never sober” (homo numquam sobrius),84 and it showed in his writing. Bayer also found Hyde’s plate of Mongolian text poorly executed. “Furthermore,” Bayer continued, Hyde “adds that the Mongols [remember that Bayer did not yet clearly distinguish Manchu and Mongolian] would not have an alphabet,” but use a writing system like the Chinese and Japanese. “Just how much truth there is to that is clear from my Mongol alphabet.”85 A plate accompanied Bayer’s published letter, in which he displayed parts of the customary presentation of the Mongol script—single syllables in an order similar to that seen in the first “head” in the Manchu syllabary— accompanied by Romanizations.86 A longer version of this table is found among Bayer’s papers. Here Bayer specified that this table of “the elements of the Mongolian language” was from Gabriel, “interpreter at Moscow,” but that it had been “arranged in order by me.”87 With this table, Bayer had shown that the Uighur-Mongol script was not ideographic. Yet it was still but a list of transcribed syllables. Later, Bayer pushed the analysis of the script, as used to write Manchu, even further. Bayer’s interests, at this time and later, were not limited to Mongolian and Manchu. While still in Germany, Bayer had access to material in Tibetan, both from Gabriel and from Siberian finds,88 on which he published. Perhaps Bayer read Witsen already at this time; at some point, he excerpted the samples of Manchu, Mongolian, and Tibetan writing from Witsen’s book.89 Even before he published the Mongolian syllable table, Bayer published a Tibetan table that was also based on materials produced by Gabriel.90 The relocation to Saint Petersburg gave Bayer new access to books and people. From his position in the capital of an empire that bordered that of the Qing, Bayer benefited from access to a growing body of European scholarly literature on China and Manchu; Manchu and Mongol prints and manuscripts obtained from China; the Kalmyk Mongols resident on nominally Russian territory (or Dzungars from further afield); as well as speakers of

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the languages of the Qing empire. It was also in the Russian city that Bayer published on Manchu. Russia and Manchu-controlled China had come into contact in the latter half of the seventeenth century, as imperial expansion on both sides brought them together on the Inner Asian frontier, occasionally leading to local military conflicts. Fighting and subsequent diplomatic negotiations led to individuals of Russian origin traveling to Beijing or settling there. On the one hand, Russian captives and deserters, who had fallen into Qing hands during the border skirmishes, were enrolled as a company in the hereditary military banners and allocated residences in Beijing. For a time, they assisted the court with Russian translation.91 On the other hand, the normalization of relations with Russia led to merchants and government representatives of that country visiting the Qing capital. From 1727, the Russians maintained a school in Beijing where they sent students to learn Manchu and Chinese. The Qing government also instituted its own school, perhaps as early as sometime between 1670 and 1693.92 On their own territory, the Russians were moreover in contact with Kalmyks, who used a variant of western Mongolian (Oirad), which was written in a script related to Manchu. When Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt (1685–1735) returned from a research trip to Siberia in 1727, Bayer got access to a trilingual Buddhist syllabary that included Oirad script.93 In 1732, an official Qing delegation visited Saint Petersburg. Bayer took advantage of this opportunity. He tried out his spoken Chinese with the visitors and copied a few Manchu and Mongolian words.94 If Bayer stuck to his notes when he appeared before his colleagues at the Imperial Academy in Saint Petersburg in December 1730,95 he would have begun by describing the sources at his disposal for deciphering Manchu. Bayer made use of the trilingual Buddhist syllabary for its Mongol graphs, which in many cases were identical to Manchu graphs in form. In the “KunstCammer” he had found an atlas of China and the neighboring Inner Asian territories, in which the names of all places located outside the Great Wall were written in what Bayer still called Mungalisch, to wit Manchu. Bayer did not know who had made this atlas, but suspected from the sound glosses added to it in Roman script that it was an Italian. The glosses were written by Matteo Ripa, who had introduced the technique of copperplate engraving used to make the maps. Bayer was correct in identifying Ripa as an Italian, and equally correct in inferring that he did not know Manchu. Ripa had, as Bayer assumed, written the Italianizing transcriptions not on the ba-

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sis of the written Manchu words, but on their pronunciation by a collaborator literate in Manchu.96 On the basis of these faulty transcriptions, Bayer began his work of decipherment. First, he shifted his glance to the Chinese part of the atlas. Here, place-names were not written in Manchu, but in Chinese. Bayer knew (approximately) the pronunciation of some Chinese characters. Comparing the sounds he knew with what Ripa had written, he inferred how the Italian transcription ought to be read “by us Germans” (von uns Teutschen). Next, he stepped outside the Great Wall to the Manchu-Chinese borderland of the Liaodong Peninsula, where many place-names were historically Chinese, but because of their location were written in the Manchu script. Knowing that Ripa’s transcriptions here recorded Chinese names, Bayer read them according to the Chinese pronunciation correspondences he had just established. Knowing now how the Manchu words next to them should be pronounced, he went to work identifying graphic elements in the Manchu words with sounds. The results he collated with the other Manchu or Mongolian script samples at his disposal.97 Finally, he took out his transcript of Verbiest’s Elementa, in order to arrange the Manchu script “into tables and rules” (in Tabellen und Regeln zu bringen). Bayer expanded Verbiest’s description of the Manchu syllabary in twelve sections and imputed Manchu graphs to Verbiest’s Roman transcriptions. The task was not easy. “You gentlemen can imagine how much work this task demanded of me” (Es hat mir diese Sache, eine Arbeit gekostet, die meine Herren sich selbst vorstellen mögen), Bayer wrote in his lecture script. Bayer appended the “rules and tables” to the lecture. Yet he was still far from the complete decipherment of Manchu and its reconceptualization as an alphabet. The Manchus, as described in Chapter 2, presented their script as a syllabary consisting of twelve lists of syllables, each list or section being characterized by one syllabic final. Bayer wanted to reduce the more than one thousand syllables making up these lists into their elements. His first solution was, paradoxically, to increase the number of sections to fourteen. He first listed these fourteen sections accompanied with a few notes, and then presented each section as a grid. The grids contained the originally simple sequences of syllables on two axes, of which one contained the vowels and the other the consonants. In the cells of the grid, Bayer placed the syllables that resulted from the combination of the consonants, vowels, and endings. The elements of the script, despite their changing shape when connected to one another, were thus made clearly visible to the reader. The grids

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only numbered thirteen, not fourteen; it seems that Bayer had excluded the last section, identified in the preceding notes as combinations of syllables with anomalous pronunciations. It appears that when Bayer drew up these grids, he worked from the description of the twelve sections given in Verbiest’s Elementa, not from an actual Qing syllabary. Bayer’s grids show their author’s realization that the shapes of Manchu graphs were contextually determined. In sections two and three, for example, Bayer listed diphthongs ending in -i and -u, respectively, displaying the shapes that these graphs assume in the middle of words ( and ). In section four, both these syllable types were again listed, but now in word-final form ( and ). Furthermore, by reshuffling the order of the sections of the syllabary, Bayer gathered all the open syllables, including diphthongs, close to one another. The new arrangement strengthened the division of the letters into the two main groups of vowels and consonants, a European dichotomy that made Bayer’s invention even easier to understand for Western readers. The point was to make the structure appear more clearly to someone looking at the script laid out in front of him on the page. As Bayer later wrote when he published the first result of his investigations, he had rearranged the syllabary “so that all the composite syllables with vowels can be seen close together.” The Manchus, by contrast, “are accustomed to displaying these final letters ending with vowels and diphthongs separately.”98 Domenge, with his syllable groups arranged in grids, had done something similar. Bayer’s thirteen grids, however, developed substantially during the following year, before their creator abandoned the thirteen-section format altogether. When Bayer presented the initial results from his Manchu investigations at the Imperial Academy, Chinese studies in Russia were gaining momentum. Whereas he in the early years had tried to make the most of the limited materials that reached him from sources like Gabriel the Mongol, Bayer was now able to tap into the stream of Asian books arriving in the imperial capital and thereby advance his studies of the Manchu script. At some point during these years, Bayer also seems to have realized that Manchu and Mongolian should be kept distinct, as two very different languages.99 In the year of Bayer’s presentation to the academy of sciences, it received an important gift of Chinese books, brought from Beijing by the Swede Lorents Lang (Lorenz Lange; d. 1738) and including such Manchu books as Shen Qiliang’s first pedagogical collection, Qingshu zhinan from 1682, which contained a simple, monolingual Manchu syllabary that had

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also been consulted by Xiong Shibo.100 After his presentation, in 1731, Bayer obtained, through the mediation of his colleague Christian Friedrich Gross (d. 1742), Oirad material from a Dzungar (“Songar”) delegate in Moscow and from “Lobsang Tchi, a former scribe among the Kalmyks who was subsequently captured by the Russians and baptized with the name of Wasili Timofejew,”101 or Basilius Timothei. Bayer compared the materials and noted that the “clearly Tibetan” letter p was described by the Dzungar but not the Kalmyk.102 More impor tant, Bayer sent his paper to Andreĭ Ivanovich Osterman (1686–1747), one of the most prominent statesmen of the day,103 who passed it along to Jacques-Daniel Bruce (1670–1735), a Russian nobleman of Scottish ancestry and an amateur scientist.104 Upon receiving Bayer’s paper, Bruce made a personal gift to its author: “He sent a book of Mongolian [i.e., Manchu] type, which he had received many years prior from China.” The book was Qingshu quanji from 1699,105 which contained an edition of Liao Lunji’s simple Manchu-Chinese syllabary, accompanied in this particular copy by a Russian transcription.106 Studying the book, Bayer came to an impor tant realization: the original Qing syllabary did not fully represent the Manchu script as actually used in texts. The syllabary included the initial form t- , but not the medial form -t- , which only occurred in words of more than one syllable. The standard Manchu syllabary did not include any such words, only monosyllables. In 1731, Bayer published a revised version of his paper, in which the new discoveries were taken into account. “The letters used in the middle of words have been overlooked” (mediarum vocum literæ in hoc alphabeto prætermissæ sunt) in the Qing syllabary, Bayer wrote, “although they are attested in many of my observations” (in meo ex multa observatione exstant). The medial forms of some characters differed substantially from their shape in the inner sequence, and yet they were not included in the syllabary in twelve sections, as he had now been able to see for himself.107 In order to remedy the perceived deficiency in the Manchu syllabary, Bayer revised his presentation of the script, which now included what he called the medials. The presentation was now called an “alphabet.” The manuscript version of this second presentation of the Manchu script retained the basic structure of the Qing syllabary in twelve sections. It is not clear exactly when Bayer developed the idea that “alphabets” are different in kind from “syllabaries,” with which they should not be confused. In the manuscript of the

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new tables, the Manchu script was not yet called an “alphabet,” but carried the title “Syllabarivm Manjvricvm et Mongolicvm.”108 The new alphabet contained “twenty-three shapes of letters.” They were, as before, arranged in thirteen classes. Yet the classes had undergone some changes. Bayer expanded the scope of section four, which had contained syllables with vowels and diphthongs in word-final position. Now it consisted of “the letters as initials, then as medials, and then as finals to the vowels and diphthongs” (literæ tum initiales, tum mediæ, in fine desinentes vocalibus & diphthongis).109 The manuscript version of the alphabet shows that he created it on the basis of the old grid, filling it out with new syllable types, occasionally crossing miswritten forms out.110 Familiar with the Syriac and Arabic scripts, Bayer realized that the Mongol-Manchu script could be understood as consisting of letters, each having three contextually determined shapes: initial, medial, and final. Moreover, Bayer’s hybrid alphabet-syllabary included graphs that occurred in running Manchu text, but not in the standard syllabary as used by the Manchus before the intervention of Shen Qiliang. Bayer continued his work on Manchu, publishing a new “alphabet,” dated to 1732–33, in the year of his death.111 In the new, published article, Bayer reiterated the judgment he had passed on the Qing syllabary in the article from a few years before, asserting that it “as a whole poses a remarkable difficulty: in this book [Qingshu quanji], or in other [Qing] alphabets that I have copied, neither vowels nor consonants exist in the very diverse forms in which they occur in the middle of words.”112 Aside from the absence of medial forms in the Manchu syllabary as used in China, Bayer also took issue with the very principle of presenting the script primarily as syllabic units. He wrote that “there are no consonants [in this book] other than those already joint with vowels into syllables.”113 Bayer came up with a solution to the problem. He announced that he would “depart from the Manchu teachers [i.e., the authors of the books to which he had access] . . . and draw from the European method” (ego . . . discedam a Mangjuris magistris et Europaea vtar methodo) in his presentation of the script. He would arrange the Manchu script as an alphabet, but “still, as much as possible, keep [it] in the Manchus’ manner of distribution, for the simple reason that the Manchus’ manner of distribution might thereby be discerned.”114 The finished version of Bayer’s alphabet accompanied the article in the form of an etched table, isolating the vowels, diphthongs, and simple consonants in initial, medial, and final positions (Figure 4). The alphabetical table

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Figure 4. Bayer’s Manchu alphabet (1732–33). Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Digitized by Natu ral History Museum Library, London.

presented the script in its entirety without recourse to the original syllabary. It was followed by a series of tables that presented the Manchu syllabary on grids with two axes. At this point, Bayer had abandoned his syllabary in thirteen sections, opting instead for an alphabetic presentation followed by an analytical version of the syllabary as taught in China.115 By summarizing, in a few pages, a script that Fréret a few years prior had still considered “poorly understood” and somehow outside the typology

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of phonographic writing, Bayer had found a key to Manchu. Wilkins had thought “Tartar” too complicated to act as a model for the phonographic notation he presented in a two-dimensional grid of vowels and consonants. Now Bayer presented the Manchu script in a similar two-dimensional manner. Unlike Wilkins’s notation, the Manchu script in Bayer’s presentation could not fit on a grid with absolute regularity. It was, after all, not the ex novo invention of one man but a historical product. Yet it was now a lot less different from Wilkins’s rational creation, and a lot harder to dismiss as impractical or difficult. By the 1730s, Manchu, the dynastic script of the distant Qing empire, could be described as consisting of a few elements just like Arabic or Syriac, which had been well known in Europe for at least two centuries. European scholars could now approach the Manchu script like any other alphabet. A product of analysis much like the alphabetic writing of Rousseau’s “Essai,” which I quoted at the beginning of this chapter, the Manchu script now looked a lot less mysterious to Western eyes. By the early nineteenth century, close to a century after Bayer, the alphabetic conceptualization of the Manchu script had become so normalized that it was unthinkable to consider it other wise. The distinction of alphabets and syllabaries, which emerged in the eighteenth century, became entangled with a discussion on degrees of cultural development. Chapter 8 will consider this distant echo of Bayer’s decipherment of the Manchu “twelve heads.”

Chapter 8

The Making of a Manchu Typeface in Paris, 1780s–1810s

Paris, 1799: A Vignette On the third day of Ventôse of the seventh year of the French Republic, “one and indivisible”—or 21 February 1799 in the parlance of its enemies— a report arrived on the desk of the minister of the interior, François de Neufchâteau (1750–1828).1 The director of the country’s National Printworks (Imprimerie Nationale), Duboy de Laverne (1755–1802), 2 announced that Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813), “famed printer of Parma,” had donated sets of Phoenician and Palmyran type to the public institution under his direction. Engaged in the printing of manuscripts from the Bibliothèque Nationale, Bodoni needed “types for Tartar-Manchu.” According to the director of the Printworks, “this precious Language” should “one day obviate the long and burdensome Study of the Chinese hieroglyphs.” Luckily, there existed, in Paris, Manchu typographical punches that had been engraved under the care of Citizen Langlès, the custodian of Oriental manuscripts at the Bibliothèque. Now the minister was asked to procure said punches from Langlès.3 Langlès agreed to give up the punches and the matrices struck with them. He seemed to have sensed an opportunity in the sudden renewed interest in Manchu typography. Langlès wrote that the creation of the Manchu font some years earlier had necessitated “all the secrets of the art” of typography, which he had acquired through his collaborator and “esteemed friend” Firmin Didot (1764–1836),4 as well as an analysis of the Manchu script—known to its native users only as a syllabary of more than a thousand

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characters—into an alphabet.5 Langlès hence wanted recompense, not for the punches (which he claimed to have paid for out of his own pocket) so much as for his alphabetic discovery, which even the missionaries in Beijing had recognized. He asked for “a few works” from the republic’s collections that were lacking in his own, but which he needed for his research.6 Nineteen of the books that Langlès wanted were held by the Bibliothèque Nationale. Laverne proposed that they be given to Langlès,7 but his suggestion raised a red flag at the ministry. The books’ value, estimated at more than 3,500 francs, should, according to the subsequent report to the minister, “in itself be enough grounds for refusing Citizen Laverne’s suggestion” (for comparison, in the same year a provincial judge earned 2,000– 3,000 francs, depending on the size of the town in which he served).8 Yet the great interest that the Manchu type had for the Republic’s Printworks justified taking the issue to the Council for the Conservation of Objects in the Arts and Sciences (Conseil de Conservation des Objets de Sciences et d’Arts) for further deliberation.9 When the council, including the philologists and bibliographers Simon Chardon de la Rochette (1753–1814) and Antoine-Alexandre Barbier (1765– 1825),10 met on 23 October 1799, it found that “the nation owed it to” Langlès to compensate him not only for his personal expenses in relation to the making of the type, but also for his analysis of the Manchu script, his study of typography, and his direction of the staff (main d’oeuvre) who had executed the work.11 In the end, Langlès received the books, and the Printworks obtained the punches and matrices. In his initial response to Neufchâteau’s request, Langlès expressed his satisfaction for the “enlightened minister’s” resurrection from obscurity of a work that he had thought doomed to remain there forever. What was this set of Manchu punches and matrices that occupied scholars, administrators, and politicians from Bologna to Paris in the last year of the eighteenth century? Who was Louis-Mathieu Langlès, and what made him comfortable to make such demands of the French state?

The Story of Manchu Movable Type Chapter 7 presented the story of the Manchu script’s arrival in Europe in the late seventeenth century and its subsequent decipherment in Saint Petersburg in the 1730s. Gottlieb Bayer’s Manchu alphabet languished within

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the pages of a Russian periodical, unstudied by scholars in the West, but Manchu remained a topic of interest there. In 1780s Paris, notably, the Manchu script became the concern of one scholar and his patron. As the vignette by which I opened this chapter showed, the script surfaced periodically beyond the 1780s as well, even involving political figures of the moment. This chapter will tell the story of the project to print a Manchu-French dictionary in this period of political upheaval and its eclipse in the early nineteenth century. The chapter will focus on Louis-Mathieu Langlès, whose entire career was intimately tied up with the project. The printing of the Manchu-French dictionary could not, as Langlès wrote in 1799, have happened without the technical expertise of Firmin Didot. Printing the dictionary compelled Langlès and Didot to solve the problem of the Manchu script’s structure once and for all. Unlike the learned presentations on the script that scholars had produced for several decades, Langlès and Didot’s presentation of Manchu took the form of a set of steel punches, used for a Manchu font with which the dictionary was printed. The printing of Manchu using letterpress technology represented the script’s introduction into the technological infrastructure of the Eu ropean republic of letters. This chapter will situate Langlès’s and Didot’s achievement in relation to the history of non-European printing and Chinese studies in the West, and explain the controversies surrounding the Manchu type. The chapter follows Langlès’s career as a Manchu studies scholar. Langlès took up Asian studies in the early 1780s, which led to his involvement in the creation of a Manchu movable-type font and the publication of the dictionary in the last year of the ancien régime. During the Revolution of the 1790s, Langlès kept Manchu relevant as he rose to a leading position in the French Asian studies establishment. Napoléon, however, expressed no interest in Manchu, but chose to support Chinese lexicography instead. The Origins of the Metal Alphabet, 1763–87

Louis-Mathieu Langlès (1763–1824) was born in Péronne, close to Montdidier in the north of France, in 1763. Or so it appears, but as with many aspects of Langlès’s life and work, there is no consensus on this point among his biographers (Langlès was a polarizing figure). His father was probably an officer in a military unit with police functions, but “according to some,”

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probably those enraged by Langlès’s spectacular rise in the French academic establishment, Langlès was the son of a farmer (cultivateur).12 Langlès first encountered Asian languages at the Collège de France, sometime after 1783. He was originally interested in India, where Persian was an important language at the time. In order to satisfy his father’s wish that he join the military, Louis-Mathieu planned to eventually join either France’s civil or military ser vices overseas.13 In accordance with his interests, young Langlès took courses in Arabic and Persian at the Collège. His teachers for these languages were, respectively, Jean-Jacques-Antoine Caussin de Perceval (1759–1835), whose life was “purely literary and saw no important events,”14 and Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy (1758–1838), a relatively conservative character who later emerged as the leading Persian scholar of his generation.15 Was it by accident that Langlès’s teacher of Arabic was a countryman from Montdidier, only four years Langlès’s senior, who had also relocated to Paris at a young age (and who later spoke at Langlès’s funeral)?16 If the similar backgrounds of Caussin and Langlès ever brought them together in conversation, Caussin might very well have been the conduit for Langlès’s first encounter with Manchu. In 1783, Caussin inherited the Collège’s chair of Arabic from his teacher Michel-Ange-André Le Roux Deshauterayes (1724–95), who had held the position since 1752. Deshauterayes spent most of his time studying Arabic, Syriac, and perhaps other Near Eastern languages as his job required,17 but he was also, as far as I know, the only scholar of his generation to write about the Manchu script on French soil. Deshauterayes was the nephew of Étienne Fourmont (1683–1745), who had occupied a position of authority during the first phase of Chinese studies in France.18 To some extent, Deshauterayes carried on the Chinese studies of his uncle. In 1729, the Jesuit Jean Domenge had sent Fourmont a Manchu syllabary with pronunciation glosses. As mentioned in Chapter 7, Domenge described the Manchu syllabary as taught in China, rearranged the characters somewhat, and presented parts of it as a twodimensional grid that highlighted the consonantal initials in the written syllables. Domenge reduced the Manchu syllabary’s more than one hundred characters to only seventeen groups, of which the members all shared a common consonantal onset.19 Domenge’s manuscripts, which remained unknown to Bayer, passed into the possession of Deshauterayes, who published a treatise on Manchu in two versions, one of which appeared in Diderot’s widely circulating Encyclopédie.20

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Deshauterayes’s treatise included a Manchu alphabetic grid. The reasons that Deshauterayes gave for displaying the Manchu script as an alphabet are also those that later motivated Langlès to create a Manchu movabletype font. In China, it was easy and cost-effective to reproduce the Manchu script in the form of a syllabary; engraving a few extra woodblocks was cheap. In Europe, by contrast, publishing a Manchu syllabary was expensive. The Manchu syllabary in twelve sections in practice required several pages, each containing more than one hundred characters that a Eu ropean printer could not reproduce with the typefaces then available. Deshauterayes’s only option was to engrave the Manchu script on plates, which was costly. It was in order to save money, and engrave only one plate, that he produced an analytical grid instead of a syllabary. “Although the Manchu Tartars have not thought to present their Alphabet according to this method, we dare assert that it is the most simple, & and at the same time the easiest & and shortest,” he wrote. 21 According to Deshauterayes, the alphabet represented an easy and economical way to present the Manchu script. It is unclear when Langlès learned of Deshauterayes’s treatise and Domenge’s grid that probably inspired it. At some point, however, Langlès did, because he later had plans to publish the results of Domenge’s Manchu studies. 22 In 1785, Langlès, perhaps inheriting the position of his father, assumed the “small assignment” (une petite charge) in the constabulary (connétablie)23 of “preventing and punishing duels” among the nobility. The job, allegedly, was “hardly respectable, but easy.” Few of the aristocrats actually wanted to duel, being happy to see their conflicts settled by an intermediary, so the assignment gave Langlès time for his studies.24 By 1785, Langlès had come to the attention of Henri-Léonard-JeanBaptiste Bertin (1719–92).25 Having held a high position at the French court until 1780, and reportedly having once told Louis XV (r. 1715–74) that the injustices (abus) of French society could be vanquished by inoculating them with the Chinese spirit, 26 Bertin remained important for Asian studies by acting as the liaison for the French Jesuits in Beijing.27 Bertin was also a patron—and a member—of the Académie Royale des Inscriptions et BellesLettres, a prestigious learned society that counted among its areas of activity the study of Oriental languages.28 From the early 1770s through the mid-1780s, Bertin was involved in popularizing the scholarly work of the French Jesuits among a broader

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learned public. Since the early eighteenth century, the work of the French Jesuits in China had been promulgated through publications in France, strong anti-Jesuit activity since the 1760s notwithstanding. 29 The suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, furthermore, contributed to the overseas Jesuits not seeking a specifically Catholic readership for their writings.30 Bertin, and the French royal coffers, supported the suppressed mission.31 The material that Bertin wanted to publish included a Manchu-French dictionary sent from Beijing. The French Jesuits in China had engaged in the study of Manchu for about a century. Initially, they had done so in order to gain an edge over their Portuguese brethren, who had been in Beijing longer and saw the French newcomers as a threat to their control of the Chinese mission. Some of the Portuguese Jesuits tried to prevent the French from learning the local languages, and since the Portuguese were stronger in Chinese than in Manchu, some of the French missionaries applied themselves to the latter language to gain access to the emperor.32 The French Jesuits had made the importance of the Manchu language known to the Eu ropean public through publications of their writings in Paris,33 which made the publishing of a dictionary timely. The Manchu-French dictionary had been compiled on the basis of Manchu-Chinese originals by Joseph-Marie Amiot, who was one of the missionaries in a sense left behind in China after the suppression of the Jesuits. After the suppression in 1773, he was a self-proclaimed “simple civilian transplanted to one of the ends of our hemisphere.”34 Amiot submitted a dictionary to Paris. In order for it to be edited and printed, someone in Paris also had to be knowledgeable in the language. Amiot thus, in 1784, sent a Manchu syllabary to Bertin. The Beijing Jesuit wished he could also have sent a grammar at that time, but remained confident that “an intelligent man will be able to make use of it with the help of the alphabet, that I have transcribed and explicated in a separate notebook.”35 Amiot’s presentation of the Manchu script was not an alphabet. Indeed, the bulk of the manuscript consisted of a syllabary in twelve sections with some Roman-script glosses added to clarify pronunciation. On the cover of this so-called “Alphabet Mantchou,” Amiot had written that “the Manchus reduce their letters, or rather the elements of their letters, to 12 classes of monosyllables, from which they form all the sounds of their language. The letters are arranged according to the different combinations of the classes, which are defined by their 12 endings.”36

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In Paris, Bertin was thinking about how to publish Amiot’s dictionary. Amiot’s manuscript, the product of the author’s own language studies, was a partial French translation of the Manchu-Chinese dictionary Qingwen huishu.37 The Chinese definitions of the original had been partially kept alongside the French translations. In a manuscript treatise (mémoire) on the dictionary, Bertin remarked that it could only be printed in France with great difficulty, since at the time, there was no one capable of supervising such a project. Bertin noted that “one would at least have some basic knowledge of the language in order to evaluate the engravings.” The Manchu script appeared to Bertin as “composed of collections of small strokes,” and he correctly remarked that one missed stroke would mean an error. Bertin considered the options available for bringing the dictionary to print. “Would it be possible to engrave [the Manchu script] in the Chinese manner?” In that way, by means of xylography, the Manchu script used in Amiot’s manuscript could remain in the printed version. Another possibility was to print it by retaining only Amiot’s Roman-alphabet transcriptions of the Manchu lemmata, which could easily be done using currently existing typographical techniques, while presenting the Manchu script separately as a syllabary on engraved copper plates.38 Bertin entrusted Langlès with the task of acquiring the knowledge necessary for printing Amiot’s work. I have been unable to ascertain why Langlès was chosen for this task. In the end, Bertin and Langlès chose neither of the options outlined in the treatise for the printing of the dictionary. Current ideas regarding writing systems—shared by both Bertin and his new hire—and the competitive attitude reigning in European exotic typography can help explain that choice. Enlightenment Grammatology and the Alphabet

Eighteenth-century narratives of progress anchored the development of civilization in certain technologies, including writing and printing.39 Alphabetical writing was a hallmark of Greco-Roman civilization, on which European scholars had placed great value for centuries. The European letterpress was based, precisely, on alphabetic letters. Yet the identification of alphabets and syllabaries as distinct script types was slow in the making. Chapter 7 explained that in the early eighteenth century, one view distinguished writing systems into those that

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recorded human language and those that represented things. An influential scholar of Egyptian, William Warburton (1698–1779), as well as Ephraim Chambers (1680?–1740) in his influential Cyclopaedia, used “letter” to refer to the building blocks of the former type.40 Probably paraphrasing Wilkins (or his source, Martini), Chambers wrote that for the Manchus, “each of their letters is a syllable; having one of the vowels joined to its consonant.”41 Diderot’s Encyclopédie asserted that a language’s “alphabet” was “the table or list of characters that constitute the signs of the individual sounds used to form words in the language in question.”42 Johann Heinrich Zedler’s (1706–51) Universal-Lexicon, conversely, gave Buchstab a similar meaning.43 Some scholars (Wilkins, Leibniz) recognized that the syllable appeared to have a different status in some scripts, and that the elements or letters of those scripts thus functioned differently than in the European alphabet, but there was yet no agreed-upon name for this type of writing. The Encyclopédie defined a syllabary (syllabaire) as the common term for “a booklet containing the first elements of reading in no matter what language.”44 The writers of these texts did not posit alphabets and syllabaries as mutually exclusive phonographic script types. Some influential eighteenth-century thinkers, however, did. One influential typology of writing was published by Charles de Brosses (1709–77) in 1765. Brosses, without mentioning Manchu, identified several types of writing that he arranged in a hierarchy. At the top of the hierarchy, he placed “the most beautiful invention that the human spirit ever produced”: “writing by letters” (écriture littérale) that separates vowels and consonants. Beneath this “alphabetic writing,” he placed scripts that represent vowels with their attendant consonant sounds together, calling them “syllabic writing” (écriture syllabique), for which he gave the example of Siamese (Thai).45 While writers constructed narratives that privileged the alphabet over other script types, typographers labored to show that Eu ropean printing technology was universally applicable, capable of reproducing all scripts by separating them into atomic units. The Chinese script was among the most difficult to submit to successful typographical treatment, and individuals in different corners of Eu rope competed to do it successfully. Manchu, which was presented as a complement if not alternative to Chinese, turned out to be easier than Chinese to print with movable type. The rhetoric that Langlès employed when he announced the successful

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printing of Manchu on an alphabetical basis represented the triumphant feelings of someone who had, by a kind of shortcut, won the typographical race. The Race to Print Asian Scripts

Scripts that shared many formal features and historical origins with Manchu had been successfully printed in Europe for a long time. Soon after the introduction of movable-type printing in the West, scholars set to work on integrating the Near Eastern scripts of Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac into the new learned print culture. European typographers initially struggled with these scripts, in which the letters of a word as in European cursive are often joined together and vowels indicated by, typographically speaking, small diacritic points added below or above the letters. Printers initially tried to circumvent the problem by cutting, say, Arabic words onto small woodblocks that were inserted into the line of European metal type, before producing good-looking prints using metal types in the late sixteenth century.46 In the case of Syriac—which was a script related to Manchu and recognized as such by European scholars long before Langlès—typographers either created independent types for the diacritics, placing them on separate lines above and below the letters, or made types containing letters together with their diacritics. Punches were made for both letters and diacritics, which were then struck on the same matrix blank in succession.47 Chinese characters, unlike Near Eastern consonant alphabets, were not easily reproduced using letterpress technology. The first Chinese characters to appear in European publications were engraved, but from the late seventeenth century, scholars tried to create Chinese movable type in order to better integrate the script with European letters in dictionaries.48 In the 1780s, attempts to print both Manchu and Chinese were undertaken at the printshop of Immanuel Breitkopf (1719–94) in Leipzig.49 In Samuel Friedrich Günther Wahl’s (1760–1834) general history of Oriental languages from 1784, Breitkopf printed Manchu, presented in a table, not using movable type, but as an engraved plate.50 The engraving was executed by Christoph Andreas Büttner (1708–74)51 on the basis of a table drawn by Soson Karpow (Sozon Karpov; n.d.), a low-ranking Russian cleric in a mission that traveled to Beijing in 1744–55.52 (Other Russian scholars of this period also produced Manchu alphabets that remained unpublished.)53

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Breitkopf ’s attempt to print Chinese was more innovative than his copper-plate Manchu. The problem of producing Chinese movable type in metal had not been solved at this time. In 1787, Deshauterayes’s childhood friend and classmate Joseph de Guignes (1721–1800),54 an expert on the Asian typefaces in the French royal library (and an editor of several of Amiot’s works),55 lamented the high costs involved in producing a full set of Chinese movable-type characters, but also criticized the practice of engraving characters on copper and including them in lexicographical works as separate plates, which forced the reader to go back and forth between a Chinese word and its European translation.56 In 1790, he returned to the issue, considering the feasibility of creating a set of movable type for the strokes that made up Chinese characters, which the Paris Sinologists had known about since an abortive attempt to create a Chinese font earlier in the century. Guignes did not think it possible: “Engrav[ing] punches for the simple strokes, or for composite parts made from them, and then use them to form a Chinese character” would create a lot of work for the setter of the type, and only produce “coarse assemblages” that would not look like the neat, regular squares of Chinese characters.57 Perhaps Guignes had seen Breitkopf ’s typographic specimen from 1789 of Chinese characters printed using movable type in which the units were not whole characters, but strokes or groups of strokes. According to one of his coworkers, Breitkopf wanted to do what no one had succeeded in doing, although wasting “several tons of gold” in the process: to make Chinese movable type. No books came of his project, but no matter, since “he was content with having the glory of inventing it go to Germany.”58 How much glory he could claim is, however, debatable, as the characters have a very peculiar appearance and are at times recognizable only with difficulty.59 When he printed Manchu alphabetically, Langlès very consciously engaged in the apparently glorious pursuit of enabling European typography to handle Asian scripts that had previously been difficult to reproduce.

Langlès’s Manchu Alphabet Bertin passed Amiot’s manuscripts on to Langlès in 1785.60 Langlès chose not to print the Manchu-French dictionary with either Chinese woodblock printing, movable type with only Roman script, or with a syllabary engraved on an appended plate. Rather, he chose to retain the Manchu script in the

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body of the dictionary and still print it using movable type. Such a printing was possible only if the Manchu script was first reduced to an alphabet, represented by pieces of movable type that could coexist with Roman letters in the lines of the letterpress. Yet as presented by Amiot to Bertin, the Manchu script was a syllabary. The consensus in the late eighteenth century being that alphabetic scripts were superior to syllabaries, Amiot’s syllabary would have been unimpressive to Pa risian readers. It certainly was to Bertin, who wrote that Amiot had “sent an extensive Chinese-style syllabary” of Manchu. Bertin did not like it: “The Chinese want to make things conform entirely to their own ideas,” he wrote; “not understanding what an alphabet is, they make the reading of it more difficult” by transforming it into a syllabary. In order to be able to learn Manchu with relative ease, Bertin argued, “one would have to complement it with the simple alphabet, that the Tartars once possessed [when they inherited the script from the Near East], indicating the changes that each letter can undergo at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of a word, the way the Arabs do it.”61 Langlès took note. By 1786 the “young man” had, in his own words, “set himself on learning the Tartar-Manchu language under the auspices of Monseigneur Bertin” with the aid of the material sent by Amiot, as Langlès wrote to the old Jesuit in November of that year.62 Langlès comes off in the letter all at once as perspicacious (noting the resemblance of the Manchu script to Syriac), curious (“Is it true . . . that the Tartars have no poetry?”), boldly speculative (“I think I have found in the Tartar a great resemblance to Turkic and English”), and perhaps slightly delusional with regards to his own importance in the history of Manjuristics, claiming to have embarked on “an arduous journey that no one has undertaken before him.” Langlès told Amiot of his idea that “it would be much easier to divide [the Manchu script] into initials, medials, and finals, in the manner of the Orientals [e.g., the Arabs],” as opposed to dividing it into a syllabary in twelve sections. He hoped that Amiot would temporarily lay aside his “missionary duties” (travaux apostoliques) and send him a more substantial grammar with which to continue his studies.63 Amiot was initially less than enthusiastic. Yet he could not flatly refuse a request by one of Bertin’s protégés. The unequal relationship that Amiot, dependent on funds from the French state, had with Bertin probably compelled him to satisfy Bertin’s various requests, but it would also have made him protective of his role as Bertin’s privileged source for information on

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China. Langlès’s appearance on the scene probably represented for Amiot both more work and a potential threat to his authority in Bertin’s eyes. Amiot initially declined to answer any of Langlès’s questions. He passed the task of corresponding with him regarding Manchu over to the Lazarist Nicolas Joseph Raux (1754–1801), “who has already made the most considerable progress in this language, and who continues with this task, helped by three or four masters with whom he spends all his spare time.”64 Statements made on other occasions, however, reveal that Amiot did not have a high opinion of Raux.65 Langlès does not appear to have corresponded with Raux, but the young scholar might at some point have become aware of the Lazarist’s work, as Bertin had noted in the margin of a letter written by Raux on 17 November 1786 that Langlès might be interested in Raux’s work on Manchu. When the letter bearing Amiot’s suggestion that Langlès study with Raux was sent from China, Langlès was preparing to print Amiot’s works in Paris. Learning of Langlès’s efforts to publish his Manchu studies, Amiot changed his mind and did not again push Langlès in Raux’s direction. After fewer than two years of work, in 1787, Langlès published the first edition of his Manchu alphabet. It reappeared, with some changes, in 1789, and then in a much expanded version almost two decades later, in 1807. The most striking differences between the results obtained by Langlès and his predecessors through their analyses lie not in their conclusions about the nature of the Manchu script, but in the problems that they set out to solve. Before Langlès, the analysis of the Manchu script had been a response to a pedagogical or grammatological problem; Domenge, for instance, had produced his segmentations of the script as part of his efforts to teach it. For others (Bayer), understanding the Manchu script had been a problem of grammatology and the history of Near Eastern scripts. Deshauterayes too was interested in Manchu’s relationship to the Near Eastern scripts, but introduced economy of presentation as a motivation for an alphabetic understanding. Learning the Manchu script had also initially been Langlès’s point of departure. That much is clear from his letter to Amiot, where he wrote that he at that point knew the syllabary pretty well and had embarked upon reading, but felt that “by forming a Syllabary instead of an alphabet, the Manchus have terribly inconvenienced their reading.”66 Langlès’s initial realization that the syllabary could be construed as consisting of letters came out of his own language studies.

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Charged with Bertin’s commission to print Amiot’s work, Langlès had to solve an entirely new problem: how to print a book of hundreds of pages in which Manchu characters coexisted with Roman type. In earlier Eu ropean works, the few Manchu characters that were reproduced were generally engraved, as in the finely drawn letters seen in Deshauterayes’s figures. Such a procedure necessitated the express carving of a copper sheet to produce one page, a method somewhat similar to the carving of woodblocks in East Asian printing. Although publishers might be willing to produce a few pages using the method of engraving, carving every page of a reference work in such a way was an economic impossibility. If the dictionary’s Roman text was set in movable type, the Manchu needed to be as well. Langlès thus had to come up with a way of cutting the Manchu text into smaller blocks that could be cast as type and assembled in various combinations to spell the lemmata of the dictionary. Casting combinations of letters (ligatures) as single blocks of type was common practice in European typography. Furthermore, in the late eighteenth century there were also experiments with casting commonly occurring full syllables as single units of type.67 Despite such precedents, Langlès decided to base the Manchu type on his understanding of the script as constituted by letters variously realized as contextually determined glyphs. By 1787, this was not a novel idea. Yet the necessity of casting type made Langlès take the analysis of Manchu graphs further than his predecessors did. He did not invent the Manchu alphabet, but he refined it and showed in hard metal that the model worked. The typographer and punchcutter engaged for the job was Firmin Didot, who together with his older brother were often engaged by the French learned societies to print scholarly works. Langlès’s analysis was more detailed than that of earlier scholars in at least two regards: in its treatment of the “dots and circles” (tongki fuka) characteristic of the reformed Manchu script and in its treatment of ligatures. Langlès’s main argument against casting the type within the syllabic paradigm was stronger than the mere assertion that the syllabary was too large and unwieldy. Like Bayer (and Ogyū Sorai), Langlès pointed out that although “the combinations [of the syllabary] express all the sounds of their language, not all characters are found in it.” Langlès had had the “unpleasant surprise of encountering many unknown letters, and especially ligatures, when reading Tartar books [even] after having thoroughly studied the syllabary.”68 “I burned with impatience for publishing [Amiot’s] dictionary,” Langlès wrote, “but it could only be done using movable type, and I had

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before me but a complicated mass of shapes . . . from which I succeeded in extracting twenty-three letters, the greatest part coming in three different shapes. . . . I dare think that this was the first complete ALPHABET [Langlès’s emphasis] for this language, unknown even to those who speak it.”69 To his defense, Langlès did not claim to have been the first to realize that the Manchu script could be segmented using the alphabetic principle into individual glyphs corresponding to individual speech sounds, but only to have comprehensively accounted for all occurring shapes in a way that allowed them to be reassembled to spell not only the syllabary, but also all words found in the Manchu books deposited in the Bibliothèque Royale. It might have been that he in some sense was justified in believing this was the case, since his analysis, unlike those of his predecessors, had resulted in the creation of a Manchu font. He also refined the alphabetic analysis by clearly establishing the ligatures, combinations realized when the abstract letters were employed in words, as a separate category. This distinction, necessary in order to account for all the forms assumed by the Manchu script as actually used, had not been made explicit in earlier published presentations. In the letterpress technology used to produce the Manchu type, letters were made by first carving a punch (poinçon) out of a bar of hard metal. The punch was then pressed into a piece of softer metal, creating the matrix (matrice) used as a mold to cast the type. The two-step process of producing type using both punch and matrix was reflected in Langlès’s model of the Manchu alphabet (Figures 5 and 6). When producing the type, Langlès established for himself a “law” (loi), according to which the number of ligatures was to be kept to a minimum. The law was not motivated by technical expediency; on the contrary, Langlès admitted that it “presented obstacles that were not easily overcome.”70 Like his predecessors, Langlès might have been driven to reduce the number of ligatures by a desire for maximum conceptual economy. The ligatures in Langlès’s mind were concretely realized combinations of abstract letters, of which he wanted to have as few as possible. He was thus reluctant to produce ligature types by having a ligature punch cut and then strike the matrix with it, because that would have elevated the ligature to the status of a letter in its own right. Rather, since he saw the ligatures as combinations of letters, he thought they should also be produced using a combination of punches. To the greatest extent possible, therefore, the ligature types were produced using the original punches of the individual letters, the joint

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Figure 5. Firmin Didot’s Manchu punches. © Imprimerie Nationale—Atelier du Livre d’Art & de l’Estampe. Photo Mårten Söderblom Saarela.

imprint of which was later modified in the matrix. The dots and circles, which Langlès considered to be “accents,” were produced in a similar way. In Langlès’s model of the alphabet, d ᡩ was not a letter on a par with t , but rather a modification of that letter by means of an “accent” in the shape of a dot. Langlès’s predecessors had also envisioned the letters carrying dots and circles in this way, as appears from their alphabetical tables. Langlès and Didot applied this theoretical model in the cutting of type, translating it into steel, copper, and lead and tin alloy: using the punches for the unaccented letters, a second matrix was produced, into which Didot carved the dots and circles.71 Moreover, financial reasons might also have played a part. Didot’s bill for casting the type, now found among Langlès’s papers, makes it clear that it was cheaper to punch new matrices and then modify them, than to cut new punches.72 It is possible that Langlès conceived of the method and wrote the description of the Manchu font before the type was cast. In the first edition of

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Figure 6. Manchu matrices from the nineteenth century (not of Didot’s original font). © Imprimerie Nationale—Atelier du Livre d’Art & de l’Estampe. Photo Nelly Gable.

the Alphabet, he wrote that the punches were “fewer than sixty” (ne se montent point à soixante), but that ligatures and accented letters had necessitated the punching of ninety matrices.73 In the second edition of the alphabet, however, the stated number of punches had been reduced to fifty-five and the number of matrices to eighty.74 The circumstance that the number of punches and matrices seems to have been reduced in number as the type was produced suggests that Didot was able to increase the conceptual economy of Langlès’s alphabet further as he was carry ing out his task. This conjecture appears all the more plausible considering that the bill dressed by Didot for Bertin for the payment of the Manchu type included only sixty-eight matrices, and not eighty as Langlès wrote.75 Didot’s experience with the technology of letterpress printing might have enabled him to progress further than other Orientalists in the analysis of the Manchu script. Regardless of who contributed what, by the time the Manchu alphabet left Langlès’s and Didot’s hands, it was unambiguously defined as on the highest level of abstraction consisting of basic letters, that could be modified by diacritics and joined into a fixed number of ligatures

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when concretely realized in written language. Langlès and Didot were able to account for all the shapes of written Manchu characters using a font made from eighty matrices. By contrast, the syllabary in twelve sections counted more than 1,300 syllables, which still needed the addition of the “outer characters” to fully account for all the shapes seen in written Manchu. Langlès dedicated his edition of Amiot’s dictionary to the Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, with which Bertin was associated. In the same year, Langlès published a translation of a Persian historical work that relied heavily on an English version published a few years earlier. His publications and newfound favor with the Académie attracted the attention of his military superiors, who decided to award him a competitive, meritbased pension for officers.76 The Manchu font even drew attention from outside the country’s borders. In 1789, Catherine II of Russia reportedly sent the director of a government printworks to Paris in order to procure a set of the Manchu font. Casting of the font from Langlès’s and Didot’s matrices was begun, but, Langlès later wrote, the Russian printer spent his funds already before the types were finished, forcing him to abandon the enterprise.77

Parallel Inventions? Raux and the Peking Typewriter The fact that the re-imagination of the Manchu script as an alphabet reached its completion as the solution to a problem of movable-type printing is of some interest from the point of view of grammatology and the history of linguistic ideas. This is even more so considering that Langlès and Didot were not the only ones experimenting with Manchu type in the late eighteenth century. The little information that we have about what the missionaries were doing with the Manchu script at the Qing court suggests that typographical experiments might have inspired more people than Langlès and Didot to reconsider the nature of the Manchu script. Raux’s November letter to Bertin discussed a “machine,” originally conceived by “the English,” that Bertin had discussed with Raux before the latter left for China. The machine, Raux reminded Bertin, “writes Chinese characters in praise of the Emperor.” The missionaries seem to have either replicated the English machine, or possessed the original,

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because Raux was explaining that Qianlong had asked the clockmaker Jean-Mathieu de Ventavon (1733–87) to “make the aforementioned machine write Manchu characters” ( faire écrire à la dite machine des caractères Mantchoux).78 Ventavon succeeded in this task, eventually making it write also Mongolian and before long, Raux assured Bertin, it would be able to write Tibetan. Yet it was not all that simple an enterprise: in a series of letters from 1789 to 1790, Raux told Bertin that Qianlong had asked another of the missionaries (Ventavon having passed away by this time) to work on a “new machine that writes characters” (une nouvelle machine qui écrit des caractères) in preparation for the emperor’s eightieth birthday (by Chinese reckoning) in 1790.79 At that time they had already been at it for several weeks, “confident that they will succeed.”80 Yet the task was not easy. In late 1790 they had been working on the machine, which at that time was “very advanced,” for more than a year. Their Manchu employers were reportedly satisfied.81 One authority calls Ventavon’s “machine” an automaton, associating it with the other mechanical devices the Jesuit constructed for Qianlong’s amusement.82 However, in light of the other projects that Raux related to Bertin, it is also justifiable to understand Ventavon’s “machine” as a typographical project. It emerges from Raux’s letters that Bertin had arranged for European movable type (caractères typographiques) to be sent to the Beijing Jesuits. Ventavon had built a press, with Raux reporting that “our plan [being] to in the future print various things, especially small dictionaries in several languages.”83 The Beijing missionaries had access to European movable type, a self-made printing press, a “machine” capable of producing written Manchu words, and their intent was to produce multilingual dictionaries. Either they were envisioning to write the presumably Chinese and Manchu text in Roman transcription, or their printing project must have included a plan to somehow print also these scripts using movable type. Was the “machine” built by Ventavon and his successors a kind of typewriter or printing press? The key question with regards to the role of typography in the reconceptualization of the Manchu script as an alphabet, then, becomes whether Ventavon’s machine produced entire Manchu words, individual syllables, or letters similar to Didot’s font. The original incarnation of the machine, which printed praises to the emperor in Chinese, appears to have included only a few keys carrying select Chinese characters. A machine intended to produce the equivalent messages in Manchu could conceivably have been constructed

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in the same way, with each key carrying a Manchu word. If the machine needed to print more than a few fixed sentences, however, a word-by-word solution would quickly become too unwieldy. The choice, if there ever was one, would have stood between a syllable-based set of keys numbering more than 1,300 units, or a letter-based one similar to the font made by Didot in Paris, which used only eighty. Given the sophisticated metallurgical work needed to produce the Paris font, it is improbable that Ventavon would have succeeded in creating a letter-based set without substantial resources and know-how at his disposal. Still, Qianlong’s Imperial Household Department, the agency that built the missionaries’ mechanical devices, would have possessed those resources. In any case, the very fact that the missionaries experimented with Manchu typography suggests that it might have played a role in Raux’s study of the language. Raux relied in his studies on Qingwen qimeng, Wu-ge’s wellknown Chinese textbook of Manchu. This textbook presented an analysis of Manchu characters into subsyllabic strokes. In 1788, Raux sent a translation of the first chapter of this work to Bertin. It is indeed a faithful translation; Raux followed the original textbook in referring to both initial vowels, consonantal codas, and open syllables with consonantal onsets as “characters” (caractères), not explicitly distinguishing letters corresponding to single speech sounds as structural units.84 However, in the same year Raux sent a copy of a common Chinese-Latin dictionary (perhaps of the kind that he wanted to print?) to Joseph de Guignes’s son, Chrétien-LouisJoseph Deguignes (1759–1845), then in Guangzhou.85 To the dictionary was appended a Manchu syllabary in twelve sections with Roman-script glosses. On occasion, the glosses unambiguously identified components of the Manchu script as letters.86 Raux’s dispatches to Bertin and Deguignes indicate that he developed an understanding of the Manchu script that we might call alphabetic. The circumstance that he learned Manchu in part from a Chinese textbook of Manchu that invited the reader to think of the syllabary in twelve sections as consisting of graphic units smaller than full syllables might have helped him come to that conclusion. Yet the clearest indication that Raux thought about Manchu alphabetically does not come from his translation of the Chinese Manchu textbook, but from his annotations to the syllabary accompanying the Chinese dictionary he sent Deguignes. After all, the syllabary carry ing the annotations in question seems to have been finished in 1788 at the latest, when the Manchu typing machine was al-

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ready more than a year in the making. It is possible that the missionaries’ experiments with movable type contributed to Raux’s analysis of the Manchu script as alphabetic.

Manchu and the French Revolution On 28 December 1788, Langlès presented a copy of Amiot’s dictionary, which included the second edition of the Alphabet mantchou in the prefatory material, to Louis XVI.87 The next year, France was in the throes of the Revolution. With the onset of war, Langlès’s hopes of serving the French state in India were dashed. His career developed along other paths instead, and fast. The Revolution ended or suspended the careers of many scholars and potential rivals of Langlès, enabling him to quickly rise to high positions. He embraced the Revolution, and in 1790 he addressed the revolutionary National Assembly on the importance of “Oriental languages,” not neglecting to mention his work on Manchu, the increased study of which would strengthen France’s hand in China.88 Langlès apparently hoped to be appointed to a chair of said languages, but other issues were the order of the day. The French Revolution was ultimately beneficial to Langlès’s career, as the vignette with which I opened this chapter showed. Langlès clearly tried to push that success further when Napoléon’s new empire replaced the revolutionary republic. Yet as will become apparent, the interest in Langlès’s metal alphabet faded in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Napoléon never favored him, and another feat of Asian lexicography and difficult typography attracted the attention of the Oriental studies community. In 1813, the first dictionary of Chinese in a European language was published with Napoléon’s blessings, which created the possibility of studying the language directly, without use of the bridge language of Manchu. After a discussion of Manchu during the Revolution in this section, I will continue with a consideration of the publication of the Chinese dictionary as representing a new period in the history of European Orientalism. In the second year of the Republic (1793/94), Langlès composed a report about the Oriental types held at the Imprimerie Nationale. Langlès distinguished ancient Oriental languages from the modern, among which he counted those useful for diplomacy and trade, such as Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Malay, Chinese, and Manchu. For some of these languages, France’s enemies already possessed printing technology that reportedly produced

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antirevolutionary pamphlets in Batavia, Colombo, and Calcutta. To counter this propaganda, Langlès proposed to use the types already at the Imprimerie Nationale, “the most magnificent collection of oriental Characters that we know of in Europe,” supplemented by type from other collections, including the “Tartar-Manchu characters engraved by Firmin Didot under the supervision of Citizen Langlès.” He specified what he wanted printed first: “the first use of our modern oriental characters should thus be to promulgate translations of our decrees and proclamations in favor of the imperishable rights of man [droits impérissable de l’homme].”89 Langlès’s proposal, to translate and print tracts on human rights in Manchu, was unique in the history of European Manchu studies. It is also a reminder, if we needed one, that Manchu in the eighteenth century was not a curiosity, but the language of a world power. The year 1795 presented “a series of successes” for Langlès. He was appointed a professor of Persian and a director at the newly formed École Spéciale des Langues Orientales Vivantes (today’s Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales).90 He wanted to include Malay and Manchu in his teaching, which never happened. In addition, he was appointed to one out of three positions as curator for manuscripts (conservateur des manuscrits) at the Bibliothèque Nationale, with the specialization of Oriental manuscripts. He also was made a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Langlès enjoyed “spacious housing” at the Bibliothèque and an annual salary of about 15,000 francs.91 The Revolution had been generous to the officer’s son from Péronne. So much so that the words of one of Langlès’s apologists, Bon-Joseph Dacier (1742–1833),92 do not appear credible: Dacier claimed that Langlès “was so at home in the Orient, he had made himself Arab and Persian to such an extent, that he was considered a mere spectator of the events that devastated France.”93 Langlès’s rise during the Revolution drew criticism. Langlès’s later critics seem to have thought that he piggybacked on the Revolution to advance his own career; the “volunteer in the Parisian national guard,” who published his writings “under the auspices of liberty,”94 was not quickly forgiven by certain politically conservative academics. Not that Langlès lacked a sense of obligation to his colleagues. Despite his politically radical sympathies, Langlès expressed himself very positively, in print, on Amiot, without whom his Manchu studies would have been impossible. He had not heard from the old Jesuit for years because of the Revolution and its effect on France’s maritime connections, but from reading about an infirm missionary in a published English account of the

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Macartney embassy in 1793, Langlès was convinced that “at the time of writing [in 1799], he [Amiot] has finished his useful and laborious career.”95 Langlès also recognized senior colleagues closer to home, and he contributed to Silvestre de Sacy being appointed a professor of Arabic at the new École.96 Even though Langlès helped Silvestre de Sacy, there is a hint that he was not as generous to Bertin (who was “completely forgotten” by his contemporaries during the Revolution),97 who had been instrumental in Langlès’s entry into the academic establishment. In 1799, when Minister François de Neufchâteau and the director of the National Printworks, Duboy de Laverne, wanted the punches for the Manchu font, Langlès claimed to have paid for them with his own funds. In fact, it appears that Bertin paid for them. Didot’s bill, among Langlès’s papers, is for work done by Firmin Didot “on the order of Mr. Bertin”; Langlès’s name does not figure on the bill. The price for punches, matrices, and type amounted to 2,004 livres,98 almost twenty times the nominal yearly salary of a French worker.99 Could the young Langlès have afforded to pay such an amount by himself? In an essay about a few of the Manchu items in the Bibliothèque Nationale, which Langlès published in the same year (year 7 of the Republic), he acknowledged the great support and encouragement he had previously received from Bertin, and lamented that under current circumstances, no help (secours) was to be found to continue the publishing of Manchu materials.100 If Langlès could not afford to support such an enterprise in 1799, I doubt that he could have afforded to pay for a set of Manchu type twelve years earlier. Langlès’s essay on the Manchu books in the Bibliothèque Nationale made it sound as if he envisioned a continued career as the editor of Manchu works. His ambitions were only partially realized.

Napoléon, the Third Edition of the Alphabet, and the Chinese Dictionary The advent of Napoléon’s empire slowed Langlès’s rise. It is possible that Langlès published the third edition of the Alphabet, appearing in 1807 and featuring a new, footnote-sized Manchu font made with the help of Didot,101 as an attempt to reverse the emperor’s opinion of him.102 And why not, after all? In 1788, Langlès had presented the Alphabet’s second edition to the king along with Amiot’s dictionary, and in 1799, at a time when vocal intellectuals in Paris saw a socially transformative power in alphabetic writing,103 even

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someone as highly placed as the minister of the interior had acknowledged the importance of Langlès’s work on the Manchu script, as the vignette that introduced this chapter demonstrated. Why would not Bonaparte have been similarly impressed? Tellingly, Langlès was not among the scholars who accompanied Napoléon on the expedition to Egypt. Perhaps Langlès, unskilled in Arabic and Turkish, preferred to remain in Paris.104 An unsigned obituary that appeared in the English press shortly after Langlès’s death, however, gave a different account of the Egyptian episode. Langlès, who popularized English research on Asia, arranged regular gatherings in his private library in which visiting English scholars took part. Langlès appears to have had some admirers across the channel, which would explain the twist the Egyptian story took there: At one of the sittings of the National Institute [i.e., the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres], M. Langlès read a memoir . . .  [and] demonstrated in such glowing colours the possibility of opening a passage to India through Egypt, and thereby striking a death-blow at British supremacy in the East, that General Buonaparte, who was present, immediately after the sittings, asked the academician for his memoir, pressed him with questions on different points, and from that time turned his whole attention to the conquest of Egypt. He wished M. Langlès to accompany the expedition, and, on his declining it, Buonaparte threatened him with imperative orders from the Directory: M. L. replied, “Citizen general, this threat would alone determine me to refuse. The Directory can deprive me of my place, but no power can compel me to accompany you to Egypt.” Buonaparte never forgave this, and, though he felt M. L. was too precious an acquisition to replace him, yet in the abundant showers of imperial favours, not a drop ever lighted on the head of Professor Langlès.105 Whatever the reason, the emperor did not shower his favors on Langlès or his newly reissued Manchu alphabet. Another project of Asian typography received all the attention instead. The printing of a Chinese dictionary in Paris in 1813 represented the completion of a project almost a century old. The European missionaries in China had long made use of manuscript dictionaries, copies of which they had sent or brought back to Europe. In the 1730s, Matteo Ripa (whose Italian sound glosses to the Qing atlas helped

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Bayer decipher Manchu) was involved in an abortive papal project to bring one of the manuscript dictionaries into print.106 Manuscript dictionaries with missionary origins existed in Paris. In the 1730s, Étienne Fourmont was involved in a project to print a Chinese dictionary there. Nicolas Fréret and Arcadio Hoang worked on the project. Fréret learned the principles of Chinese graphological dictionary arrangement from Hoang, and the Chinese movable type that the team made was arranged according to this system, with the assistance of Deshauterayes and Guignes senior. After Fourmont’s death in 1745, royal support cooled and the project was not carried forward.107 Work on the Chinese dictionary project picked up toward the end of the eighteenth century. Langlès, as curator at the national library, described the manuscript dictionaries held there and handed them over to Deguignes,108 whom he held in high esteem.109 The race to print Asian languages continued in the early years of the nineteenth century, with several projects to print a Chinese dictionary announced around Europe. Having considered several candidates, Napoléon chose to give the task of printing the Paris dictionary to Deguignes in 1808 and spent great sums on the project. The dictionary and Deguignes were later roundly criticized,110 but there was little doubt that Chinese lexicography and printing, not Manchu, were the order of the day. Langlès continued his academic work beyond these years, but he stayed focused on South Asia. He did not work on Manchu. He did not join the Société Asiatique, which was founded in 1822 on the instigation of Silvestre de Sacy.111 Members of the Société for a time worked on the compilation and printing of a new Manchu dictionary, using a newly cast Manchu font. The project had the support of Paul Schilling von Canstadt (1786–1837), who had commissioned a large set of Manchu type in Saint Petersburg in 1817 and later a smaller set in Leipzig. By its very inception, the new dictionary challenged Langlès’s work on Manchu. By 1824, the year Langlès died (on 28 January), the dictionary was finished and sent to the publisher, but for undetermined technical reasons it was never published.112 No other Manchu dictionary was ever published in France.

Blinded by the Alphabet: Langlès’s Critics As expertise in Manchu became definitely eclipsed by expertise in Chinese as the sine qua non for research on China, European Sinology lost interest

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in the Qing tradition of Manchu-language studies. Blinded by their own alphabetic script, the first generation of professional secular Sinologists in Paris could not see how differently the Manchu script was understood in China. This last section of this chapter examines the criticism that Langlès received upon the publication of his alphabet. The Manchu script did not pose an intellectual problem to the first generations of Jesuit missionaries to study Manchu in situ in Beijing, including Ferdinand Verbiest and Dominique Parrenin. They took the Qing understanding of the script for granted, even if they as a result thought that Manchu compared unfavorably with European languages. European scholars who never traveled to China, however, found written Manchu a conundrum that demanded a solution in order to be studied within the Western tradition. Bayer knew that he was departing from the Manchus’ own understanding of the script when he described it as an alphabet. Langlès did as well, but his pride in his own achievement and denigration of the native syllabary— which Manchu children, he thought, studied “crying”113—distinguish his attitude from Bayer’s. Amiot, the Beijing Jesuit whose dispatches to Paris gave Langlès the opportunity to study Manchu, was also the first critic of Langlès’s Manchu alphabet. Like his predecessors Verbiest and Parrenin, Amiot had learned Manchu the Qing way in Beijing. Langlès’s criticism of the Manchus’ tradition of studying their script appeared to Amiot as so much Western arrogance. At first, Amiot criticized the very idea that Manchu was an alphabet. Writing to Bertin regarding Langlès’s project, Amiot offered “a general response with regards to the Syllabary, I say Syllabary and not Alphabet, because the Manchus do not have an Alphabet in the strict sense of the word. They only recognize those that we call vowels as primitive, basic, and true letters. . . . If our Alphabet appears to us preferable to their Syllabary, would not that be because the Peoples who taught us wanted it that way? I will not decide as to which of the two methods is better.”114 Amiot continued to champion this remarkable cultural relativism in subsequent missives to his Pa risian correspondents. For Amiot, the issue was not whether or not the Manchu script could be segmented as an alphabet; the Manchus themselves did not use an alphabet, so there was no reason Eu ropeans should adopt an alphabetic model when discussing Manchu. If both the syllabary and the alphabet were culturally conditioned conceptual models, why replace one with the other? Amiot probably felt compelled to state his views by the sometimes complacent tone of

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Eu ropean writings on the Manchu script, which was probably grating to the Beijing resident’s ear. Amiot was soon mollified by the positive publicity that Langlès brought him by publishing his Manchu-French dictionary, however. When Amiot learned about Langlès’s publication of the grammatical and lexicographical oeuvre he had sent to Bertin, the Jesuit was full of praise for the younger scholar. “It is surprising that at his age, he would already have made such considerable progress in the Study of languages,”115 he wrote to Paris. He asked Bertin to offer Langlès “the deserved tribute of the high Esteem that I have for his talents” (le juste tribut de la haute Estime que j’ay pour ses talents).116 Amiot even sent a letter beautifully written in Manchu to langkeles looye, which is how he chose to transcribe the name of the French scholar (suggestively using only letter combinations permitted by the syllabary in twelve sections).117 Yet Amiot still did not agree entirely with Langlès’s scholarly enterprise, as he chose to have “some light criticism” accompany the praise, “modestly phrased as advice.”118 Amiot’s advice reads like an articulation of the tensions growing within European Orientalism as the discipline became better informed and more rapidly updated on developments in Asia, while still treating them within an epistemological framework in which the European scholar was free to pontificate over other cultures as if they would forever remain mute unless mediated through his mind. In Paris of the 1780s, Langlès’s work on the Manchu script would have been impossible without the Jesuits and their Manchu patrons in Beijing, yet the latter had no obvious place in the Orientalist discourse. Bayer, Deshauterayes, and Langlès ranged in their writings from the early Near East to contemporary China, as if they all represented but artifacts to be discovered by the Western researcher. At least that is how it looked to Amiot, for whom the Qing empire was not an abstraction but the country in which he lived and would soon die. Amiot asked Bertin to tell Langlès that he ought not to work on a living language, which has its own scholars, its own grammarians and writers, in the country where it has currency, in the same way as he might work on a dead language found only in books. You might say whatever you want about a language that is no longer spoken, as you risk nothing but the criticism of a few academics. You can dispute and hope and even claim to defeat those whose authority you can at least aspire to

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match. That is not the case when it comes to a language spoken in a country where there are scholars and people of every station who study literature. These scholars and lettered men will see just what all that you write with regards to their language is worth as soon as it is based on anything but the precise truth.119 This piece of advice also served to bolster Amiot’s own authority, for he proceeded to criticize Langlès’s (and Didot’s) choice of presenting and producing the letters with diacritics as accented versions of other letters. Amiot’s criticism of Langlès’s Manchu scholarship ended there. The two men disagreed on the characterization of the Manchu script as syllabary or alphabet, but they were not enemies. Sometime before 1788, Langlès intended to republish parts of Amiot’s alphabet and grammar, of which three sets of printed proofs remain. By the time he was editing Amiot’s words for the new publication, Langlès wrote that “were it not for my respect for every thing that leaves the hands of Amiot, I would have replaced Alphabet with Syllabary” in the work’s title.120 Like Bayer before him, Langlès wanted to clearly separate “alphabet” from “syllabary”; Amiot was content to use the terms loosely. Langlès faced a wave of criticism of his Manchu studies in the 1810s. The criticism followed the much expanded third edition of the Alphabet, which reached almost two hundred pages in length and was filled with historical and other information not immediately relevant for the analysis of the alphabet proper. The criticism directed at the third edition did not question the veracity of the alphabetic assumption, but merely Langlès’s claim to have been the first to provide an alphabetical model that could account for all the shapes assumed by Manchu graphs. Langlès’s younger critics, themselves unwavering in their belief that Manchu was an alphabetic script, revealed by their criticism just to what extent the alphabetic paradigm conditioned their thinking about the relationship between speech and writing. The severe criticism that Langlès received from Julius Klaproth (1783– 1835) and Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat (1788–1832) is impossible to make sense of without considering the idiosyncratic personality of the former and the political history of France during the formative years of the latter. Whereas Amiot had criticized Langlès through Henri Bertin “and in no other way,”121 Klaproth and Rémusat attacked him in print, sometimes in disingenuous ways. Born in Berlin, Klaproth started studying Chinese by himself at age fourteen while still in Gymnasium. In 1801 his father sent him to Halle to

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attend the university, which complicated his Chinese studies because he no longer had easy access to the library in the Prussian capital. In 1804, he took a junior position at the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences, which enabled him to travel extensively in the Russian Far East and in Georgia during the years that followed. Despite promising career prospects in Russia, Klaproth left that country. In 1814 he traveled to Elba to consult with Napoléon, then in exile, with regards to the possibility of obtaining a position in Paris. Caught up in the events that led to the former emperor’s brief return to power the following year, Klaproth spent the last of his available funds traveling via Florence to Paris, where he would remain until shortly before his death. Klaproth was able to reside in Paris as a Prussian professor at large, thanks to the support of Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835), a Prussian statesman and scholar. The financial independence allowed him to gather a circle of students and was at the root of certain French rumors that he was in fact a Prussian spy.122 Klaproth’s strong personality, documented elsewhere,123 appears from reading his polemic writings against Langlès, which he published shortly after arriving in Paris around 1815. In Paris, Klaproth met Rémusat. Initially a student of medicine, Rémusat had also tried to learn Chinese since 1806. Two years later, he tried to consult the Jesuit manuscript dictionaries of Chinese held at the Bibliothèque Royale,124 but was denied access by Langlès, who was in charge of the Chinese collection.125 Rémusat surprisingly managed to learn to read literary Chinese anyway—in part by relying on Manchu translations and dictionaries126 — earning a doctorate on the subject of Chinese medicine at age twenty-five. Soon thereafter, his medical knowledge was put to use in the Pa risian slaughterhouses that had been filled with wounded soldiers as impromptu field hospitals during the last leg of the Napoleonic wars.127 Yet Rémusat managed to draw the attention of wellplaced scholars, which earned him an appointment as France’s first professor of Chinese and—on his own suggestion—Manchu at the Collège de France in 1814,128 around the time that Klaproth was setting out for Paris. Rémusat had seen his academic career held back first by Langlès, custodian of the capital’s Chinese books and earlier supporter of the Revolution, and then by Napoléon’s war with Eu rope. Politically a conservative nostalgic for the ancien régime,129 Rémusat seems to have held a few regrets regarding the political upheavals of his youth and the self-proclaimed creator of the Manchu alphabet whom they had carried to the apex of France’s academic establishment. In 1815, as the country underwent the last of its

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Napoleonic convulsions of that generation, Rémusat and Klaproth joined in an attack on Langlès and his Alphabet. Before going to Paris, Klaproth had already published on the Manchu script and criticized Langlès’s Manchu studies and his claims with regards to the alphabet. In 1810 in Saint Petersburg, he published a presentation of the Manchu script consisting of parts of the first section of the syllabary, which the Manchus would have “borrowed . . . from the Mongols” (entlehnten . . . von den Mongolen). Klaproth maintained that the syllabary could be easily reduced to twenty-nine “basic letters” (Grundbuchstaben), which he purported to present. Yet the Manchu graphs transcribed using single Roman letters represented full syllables (ka, ga, ha, etc.).130 In this early publication Klaproth made no reference to earlier Manchu studies, be it in China or Europe.131 The following year, Klaproth disagreed in print with Langlès’s claim that the Manchus and their predecessors, the Uighurs, “would never have divided their syllabary into individual letters,” but noted that “I do not, by what I have said here, want to diminish Mr. Langlès’s contributions regarding Manchu and Uighur matters.”132 However, Klaproth soon thereafter republished the same treatise, sharpening his criticism.133 In 1814, another substantial criticism appeared, embedded deep in a two-volume work with a different overall purpose, published in German in Halle. It probably did not initially reach many readers in Paris. In an attempt to strike directly at Langlès, Klaproth in 1814/15 published a Streitschrift written by an unnamed German Orientalist. There was little doubt that Klaproth was the author, perhaps aided by Rémusat.134 The pamphlet questioned Langlès’s ability to read Asian languages, including Manchu. It seems that Langlès’s self-aggrandizing claims had contributed to the fury of his critics: “This never-ending analysis of the syllabary, that Langlès boasts about in every book he produces, had already been carried out by the Manchus even before it was carried out by Deshauterayes,”135 Klaproth wrote. Yet Klaproth did not question the alphabetical analysis itself. Langlès chose not to respond to Klaproth’s criticism in print. Instead he challenged the German newcomer to a duel (as was reported in the English and then even American press).136 Given his time in the ancien régime constabulary, Langlès might have known that such a challenge did not necessarily mean pistols at dawn. Klaproth responded by once more criticizing Langlès in print. In the same year, he published a collection of French letters he pretended (for legal

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reasons, perhaps) to have translated from the Russian.137 The letters were presented as a “great execution of the fall” (grande execution d’automne). “In China,” we are told, “major criminals are executed immediately after their sentencing. Ordinary felons are kept until the great execution of the fall, which is held on a fixed date in that season.”138 Klaproth ventured to “execute” Langlès primarily by questioning his ability to read Manchu and his failure to properly edit the manuscript he had received from Amiot. But Klaproth also attacked the Alphabet. He admitted that Langlès had been the first to produce a Manchu font in Europe, but reiterated his belief that Manchu scholars writing in Chinese had already analyzed the Manchu script alphabetically. Klaproth cited the example of Deshauterayes, whom he considered the first in Europe to have published a Manchu alphabet, noting that “this modest erudite did not attach great importance to this minor achievement.” He contrasted Deshauterayes’s attitude with “the pompous announcement of the alleged discovery of the Manchu alphabet that Langlès reiterates wherever there is a white page to fill.”139 Klaproth did not question or comment on the details of Langlès’s (and Didot’s) analysis, but asserted that the font was poorly made, “horrible to look at,” leaving Manchus who purportedly had seen it unimpressed.140 In addition to questioning Langlès’s scholarship publicly, in 1816 Klaproth in at least one letter denounced Langlès as a radical (bonnet rouge): a dangerous accusation under the new monarchical government. A biographer hardly sympathetic to Langlès even wrote that this letter was an expression of “malevolence and not the spirit of criticism.”141 The conflict between the Pa risian Orientalists cannot be understood as pure scholarly disagreement. Whether Langlès, Rémusat, or Klaproth were ever very good at reading Manchu is not important for my purposes here; suffice it to say in Langlès’s defense that he continued to study it long after the publication of Amiot’s dictionary, as evidenced by the many annotations he made to his personal copy even after he published the third edition of the Alphabet.142 Still, Rémusat claimed even in his obituary of Langlès that the deceased scholar “never knew Manchu, or, at least, never knew it well enough to read anything whose contents was not already known to him beforehand.”143 Rémusat’s criticism of the deceased was not as severe as what was printed about him during his lifetime, but he still claimed that Langlès’s alphabetic analysis was “so simple and so easy that anyone who cared to try could have carried it out just as well.”144 This last of Rémusat’s statements reveals the great misconception that made Langlès’s claims so outrageous to his critics; the claims of the Alphabet

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made no sense to Klaproth and Rémusat, because in their view the Manchu alphabet could not have been “invented,” but would have been obviously already in evidence to anyone who learned to use the Manchu script. Rémusat thought that the analysis of the Manchu script into letters was self-evident and not just to people like himself schooled in the Eu ropean metalinguistic paradigm. He expressed this idea most clearly in Recherches sur les langues tartares (1820), a lengthy study treating various matters whose core appears to have been a chapter dealing largely with the Manchu language and script.145 Rémusat asserted that the Manchu writing system was so simple that it was impossible to miss that it was an alphabet: No writing system in the world is composed of simpler and more regular signs [than that of the Manchus]. Where would we be able to find a child—let alone an adult—who, gifted with some amount of insightfulness, would not, faced with the syllables ma, straight away recognize the me, mi, mo, m[u] shape of the consonant m and the vowels a, e, i, o, and [u]! Who would not, in the groups na, ne, ni, no, and [nu] immediately become aware, that the consonant n is represented by the initial dot? There is not a single one among the groups in the syllabary, even among those formed by three or four letters, that presents any real difficulties. I am not seeking to redeem a merit for the Manchus in the analysis of their syllabaries, but re-establish a fact which I find sufficiently proven by the examples I have given here.146 If the alphabetical analysis was such a simple operation, why then had the nature of the Manchu script been the subject of so much discussion in Europe? Why had European writers claimed to have discovered or created the Manchu alphabet? Rémusat believed that although the Manchu script was so obviously an alphabet that Chinese and Manchu students intuitively felt it to be so, the syllabary in twelve sections with which they studied the characters did not present it that way. When European scholars came into contact with Manchu writing in the form of the syllabary in twelve sections, it would have mystified them, Rémusat argued. He wrote: One cannot find, in any of the copies of the Manchu syllabary, an analysis of the syllabic groups . . . and this is what had persuaded

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the first [European] writers to discuss the language of the Manchus that this people had no conception of the alphabet, and that the syllables appeared to them as just as many isolated signs, whose elements had never drawn their attention. It would no doubt be a great singularity, and a feat without equal, that a nation would not have by themselves come around to executing such a simple and easy analysis, waiting instead for people to come from the other side of the world to tell them that they had used letters for two hundred years without knowing it.147 Rémusat thought the very idea that the Manchus would not have considered their own script as an alphabet absurd. It was not a question of pure grammatology; on the contrary, to claim that the Manchus had no notion of the alphabet was to claim that they were fools. Rémusat’s defense of Manchu intelligence reads like an attack on self-satisfied European Orientalism,148 but it can also be seen as a generalization of the European idea of what writing was and how it functioned. By closing his eyes to the alterity of the conceptualization of language and writing developed by Manchu and Chinese scholars in the Qing empire, Rémusat also barred the way to a complete understanding of Manchu-language pedagogy and lexicography as practiced in China. Rémusat’s criticism was not formulated as harshly as that by Klaproth, but it was not fundamentally different. Other pronouncements on the nature of the Manchu script occasionally appeared after Klaproth and Rémusat. The grammarian and lexicographer Ivan Zakharov (1817–85), for example, asserted in 1879 that Manchu was an example of “syllabic writing, and not writing by letters.”149 As late as 1932, Peter Schmidt (1869–1938) wrote that “the Manchu script is actually syllabic.”150 Yet the debate was essentially over. Louis Ligeti’s (1902–87) study from 1952, a forceful argument in favor of an alphabetical analysis,151 appears to have been the last contribution. The rise to prominence of the idea that the Manchu script was and had always been an alphabet coincided with decreased interest in the linguistic studies produced at the Manchu court. William Huttman’s and Joseph Edkins’s interest in the phonetic spelling systems developed in Beijing stand out (see Chapter 6). As a whole, the rich corpus of ManchuChinese linguistic literature has remained relatively unstudied as sources for the history of scholarship or of science. As a tradition of the scholarly investigation of language and writing, Manchu studies of the Qing period did not receive much attention until recently.

Conclusion

This book has treated scholars in different places and of different linguistic backgrounds who engaged with written Manchu. I focused on complications of what was often their very first encounters with it. These complications involved the parsing and arrangement of words and syllables, but also hopes of what the new language could potentially offer. Several of the preceding chapters have observed Manchu in situations in which those present were not yet able to use it as a medium for governance, diplomacy, or intellectual exchange. These chapters thus show that language and script are, indeed, at times less than a medium. By the same token they are more than a medium, and of interest to the historian also in these other capacities. Manchu was, certainly, embedded in communities of speakers, readers, and writers, for whom it served a variety of functions. It was indeed a medium for communication and for the transmission of culture and knowledge, albeit not always—perhaps even rarely—a neutral vector. After all, the important role that Manchu played in the administration and court culture of the Qing empire was a precondition for scholars taking an interest in it in rural Jiangxi, Korea, Japan, and Europe. This conclusion will touch on the place of the Manchu language and script within the Qing imperial world from which modern China emerged. The Manchu language and script left a lasting influence, and an interest in it lingered long after it had stopped being commonly used in the Chinese Northeast and Beijing.

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Shopping for Manchu Books in London: The View from 1929 An entry from a recent Dictionary of Beijing Dialect (Beijing hua cidian 北京 话词典) and its textual source material nicely illustrate Manchu’s lingering presence in the language of the Chinese capital as well as in the field of vision of Sinologists. The entry also serves as an illustrative example in support of one of the contentions of this book: that linguistic reference works are rich sources for cultural history. The Dictionary of Beijing Dialect contains the lemma “十二头儿. shí èr tour.” The expression, whose final r has a clear Beijing flair, is given the following definition: “Shí èr tour originally referred to the twelve pronunciation letters [ fayin zimu 发音字母] of Manchu. In a figurative sense, it refers to shallow or superficial knowledge.”1 By including shí èr tour among its entries, the dictionary suggests that the name of the Manchu syllabary entered common parlance in Beijing Chinese. This is a clear testament to the impact of Manchu on the culture of the capital. According to the dictionary’s editors, however, the name became a metaphor for superficiality. I could not help but smile when I read this entry, as I had then just recently finished several book chapters that dealt largely with the Manchu “twelve heads.” The Beijing dialect dictionary provided an example to illustrate the use of shí èr tour, taken from the Manchu writer Lao She’s 老舍 (1899–1966) Mr. Ma and Son (Er Ma 二馬) from 1929. One plot element in this novel involves Ma the elder trying to sort out the failing business that his late brother has left him in London. Mr. Ma’s brother owned a Chinese antique store, and the Chinese clerk who still works there is trying to give Mr. Ma some advice on how to improve sales. Apparently, a neighboring store recently sold a cache of Manchu and Mongol books. Perhaps Mr. Ma should consider such merchandise in addition to the porcelain and teapots currently on offer? Mr. Ma—ridiculed by Lao She as a lazy incompetent who dreams of returning to Beijing to take up some prestigious sinecure in the Republican administration—is offended by the clerk’s unsolicited business advice. The inner monologue through which Mr. Ma works up his anger provides the example sentences used in A Dictionary of Beijing Dialect: “Selling Manchu and Mongol writings, eh? Ridiculous! What would the foreign devils be doing reading the ‘twelve heads’ in Manchu? Are they preparing themselves to witness Manchu majors picking horse-armor or what?” The dictionary’s

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example sentences end there, but in the novel Mr. Ma offers a final exclamation: “We’re the ‘Republic of China’ now!”2 The whole episode—Lao She’s mention of Manchu books on sale in 1920s London, Mr. Ma’s reaction, and the inclusion of the “foreign devils” reading the Manchu syllabary in a dictionary of the Beijing dialect of Chinese—says a lot about the trajectory of the Manchu language and its study beyond the period that I have covered in this book. Lao She had probably seen Manchu books in antique shops in London, where he was teaching Chinese at the School of Oriental Studies between 1924 and 1929. At this time of political upheaval in China, the book collections of once-great Manchu aristocratic families were being sold off and dispersed, some of them ending up abroad. (Such are the origins also of the Manchu books in the Gest collection now held at Princeton University, where I began research on the dissertation that preceded this book.)3 Symptomatically, in 1928, the bibliographer Zhao Wanli 趙萬里 (1905–80) warned that “Manchu-language books are gradually disappearing from circulation. If we do not increase our efforts to collect and edit them now, then not a trace will be left some centuries hence.” Whereas Russian and Japanese scholars were busy with this kind of work, Zhao wrote, “The number of our countrymen who study Manchu and are able to successfully read it are dwindling.”4 It seems Mr. Ma was right. This was indeed the era of the Republic of China, and only conscious efforts would ensure that Manchu had a place in it. At least foreign scholars of a certain antiquarian bent still paid attention to Manchu, according to Lao She and Zhao, but their Chinese compatriots, allegedly, did not. Zhao, writing with a purpose, exaggerated somewhat, of course. In fact, many scholars in Republican China recognized the importance of the Manchu language and Manchu books. Still, the early twentieth century in a way represented the nadir in a process of Manchu’s marginalization. Mr. Ma had a point: Manchu had been intimately associated with the Qing empire, but now the empire was gone. Yet Lao She’s story and its presence in a dictionary of Beijing Chinese have more to tell about the trajectory of Manchu since the nineteenth century. Lao She, a Beijing Manchu, is considered such an exemplar for the language of the Chinese capital that his collected works were chosen as one of the main corpora used to compile the dictionary. The Manchu language disappeared from Beijing, but the community for whom it was long a key marker of identity remained and left its mark on the city’s Chinese language, which is the dialect that is closest to Modern Standard Chinese. Indeed, the

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role that the Manchu language—and not only its speakers—played in the formation of China’s national language is the subject of ongoing linguistic research.5 The Dictionary of Beijing Dialect and its source thus ultimately demonstrate the impact of Manchu and its tradition of language pedagogy both on Beijing and on the scholarly community represented as anonymous buyers of Manchu books in London. They also suggest, however, that at least the basic pedagogical texts that have served as the focal point for much of this book represented but a first foray into the world of Manchu. She who reads only the “twelve heads” knows Manchu only superficially. Even Mr. Ma assumed that studying such texts was but preparation to do something else, although his example of watching “Manchu majors picking horse-armor” was certainly intended to suggest the pointlessness of such study in the 1920s. That it seemed pointless or, at best, antiquarian by the second decade of the Chinese republic was the result of several developments in the sociopolitical linguistic situation inside and outside China.

Manchu and the Early Modern World Manchu would never have received such attention in early modern Asia and Eu rope were it not for the new political importance of the Manchus as rulers of the Qing empire. The fact that the attention often took the form of a study of the “twelve heads,” the very first step toward Manchu literacy, reflected how new and unknown the language was. Before much else could be done with the language, one first had to make sense of what it was and how it functioned. One reason that individuals like Gottlieb Bayer, Ogyū Sorai, and Xiong Shibo spent so much time with the Manchu syllabary was definitely that they were all beginning students of Manchu. Without grasping how the script worked, they could not translate words or interpret grammatical constructions. That work came later. Bayer, having completed his alphabet, got access to a dictionary that allowed him to study Manchu in greater depth.6 There was a belief that the study of Manchu could lead to other kinds of research and knowledge-collecting, in which language was but a means to an end. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, all his linguistic curiosity notwithstanding, clearly saw such a potential in Manchu, as did Joseph-Marie Amiot, who unlike the others actually knew Manchu well.

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Amiot was able to master Manchu because he lived for decades in Beijing. Unlike Paris or Edo, eighteenth-century Beijing was home to numerous scholars who were highly proficient in Manchu, precisely because the city was the capital of the Qing empire. Beijing was the center of Manchu intellectual life on which all other scholarly work on the language, be it in Europe or Asia, ultimately depended. Foreign scholars who like Amiot learned Manchu in Beijing were thus able to put it to greater use than Bayer and Ogyū Sorai. The Jesuits in Beijing—including Dominique Parrenin, who has made occasional appearances in this book—used Manchu sources on history and chronology to produce translations that introduced the Chinese past to a European readership.7 Other residents in the city did as well. Larion Rossokhin (1717–61), first in Beijing and then in Russia, translated Manchu sources on Qing institutions for the benefit of Russian foreign relations.8 In partial fulfillment of Leibniz’s expectations, Manchu served as the bridge for getting ultimately Chinese material into a European linguistic garb, as well as the key to information about the Qing empire. Beijing was so important for early modern Manchu studies because it was the center of the empire. As the Manchu capital, Beijing had the largest Manchu population of any city. The imperial government housed there employed numerous bannermen as officials and scribes, for whom Manchu was a working language. Most Manchu books were published in Beijing, including by wealthy aficionados, commercial publishers, and the central government. Highly educated officials compiled Manchu texts and translations, as well as Chinese scholarly works influenced by Manchu learning. Many of these books were printed at the palace and distributed to a wider readership as gifts and items for sale. The court-sponsored reference works that I discussed in Chapters 5 and 6 are but a few examples. Korean diplomatic missions purchased such books in Beijing and brought them to Hansŏng. Merchants on China’s southeastern coast acquired them as well and shipped them to Japan. Manchu books left on European ships out of Macau and on caravans to Russia. Thus the Manchu studies scholarship that I have written about in this book was part of a global network in which other things moved as well, not only books in various languages, but also scientific instruments, art objects, and skills. In Beijing, many of those objects and the skills to reproduce them were disseminated through the same court institutions that upheld the use of Manchu. Bannermen participated in the introduction of Europeanstyle perspective painting at the Qing court. The building and outfitting of the Europeanizing gardens and palaces of the eighteenth-century Manchu

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emperors were carried out through the Imperial Household Department, which was an institution so thoroughly Manchu that the Kangxi emperor sent a couple of French Jesuits there to practice speaking the language.9 Jesuit court artist Jean-Denis Attiret’s (1702–68) paintings of horses, an example of European-influenced art at the Qing palace, carry Manchu-script identifications.10 Not always visible, the Manchu language was part of the cosmopolitan, early modern culture cultivated in eighteenth-century Beijing. On the Qing empire’s northern and western borders, Manchu was a language of diplomacy, including with Russia. Indeed, the Russian attempt to extend that usage to Japan was what precipitated the development of Manchu studies there. The language was thus not just part of the Qing administration itself, but also a means through which the Qing empire presented itself abroad, sometimes with strange repercussions, as in this case. Inside and outside the Qing empire, the importance of the Manchu language—as opposed to the tradition of studying it—is, then, clear. But what about Manchu linguistic scholarship and the role that it played in constructing or strengthening the networks in which Manchu was used as a means of communication or recordkeeping? On the most basic level, language study was certainly a prerequisite for non-native speakers’ use of Manchu as a means of communication or as a source and a target language for scholarly and diplomatic translations. Professional tutors of the kind hired by wealthy Chinese and Manchu families to teach their children were available in Beijing, which made structured language study feasible for foreign visitors. The sociology of Qing-language pedagogy thus arguably played a key role in the chain through which the knowledge and use of Manchu spread abroad. The existence of simple syllabaries without annotations shows that one could learn to read and write Manchu without an analytic explanation of the structure of the written characters or their relationship to sound, even though highly educated scholars found such a method unsatisfying. The fact remains, however, that having a patient instructor competent in the language was in principle enough to learn it. The link between the practical exigencies of language usage and the scholarship examined in this book is thus not immediately apparent. The very scholarly treatment of the Manchu script and its pronunciation in which Bayer and Xiong were engaged certainly found applications in the improvement of lexicographical arrangement and movabletype printing, but they still appear far removed from Manchu’s role as an administrative tool or means of communication. Bayer and Sorai knew the “twelve heads” but not much else. The fact is, however, that competent and

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literate speakers of Manchu were able to put linguistic scholarship to greater use. Linguistic research was of great importance for the Qing empire. In past decades, researchers have attempted to situate the polyglot linguistic scholarship of early modernity within the imperial expansion and consolidation that characterized the period. Yet the link between language studies and colonialism has been examined primarily with reference to Eu ropean empires. Focusing on what in the late twentieth century still appeared as a rise of the West on the world stage, scholars went looking for a link between overseas expansion and Renaissance humanism.11 The unavailability or inaccessibility of studies on other parts of the world enabled premature conjectures regarding a “European advantage” in language studies during the period of early modern globalization.12 By contrast, this book has shown that a curiosity in foreign languages and scripts was shared across many parts of the early modern world. Not just Europeans harnessed the study of new languages for empire-building purposes. In the mid-eighteenth century, for example, the Manchu “twelve heads” were not merely used as a common framework for making different languages commensurable in scholarly contexts (see Chapter 6), but also were simulta neously used to systematize linguistic information gathered at the front during the wars in the empire’s restive southwest, a territory of “Western barbarians.” In 1748, during Qianlong’s First Jinchuan Campaign, a “newly edited Manchu-Chinese ‘twelve heads’ ” (ice banjibuha nikan hergen-i juwan juwe ujui bithe), produced at court, was put to use in the field. On the basis of intelligence gathered from “an individual from among the Western barbarians who has submitted to us, is literate, and knows the language,” officials on the front in Sichuan produced a list with “names for places and individuals in the Western barbarian territory” featuring Manchu and Chinese transcriptions.13 The list enabled an official to pass a name from one orthography to another and back without corruption. Thereby the Manchu syllabary standardized frontier intelligence in multiple languages and scripts, helping the center remain informed about events at the front.

Plurilingualism and the New Nation-State There was, then, a link between the Manchu language, its study, and the Qing imperial formation, both in its culture and administrative practice. What happened to Manchu use and research as the Qing empire transformed

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in the nineteenth century? No one knew in the eighteenth century, of course. When John Barrow (1764–1848), who accompanied the Macartney mission to China in 1793, wrote that Manchu would, “if the present family continue on the throne for a century longer,” “supplant the Chinese,” he turned out to be mistaken. Manchu’s perceived similarity to European languages (“more like the Greek than any of the oriental languages”) clearly inspired wishful thinking among Europeans like Barrow.14 Manchu had come to be seen as less alien than Chinese, and European scholars and diplomats by that point had their own investment in its maintenance. Thomas Wade (1818–95), while working for the British legation in China in the 1860s, tellingly used the Manchu script in diplomatic correspondence because of the ease with which foreign names could thus be transcribed.15 Japa nese interest in Manchu gives a different idea of the sociopolitical development of the language in the nineteenth century. The decreasing political importance of Manchu in the region appears from the changing attitude of Japa nese scholars. As the Qing engaged in successive conflicts with the Eu ropean powers in the 1840s and 1850s, the bakufu and some domains made efforts to protect the Japanese archipelago from foreign aggression, including potentially from China. Some of the Nagasaki interpreters of Chinese took up the study of Manchu in this context. More than a dozen young interpreters undertook to compile a Manchu-reference work by translating portions of Qianlong’s bilingual Manchu-Chinese Mirror.16 However, Manchu-language studies in Nagasaki were not very longlived, and they were at times conducted with little enthusiasm. Some of the Chinese interpreters in Nagasaki were descendants of Ming émigrés to Japan. At least one of them, Sai Kōsuke 蔡耿介 (Kiseki 綺石; d. 1848), is reported as protesting the bakufu’s directive that they study Manchu, saying, “My forebears left their ancestral fields and came to live here . . . precisely because they resented wearing the barbarian’s garb. As their descendant, how could I place my own body under their knives and endure to speak in their savage tongue?”17 Luckily for those of Sai’s opinion, the study of Manchu was discontinued in 1855 in a decision reflecting a changing balance of power in East Asia. Kiseki’s son, also a Chinese interpreter, studied English and French instead of Manchu. A few decades later, after Japan under the new Meiji regime installed a legation in Beijing, the Japanese interpreters sent there undertook to produce a textbook of Mandarin Chinese, not Manchu.18 A new role of Mandarin as the language of China, a nation alongside those of the English, French, and Japa nese, can be read

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into these developments in light of the postimperial history of the twentieth century. However, as long as the Qing dynasty remained in power— and arguably even beyond the empire’s collapse—the form that the new linguistic order would take was far from settled or obvious. In some areas, Manchu, rather than immediately yielding to Chinese, actually survived the empire as an administrative language.19 Conversely, before the Republican revolution, Mandarin Chinese had already started taking shape as a language of political importance partially through the actions of the Manchu government. The situation bears some similarity with developments in other empires, such as the emergence of Hindi as a link between government and subjects in British India.20 Standardized transcriptions between Manchu, Chinese, and local languages, such as the one employed on the Jinchuan front in the 1740s, implied an official recognition of Mandarin as the official pronunciation of the Chinese script. Later, when Chinese intellectuals during the last decades of the Qing period sought to formalize the teaching of Mandarin with the backing of the court, the Manchu-inspired phonological studies of the eighteenth century and even the Manchu script itself appeared as ready tools. Language reformers saw the phonographic Manchu script as an alternative to the Roman alphabet or the Japanese syllabaries as an auxiliary writing system. Unlike the foreign scripts, Manchu had a long tradition of study by clerks and officials within China and the support of the Qing imperial court. Unconfirmed reports maintain that even during the first conference on language planning held in the Chinese Republic, in 1913, participants proposed new phonetic transcription systems inspired by Manchu.21 The rise of Mandarin Chinese as a language of state did not only happen at the expense of Manchu, but also with its help. Whereas the Dictionary of Beijing Dialect and its sources hinted at the Manchu contribution to the language and linguistic culture of the Chinese capital, the interconnected history of Manchu and Mandarin in the hands of administrators and educators demonstrates the role played by Qing practices of governance for the formation of the national Chinese language. The scholarly encounters with Manchu studied in this book ultimately form part of this history of late imperial plurilingualism, which unfolded over hundreds of years and reached far beyond the pages of the syllabary of the “twelve heads.” When written Manchu ceased to play a mediating role in the linguistic encounters between Chinese and other languages both within and

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outside the Qing realm, writers, activists, and scholars struggled to find other ways to integrate Chinese sound and script with the world.22 It is almost as if the Manchu empire and its dynastic language left a vacuum that took decades—until the early People’s Republic, at least—to fill. What Republican language reformers considered the new and urgent issue of the day might, perhaps, be understood as a long-standing problematic reemerging under new conditions.

Notes

IntroductIon 1. Liji zhengyi 禮記正義, in vol. 2 of Shisan jing zhu shu, facsimile (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1980), ch. 53, 460 (1634); Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963), 110. 2. Martin Kern, The Stele Inscriptions of Ch’in Shih-Huang: Text and Ritual in Early Chinese Imperial Representation (New Haven, Conn.: American Oriental Society, 2000), 27; Wang Shumin 王叔民, ed., Shiji jiaozheng 史記斠證, by Sima Qian (1983; Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2007), vol. 1, ch. 6, 205–6. 3. Susan Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400–1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 696–97 (focus on the late Qing rather than the Republic). 4. I elaborate a little more on this history in “Manchu and the Study of Language in China (1607–1911)” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2015), 8–10. 5. Mark C. Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001), 31–32. 6. Paul A. Cohen, Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984); William T. Rowe, China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009), 2–10. 7. Emanuel Pastreich, “The Reception of Chinese Vernacular Narrative in Korea and Japan” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1997). 8. Huiyi Wu, Traduire la Chine au XVIIIe siècle: Les jésuites traducteurs de textes chinois et le renouvellement des connaissances européennes sur la Chine (1687–ca. 1740) (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2017). 9. Sheldon Pollock, Benjamin A. Elman, and Ku-ming Kevin Chang, eds., World Philology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015); Islam Dayeh, “The Potential of World Philology,” Philological Encounters 1 (2016): 396–418. 10. For Eu rope: Sylvain Auroux, La révolution technologique de la grammatisation (Liège: Mardaga, 1994); Michael D. Gordin, Scientific Babel: How Science Was Done Before and After Global English (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), ch. 1. For South Asia: Walter N. Hakala, Negotiating Languages: Urdu, Hindi, and the Definition of Modern South Asia (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016); Audrey Truschke, Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016). 11. Joseph Needham, History of Scientific Thought, in collaboration with Wang Ling, vol. 2, Science and Civilisation in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), 390–95, presents an influential example of this view.

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Notes to Pages 10–17

12. I am following precedent. See, e.g., Joshua A. Fogel, “Chinese Understanding of the Japa nese Language from Ming to Qing,” in Sagacious Monks and Bloodthirsty Warriors: Chinese Views of Japan in the Ming-Qing Period, ed. Joshua A. Fogel, 63–87 (Norwalk, Conn.: EastBridge, 2002); Erling von Mende, “Polyglottie und Sprachbehauptung im traditionellen China: Ein Aspekt dynastischer Fremdherrschaft: Die Jin und die Qing,” in Das Reich in der Mitte—in Mitte: Studien Berliner Sinologen, ed. Florian C. Reiter, 95-127 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006); Carla  S. Nappi, “Full. Empty. Stop. Go. Translating Miscellany in Early Modern China,” in Early Modern Cultures of Translation, ed. Karen Newman and Jane Tylus, 206–20 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015); Dror Weil, “Islamicated China: China’s Participation in the Islamicate Book Culture during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 4, nos. 1/2 (2016): 36–60; Dagmar Schäfer, “Thinking in Many Tongues: Language(s) and Late Imperial China’s Science,” in “Linguistic Hegemony and the History of Science,” Isis 108, no. 3 (2017): 621–28; William G. Boltz, “Multilingualism and Lingua Franca in the Ancient Chinese World,” in Multilingualism, Lingua Franca and Lingua Sacra, ed. Jens Braarvig and Markham  J. Geller, 401–26 (Berlin: Edition Open Access, 2018). 13. The phrasing is different, but that is how I understand David S. Nivison, The Life and Thought of Chang Hsüeh-ch’eng, 1738–1801 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1966), 14–15. 14. I am borrowing the term from Ursula Klein, Experiments, Models, Paper Tools: Cultures of Organic Chemistry in the Nineteenth Century (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003), 245. 15. Ann M. Blair, Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information Before the Modern Age (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010). 16. James Turner, Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2014), pt. 3. 17. Han F. Vermeulen, Before Boas: The Genesis of Ethnography and Ethnology in the German Enlightenment (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015). 18. Benjamin A. Elman, “Early Modern or Late Imperial? The Crisis of Classical Philology in Late Imperial China,” in Pollock, Elman, and Chang, World Philology, 225–44. 19. E.g., Hu Shih, “The Renaissance in China,” in English Writings of Hu Shih: Chinese Philosophy and Intellectual History, ed. Chih-P’ing Chou, 2:15–25 (Heidelberg: Foreign Language Teaching/Research Press & Springer, 2013). This address was given on November 9, 1926. 20. Rens Bod, A New History of the Humanities: The Search for Principles and Patterns from Antiquity to the Present, trans. Lynn Richards (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 21. David B. Lurie, Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2011), 341 and passim shows that clearly. 22. Cf. Peter Burke, “Introduction,” in The Social History of Language, ed. Peter Burke and Roy Porter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 17.

chapter 1 1. Quoted as transcribed from the Saint Petersburg manuscript in Giovanni Stary, “Der Mandschukhan Nurhaci als Held mandschurischer Sagen und Märchen (Teil II: volkstümliche und gehobene Dichtung)” (1987), in Selected Manchu Studies: Contributions to History,

Notes to Pages 17–21

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Literature, and Shamanism of the Manchus, ed. Hartmut Walravens (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 2013), 116. I have benefited from Stary’s German translation and his contextualization of the text. I should note that Stary ascribes the ballad to the Sibe, Manchu descendants in Turkestan. However, Zakhar Fedorovich Leont’evskii (1799–1874; for whom, see Russkii biograficheskii slovar’, a digitized copy from the Russian State Library [Saint Petersburg: Izdanie Imperatorskago Russkago istoricheskago obshchestva, 1896–1918], vol. 10, 226), who acquired the manuscript from a friend named Yang, did so in Beijing. At the time of the publication of a Russian translation in 1834 (Dmitrii Ivanovich Khvostov, ed., Man’chzhurskaia pesn’ s perevoda v proze, perelozhennaia stikhami, with an afterword by Zakhar Fedorovich Leont’evskii [Saint Petersburg: Konrad Vingeber, 1834], 9—I am grateful to Greg Afinogenov for help with reading this source), Leont’evskii estimated that it was about 180 years old. See further: Hartmut Walravens, ed., Mandjurische Bücher in Rußland: Drei Bestandskataloge (Hamburg: C. Bell Verlag, 1986), 100. 2. Stary, “Der Mandschukhan Nurhaci [2],” 112, 115, 117. 3. Mark Edward Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 197–209. The quote regarding Cang Jie is from Göran Malmqvist, “Xu Shen’s Postface to the Shuo Wen Jie Zi,” in On Script and Writing in Ancient China, ed. David Pankenier (Stockholm: Föreningen för Orientaliska Studier, 1974), 48. 4. Liu Dou 劉斗, “Hanzi zhuyin Manwen shier zitou” 漢字注音滿文十二字頭 (retrospective title), digitized rubbings held at the National Library of China with the call number 各地 9983 (1668), ba:1a. 5. Liao Lunji 廖綸璣, Shier zitou 十二字頭 | juwan juwe uju, in Zhengzi tong, comp. Zhang Zilie, ed. Liao Wenying, facsimile (1671; Beijing: Zhongguo Gongren Chubanshe, 1996), Shier zitou yin:1b (58). Juxtaposition of ancient China and early seventeenth-century Manchuria in the context of grammatogenesis could also be entirely rhetorical, as in the case of the Qianlong emperor’s poem quoted and translated in Stary, “Der Mandschukhan Nurhaci [2],” 130. 6. “Qingwen houxue jinfa” 清文後學津筏 | manju gisun-i amaga tacire ursebe ibebure tasan-i bithe, manuscript, held at Dalian Library with the call number M22-121, no pagination, vol. 1, under the section “Guoshu ni yijie | manju hergen be dursuleme gisurere subun-i bithe.” 7. Yang Bin 楊賓, Liubian jilüe 柳邊紀略, new ed., vol. 3, written in 1690 (Dalian: Liaohai Shushe, 1934–1935), 3:9a–b. Yang’s source: Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修, Xin wudai shi 新五代史, critical ed., ed. Xu Wudang (original finished in 1053; Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2015), vol. 3, 1004 (ch. 72). 8. Stary, “Der Mandschukhan Nurhaci [2],” 187. 9. I exclude the Orkhon inscriptions in old Turkic from the present discussion, as the origins of that script are obscure and of unclear relevance for the history of the peoples of whom the Manchus had knowledge. 10. Peter Kornicki, “The Vernacularization of Buddhist Texts: From the Tangut Empire to Japan,” in Rethinking East Asian Languages, Vernaculars, and Literacies, 1000–1919, ed. Benjamin A. Elman (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 29–57. 11. Karl A. Wittfogel and Fêng Chia-Shêng, History of Chinese Society: Liao (907–1125), in collaboration with John DeFrancis, Esther S. Goldfrank, Lea Kisselgoff, and Karl A. Menges (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1949), 7. 12. Frederick W. Mote, Imperial China 900–1800 (1999; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003), chs. 3–4; Daniel Kane, The Kitan Language and Script (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 3; György Kara, Books of the Mongolian Nomads: More Than Eight Centuries of Writing

236

Notes to Pages 21–23

Mongolian, trans. John R. Krueger (Bloomington: Indiana University Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 2005), 9–10, 16. A source mentioning the invention of the Khitan script was known to the Manchus in the 1630s: Hans Conon von der Gabelentz, trans., Geschichte der großen Liao, ed. Hans Albert von der Gabelentz (Saint Petersburg: Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1877), 21. 13. Mote, Imperial China, 256. 14. E. I. Kychanov, “Tangut,” in The World’s Writing Systems, ed. Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 228. 15. Mote, Imperial China, chs. 9–10. 16. Kane, Kitan Language, 3. 17. Denis Twitchett and Herbert Franke, “Bibliographical Essays,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 6: Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368, ed. Denis Twitchett and Herbert Franke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 678. 18. Jurchen reconstruction from Daniel Kane, The Sino-Jurchen Vocabulary of the Bureau of Interpreters (Bloomington: Indiana University Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1989), 364. The Chinese transcribes as Kəwkʂɦin in Late Middle Chinese (LMC) reconstruction from Edwin  G. Pulleyblank, Lexicon of Reconstructed Pronunciation in Early Middle Chinese, Late Middle Chinese, and Early Mandarin (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1991). Further, see Mu Yinchen 穆崟臣 and Mu Hongli 穆鸿利, “Wanyan Xiyin yanjiu shuping” 完颜希尹研究述评, Liao-Jin lishi yu kaogu, no. 4 (2013): 435, where other orthographies of this name are provided, probably reflecting the same underlying Jurchen word. 19. Jin shi 金史, by Ouyang Xuan 歐陽玄, ed. Toγtaγa [Tuo-tuo], typeset (1343; Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1975), 1684 (ch. 73). Manchu translation in Cabuhai, Nengtu, and Yecengge, trans., Aisin gurun-i suduri (1646), held at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France with the call number Fonds Mandchou 134, 1:42b–43a, in turn translated in Charles de Harlez, trans., Histoire de l’empire de Kin, ou, empire d’or, Aisin gurun-i suduri bithe (Leuven: Peeters, 1887), 35. 20. Kane, Sino-Jurchen Vocabulary, 10. 21. Peter T. Daniels, “Aramaic Scripts for Aramaic Languages,” in Daniels and Bright, World’s Writing Systems, 499–504. 22. Daniels, “Aramaic Scripts for Aramaic Languages.” 23. Mote, Imperial China, 35. 24. Kara, Books, 27–29; Michael C. Brose, “Uyghur Technologists of Writing and Literacy in Mongol China,” T’oung Pao 91, nos. 4/5 (2005): 396–435. 25. György Kara, “The ‘Jirüken-ü tolta’ Ascribed to Chos-kyi ‘Od-zer,” Mongolian Studies 33 (2011): 53–55 (a source qualified by Kara as perhaps dating from the seventeenth century). 26. Ch’oe Hakkŭn 崔鶴根, Chŭngbo Alt’aiŏhak non’go: munhŏn kwa munbŏp 增補알타 이語學論攷－文獻과 文法－, ed. Yi Hŭisŭng (Seoul: Pogyŏng Munhwasa, 1989), 377–78, 522– 23; Georg Huth, ed. and trans., Geschichte des Buddhismus in der Mongolei: Mit einer Einleitung: Politische Geschichte der Mongolen, bk. 2 (Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner, 1896), 133–34; Kara, Books, 25–27; Miyoko Nakano, A Phonological Study in the ‘Phags-pa Script and the Meng-ku Tzu-yün (Canberra: Faculty of Asian Studies in association with Australian National University Press, 1971), 13–15. 27. Nakano, Phonological Study, 35n42. 28. Mote, Imperial China, 483–84. 29. Summarized in Sam van Schaik, “A New Look at the Tibetan Invention of Writing,” in New Studies of the Old Tibetan Documents: Philology, History and Religion, ed. Yoshiro

Notes to Pages 24–27

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Imaeda, Matthew Kapstein, and Tsuguhito Takeuchi (Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, 2011), 45–96. 30. Yuan shi 元史, by Song Lian 宋濂 (1370; Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1976), 4518 (ch. 202). I have benefited from the English translations of the edict in Nicholas Poppe, The Mongolian Monuments in ‘Phags-pa Script, 2nd ed., trans. John R. Krueger (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1957), 5; and W. South Coblin, A Handbook of ‘Phags-pa Chinese (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007), 2. It is also cited in Kara, Books, 52 (in the notes). 31. Nakajima Gakusho 中島樂章, “Gendai no bunsho gyōsei ni okeru pasupa ji shiyō kitei ni tsuite” 元代の文書行政におけるパスパ字使用規定について, Tōyō gakuhō 84 (2009): 91–138. 32. David M. Robinson, Empire’s Twilight: Northeast Asia Under the Mongols (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard-Yenching Institute, 2009), ch. 3; Sixiang Wang, “The Sounds of Our Country: Interpreters, Linguistic Knowledge, and the Politics of Language in Early Chosŏn Korea,” in Elman, Rethinking East Asian Languages, 58–95. 33. Gari Ledyard, “The International Linguistic Background of the Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People,” in The Korean Alphabet: Its History and Structure, ed. YoungKey Kim-Renaud (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997), 31–87; Tseveliin Shagdarsürüng, “A Study of the Relationship Between the Korean and the Mongolian Scripts,” Mongolian Studies 25 (2002): 59–84. 34. Gari Ledyard, “The Korean Language Reform of 1446: The Origin, Background, and Early History of the Korean Alphabet” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1966), 97–98. 35. Choe Hyŏnbae 최현배, Kochin Han’gŭl kal 고친 한글갈, 2nd rev. ed. (1940; Seoul: Chŏng’ŭmsa, 1960), 4, 16. However, several late Chosŏn sources justified the invention of the script in terms much closer to Kubilai’s edict (pp. 50–51). 36. Item XBM 75 9r in Elisabetta Chiodo, The Mongolian Manuscripts on Birch Bark from Xarbuxyn Balgas in the Collection of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences: Part 1 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2000), 171. 37. Nicola Di Cosmo, “From Alliance to Tutelage: A Historical Analysis of ManchuMongol Relations Before the Qing Conquest,” Frontiers of History in China 7, no. 2 (2012): 187. 38. Kara, Books, 129–32. 39. György Kara, “Aramaic Scripts for Altaic Languages,” in Daniels and Bright, World’s Writing Systems, 548–49; Kara, Books, 138–44. 40. Richard P. Taupier, “The Oirad of the Early 17th Century: Statehood and Political Ideology” (PhD diss., University of Massachusetts–Amherst, 2014), ch. 5. 41. Kara, Books, 180–81. 42. Rintschen, “Zwei unbekannte mongolische Alphabete aus dem XVII. Jahrhundert,” Acta Orientalia Academiæ Scientiarum Hungaricæ 2, no. 1 (1952): 63–71. 43. Kara, Books, 163–71. 44. Nicola Di Cosmo and Dalizhabu Bao, Manchu-Mongol Relations on the Eve of the Qing Conquest: A Documentary History (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 1–6. 45. Ming Yingzong shilu 明英宗實錄, facsimile of manuscript, in vols. 22–38 of Ming shilu (Taipei: Zhongyang Yanjiu Yuan Lishi Yuyan Yanjiu Suo, 1962), vol. 27, 113:5b (2276). The full date is 3 March 1444 (Zhengtong 9/2/jiawu). Cong Peiyuan 丛佩远, “Lüe lun Manwen chansheng de lishi tiaojian” 略论满文产生的历史条件, Beifang wenwu, no. 1 (1986): 61. 46. Yŏnsan’gun ilgi 燕山君日記, facsimile of manuscript, Yijo sillok 19 (Tōkyō: Gakushūin Tō Ā Bunka Kenkyūjo, 1958), 19:1a (225). The full date is 5 December 1496 (Yŏnsan’gun 2/11/ kapchin 甲辰). Cong, “Lüe lun Manwen chansheng,” 61–62.

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Notes to Pages 27–28

47. One instance: Sŏngjong sillok 成宗實錄, facsimile of manuscript, Yijo sillok 18 (Tōkyō: Gakushūin Tō Ā Bunka Kenkyūjo, 1958), vol. 4, 241:4b (49). The full date is 24 June 1490 (Sŏngjong 成宗 21/6/muja 戊子). Another instance: Sŏngjong sillok, vol. 4, 261:16a (284). The full date is 16 February 1492 (Sŏngjong 23/1/kyŏng’in 庚寅). My interpretation of this passage follows Cong, “Lüe lun Manwen chansheng,” 62. Cf. Chŏng Kwang 鄭光, Yŏkhaksŏ yŏn’gu 譯學書研究 (Seoul: J & C, 2002), 528. 48. Yŏnsan’gun ilgi, 44:11a (570). The full date is 30 June 1502 (Yŏnsan’gun 8/5/chŏngyu 丁酉). Cong, “Lüe lun Manwen chansheng,” 64 (assumes that it refers to a letter in Mongolian). 49. Qu Jiusi 瞿九思, Wanli wugong lu 万历武功录, typeset edition of selected chapters, ed. Bo Yinhu (original completed in 1612; Hohhot: Nei Menggu Daxue Chubanshe, 2007), 257 (ch. 11, biography of Wang Gao 王杲); Cong, “Lüe lun Manwen chansheng,” 65. For Wang’s title, see Charles O. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1985), 537 (no. 7199). 50. Gertraude Roth Li, “State Building Before 1644,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 9: Part 1: The Ch’ing Empire to 1800, ed. Willard J. Peterson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 9–72. 51. Giovanni Stary, “Nurhacis Kindheit: Das größte Geheimnis der Ch’ing-Dynastie?” (1989), in Walravens, Selected Manchu Studies, 182–83; Cong, “Lüe lun Manwen chansheng,” 64–65. Nurhaci’s knowledge of Chinese was also asserted in legend: Giovanni Stary, “Der Mandschukhan Nurhaci als Held mandschurischer Sagen und Märchen (Teil I: orale Volksliteratur in Prosa)” (1984), in Walravens, Selected Manchu Studies, 58–59. 52. Giovanni Stary, “Das Kŏnchu kichŏng toki [sic; read Kŏnju kijŏng togi] des Sin Ch’ungil” (1996), in Walravens, Selected Manchu Studies, 220; Li Guangtao 李光濤, “Lao Manwen shiliao xu”『老滿文史料』序, in Ming-Qing dang’an lunwen ji (1962; Taipei: Lianjing Chubanshe, 1986), 22. 53. Yi Minhwan 李民寏, “Zhazhong rilu” [Ch’aekchung illok] jiaoshi, “Jianzhou wenjianlu” [Kŏnju mun’gyŏnnok] jiaoshi 柵中日录校释、建州闻见录校释, typeset, ed. Xu Hengjin, record of events in 1619 (Liaoning Daxue Lishixi, 1978), 43–44; Yi Minhwan 李民寏, “Ch’aekchung illok” 柵中日錄, facsimile of manuscript, Chōsen gakuhō, no. 64 (1972): 158 (local pagination: 33). The collection consists of several pieces, excerpted from a longer printed collection, that are here referred to by only one title. Nicola Di Cosmo, “Nuove fonti sulla formazione dello stato mancese, I Parte: Il rapporto di Yi Minhwan,” Catai, nos. 2/3 (1982–83): 139–65. See p. 150 in that work for an Italian translation of the passage quoted here, and Nicola Di Cosmo, “Das Kŏnchu mun’gyŏn rok [Kŏnju mun’gyŏnnok] des Yi Minhwan,” in Giovanni Stary, ed., Materialen zur Vorgeschichte der Qing-Dynastie (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996), 17, for a German translation. Di Cosmo takes sŏ to mean “books” and the sense of the first sentence to be that no Chinese books circulated among the Manchus at this time. 54. David M. Farquhar, “Mongolian Versus Chinese Elements in the Early Manchu State,” Ch’ing-shih wen-t’i 2, no. 6 (1971): 11–23. 55. The translation of the Manchu title baksi, a Mongolian loan-word that was probably ultimately derived from Middle Chinese pakdʑi’ 博士 (bóshì in modern pronunciation; Middle Chinese transcription follows Pulleyblank, Lexicon), “broadly learned scribe or scholar.” The translation of the title as “preceptor” follows H. S. Brunnert and V. V. Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization of China, trans. A. Beltchenko and E. E. Moran, ed. N. Th. Kolessoff (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, Limited, 1912), 473 (item 915). 56. Zhang Jie 张杰, Manzu yaolun 满族要论 (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 2007), 177–78.

Notes to Pages 28–30

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57. Jiu Manzhou dang 舊滿洲檔, facsimiles of mostly manuscript material (Taipei: Guoli Gugong Bowuyuan, 1969), vol. 1, 3. Liu Housheng 刘厚生, “Jiu Manzhou dang” yanjiu 旧满洲 档研究 (Changchun: Jilin Wen Shi Chubanshe, 1993), 11, argues that 1621 (Tianming 6) is the date when the composition of the archive began. The extant archive has been photographically reprinted twice: as Jiu Manzhou dang and as Manwen yuandang 滿文原檔 (Taipei: Guoli Gugong Bowuyuan, 2005). See also Guanglu 廣祿 and Li Xuezhi 李學智, “Qing Taizu chao Lao Manwen yuandang yu Manwen laodang zhi bijiao yanjiu” 清太祖朝「老滿文原檔」與「滿文 老檔」之比較研究, Zhongguo Dongya xueshu yanjiu jihua weiyuan hui nianbao 4 (1965): 5–6, 17– 18. The record from Nurhaci’s reign ought to have achieved its final form no later than the mid-1630s: Yan Chongnian 阎崇年, “Wu quandian laodang ji Qianlong chaoben mingcheng quanshi” 《无圈点老档》及乾隆抄本名称诠释, in Manxue lunji (Beijing: Minzu Chubanshe, 1999), 265. 58. Guanglu 廣祿 and Li Xuezhi 李學智, trans., Qing Taizu chao lao Manwen yuandang: di yi ce “huang” zi lao Manwen dangce 清太祖朝老滿文原檔：第一冊荒字老滿文檔冊 (Taipei: Taiwan Zhonghua Shuju, 1970), 8–9. 59. Jiu Manzhou dang, vol. 1, 129. 60. As much is suggested in Li, “Lao Manwen shiliao xu,” 21. 61. Mitamura Taisuke 三田村泰助, “Manbun Taiso rōtō kō” 滿文太祖老檔考, in Haneda Hakushi shōju kinen Tōyōshi ronsō, ed. Haneda Hakushi Kanreki Kinenkai (Kyōto: Tōyōshi Kenkyūkai, 1950), 861–63. 62. Michael Weiers, “Der Mandschu-Khortsin Bund von 1626,” in Documenta Barbarorum: Festschrift für Walther Heissig zum 70. Geburtstag (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1983), 431. 63. John R. Krueger, “Mongolian Personal Names,” Names: A Journal of Onomastics 10, no. 2 (1962): 82. 64. Xie Guozhen 謝國禎, “Qing kaiguo shiliao kaoxu lunding bubian” 清開國史料考敘論 訂補編, in Qingchu shiliao si zhong, vol. 6 of Ming-Qing shiliao congshu ba zhong (1933; Beijing Tushuguan Chubanshe, 2005), 190–91. 65. Guanglu and Li, “Qing Taizu chao Lao Manwen yuandang,” 29–42. I am much indebted to Guanglu and Li Xuezhi not only for revealing the existence of this and subsequent passages involving Erdeni, but also for their transcription and translation of them. 66. Manwen yuandang, vol. 3, 348. 67. Manwen yuandang, vol. 3, 349. 68. Manwen yuandang, vol. 3, 350. 69. Mong γol kitad toli: nemen jasa γsan debter | Meng-Han cidian 蒙汉词典, by Öbür mongγol-un yeke surγaγuli yin mongγol sudulul-un küriyeleng-ün mongγol kele bicig sudulqu γacir (Hohhot: Öbür mongγol-un yeke surγaγuli yin keblel-ün qori-ya, 1999), 1124, sub voce daičin. 70. Kenneth Robinson, “Policies of Practicality: The Chosŏn Court’s Regulation of Contact with Japa nese and Jurchens, 1392–1580s” (PhD diss., University of Hawai‘i, 1997); Erling von Mende, “Korea Between the Chinese and Manchu,” Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung 27 (2003): 45–62; Fujimoto Yukio 藤本幸夫, “Shinchō Chōsen tsūji shōkō” 清朝朝鮮通 事小攷, in Chūgokugoshi no shiryō to hōhō, ed. Takata Tokio (Kyōto: Kyōto Daigaku Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūjo, 1994), 264–72, 287–88. 71. Hidehiro Okada, “The Mongolian Literary Tradition in Early Manchu Culture,” in Proceedings of the 35th  Permanent International Altaistic Conference, ed. Chieh-hsien Ch’en (Taipei: Center for Chinese Studies Materials, United Daily News Cultural Foundation, 1993), 377–86.

240

Notes to Pages 30–32

72. David M. Farquhar, “Emperor as Bodhisattva in the Governance of the Ch’ing Empire,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 38, no. 1 (1978): 19–22; Di Cosmo and Bao, ManchuMongol Relations, 76. 73. See Kanda Nobuo 神田信夫, “Shincho no Bunkan ni tsuite” 清初の文館について, Tōyōshi kenkyū 19, no. 3 (1960): 36–40, for the different terms and their history. 74. Bernd-Michael Linke, Zur Entwicklung des mandjurischen Khanats zum Beamtenstaat: Sinisierung und Bürokratisierung der Mandjuren während der Eroberungszeit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1982), 48 (refers to the situation in 1635). 75. Linke, Zur Entwicklung, 51. 76. Zhang Bo 张波, Tiancong, Chongde wangchao 天聪・崇德王朝 (Beijing: Zhongguo Qingnian Chubanshe, 2008), 187. 77. Zhang, Manzu yaolun, 178–81. 78. Louis [Lajos] Ligeti, “Deux tablettes de T’ai-tsong des Ts’ing,” Acta Orientalia Academiæ Scientarum Hungaricæ 8, no. 3 (1958): 201–39. 79. Walter Fuchs, Beiträge zur Mandjurischen Bibliographie und Literatur (Tokyo: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Natur- und Volkerkunde Ostasiens, 1936), 109–10. 80. Stephen Durrant, “Sino-Manchu Translations at the Mukden Court,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 99, no. 4 (1979): 656. 81. Fuchs, Beiträge, “Abbildungen,” 1 (no. 26). 82. Matsumura Jun, “The Early Manchu Tablets,” in Proceedings of the Third East Asian Altaistic Conference, ed. Chieh-hsien Ch’en and Sechin Jagchid (Taipei: Third East Asian Altaistic Conference, 1969), 182–93; Michael Weiers, “Zur Registratur der mandschurischen Holztäfelchen über Ajiges Invasion der Ming im Jahre 1636,” in Beiträge zur Geschichte, Sprache und Kultur der Mandschuren und Sibe, ed. Martin Gimm, Giovanni Stary, and Michael Weiers (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), 251–313. 83. Imanishi Shunjū 今西春秋, “Sūtoku san-nen no Manbun mokuhai to Manbun rōtō” 崇德三年の満文木牌と満文老檔, in Iwai Hakushi koki kinen tenseki ronshū, ed. Iwai Hakushi Koki Kinen Jigyōkai (Tōkyō: Iwai Hakushi Koki Kinen Jigyōkai, 1963), 99–107. 84. Guan Kexiao 关克笑, “Lao Manwen gaige shijian kao” 老满文改革时间考, Manyu yanjiu, no. 2 (1997): 12–17; Tatiana A. Pang, “The Manchu Script Reform of 1632: New Data and New Questions,” in Writing in the Altaic World, ed. Juha Janhunen and Volker Rybatzki (Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 1999), 201–6. 85. Kara, “Aramaic Scripts,” 550. 86. Michael Weiers, “Einige Bemerkungen zur Geschichte der Entwicklung der mandschurischen Schrift,” Acta Orientalia Academiæ Scientiarum Hungaricæ 55, nos. 1/2 (2002): 269–79. 87. Mitamura, “Manbun Taiso rōtō kō,” 861–63. 88. Linke, Zur Entwicklung, 124–32. 89. Zhang, Tiancong, Chongde wangchao, 184; Naikoku Shiin tō: Tensō shichinen 内国史院檔： 天聡七年, ed. Kanda Nobuo 神田信夫, Hosoya Yoshio 細谷良夫, Nakami Tatsuo 中見立夫, Matsumura Jun 松村潤, Katō Naoto 加藤直人, and Yanagisawa Akira 栁澤明 (Tōkyō: Tōyō Bunko, 2003), 18–23; Linke, Zur Entwicklung, 132–33. 90. Dates inferred from George A. Kennedy, “Dahai,” in Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period (1644–1912), ed. Arthur W. Hummel (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1944), vol. 1, 213. 91. Li, “Lao Manwen shiliao xu,” 23. 92. Dahai is mentioned in, e.g., Pak Nanyŏng 朴蘭英, “Simyang wanghwan ilgi” 瀋陽往 還日記, microfilm of manuscript copied in 1927–29 from the manuscript owned by Wi

Notes to Pages 32–36

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Sunyang of Changhŭng-gun, held at Kyujanggak, Seoul, with the call number 奎 15682 under the title Simyang ilgi, 13a, 16b, 18b, 19b, 25b, 29a, 34a. 93. Kennedy, “Dahai,” 213. 94. Manwen yuandang, vol. 3, 442. 95. Qingshi liezhuan 清史列傳, ed. Wang Zhonghan 王鍾翰 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1987), 187–88. Also: Kicentai (Zhuangsheng 庄声), Teikoku o tsukutta gengo seisaku: Daichin gurun shoki no gengo seikatsu to bunka 帝国を創った言語政策 : ダイチン・グルン初期の言語生活と 文化 (Kyōto: Kyōto Daigaku Gakujutsu Shuppankai, 2016), 101. 96. Manwen yuandang, vol. 5, 139. 97. Michael Weiers, “Ein Blockdrucktext betreffend die orthographische Präzisierung der Buchstaben ohne Punkte und Kreise durch Dahai,” Zentralasiatische Studien 29 (1999): 88, 91. Further on this document: Guanglu and Li, “Qing Taizu chao Lao Manwen yuandang,” 28–43. 98. Manwen yuandang, vol. 5, 139. Further: vol. 5, 140, and vol. 8, 383; Weiers, “Ein Blockdrucktext,” 88, 95. 99. Weiers, “Ein Blockdrucktext,” 93. 100. “Yŏkkwan sang’ŏn tŭngnok” 譯官上言謄錄, microfilm of the manuscript held at Kyujanggak with the call number 奎 12963, no pagination, under the date kimyo 己卯/5/11; Ogura Shinpei 小倉進平, Zōtei hochū Chōsen gogakushi 増訂補注朝鮮語学史, exp. 2nd ed. (1st ed., 1920), ed. Kōno Robuō (1940; Tōkyō: Tōkō Shoin, 1964), 611. 101. Luo Zhenyu 羅振玉, comp., “Tiancong chao chengong zouyi” 天聰朝臣工奏議, in Shiliao congkan chubian, in vol. 2 of Ming-Qing shiliao congshu ba zhong, typeset (1924; Beijing Tushuguan Chubanshe, 2005), 362–63. 102. I am borrowing the notion from Pamela Kyle Crossley, “The Historical Writing of Qing Imperial Expansion,” in The Oxford History of Historical Writing, vol. 3: 1400–1800, ed. José Rabasa, Masayuki Sato, Edoardo Tortarolo, and Daniel Woolf (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 49. 103. Guanglu and Li, “Qing Taizu chao Lao Manwen yuandang,” 29–40 (includes a transcription and Chinese translation). Guanglu and Li assumed the comment to have been uttered by Hong Taiji. 104. Manwen yuandang, vol. 3, 440–41. 105. Manwen yuandang, vol. 3, 441. 106. Manwen yuandang, vol. 3, 442. 107. Michael Weiers drew attention both to this source and to its mention of the invention of the Manchu script: Weiers, “Einige Bemerkungen,” 275–76. I should note that Weiers is citing from the microfilm of these records, in which the order of the pages has been jumbled, so that is why his contextualization of the event differs from the one that I present here. 108. Naikoku Shiin tō, 168 (transcribed text and Japa nese translation) and 373 (109a, facsimile). 109. Naikoku Shiin tō, 168–69 (transcribed text and Japa nese translation), 373–74 (109a– 110a, facsimiles). The Manchu text is also quoted in Weiers, “Einige Bemerkungen,” 275–76. I have relied on Weiers’s translation to elucidate obscure passages in the Manchu. 110. Yan, “Wu quandian laodang . . . quanshi,” 265–66. 111. Xie Guian 谢贵安, Qing shilu yanjiu 清实录研究 (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2013), 286. 112. Qing shigao 清史稿, ed. Zhao Erxun 趙爾巽 (1927; Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1977), vol. 30, 9134 (ch. 223).

242

Notes to Pages 36–39

113. A similar procedure of appropriating dialogue for new purposes is seen elsewhere in the Nurhaci Records. The editors took a myth recorded in the original archive as spoken by a defeated Hûrha tribesman and made it into a story of the origin of Nurhaci’s own clan: Giovanni Stary, “Mandschurische Miszellen” (1982), in Walravens, Selected Manchu Studies, 26–29. 114. Da Qing Manzhou shilu, Da Qing Taizu Gao huangdi shilu 大清滿洲實錄、大清太祖高 皇帝實錄, facsimile of manuscript (Taipei: Huawen Shuju, 1969), 108–10. 115. Jiu Manzhou dang, vol. 10, 1439; Mark C. Elliott, “Whose Empire Shall It Be? Manchu Figurations of Historical Process in the Early Seventeenth Century,” in Critical Readings on the Manchus in Modern China (1616–2012), ed. Lars Laamann (2005; Leiden: Brill, 2013), vol. 1, 265, 266–76. 116. Cabuhai, Nengtu, and Yecengge, Aisin gurun-i suduri, 4:42a, translated in Harlez, Histoire de l’empire de Kin, 129. Chinese original is in Jin shi, 158–61 (ch. 7). 117. Explained in Charles de Harlez, trans., “Une page de l’histoire des Mongols— Proœmium du Dai-Yuwan gurun-i suduri bithe,” Journal Asiatique, no. 2 (1883): 309–12. 118. See Imanishi Shunjū 今西春秋, ed., Taikō “Shin Taiso jitsuroku” 對校清太祖實錄 (Tenri, 1973), 71–72. 119. Imanishi Shunjū 今西春秋, “Shin Taisō jitsuroku no shoshu kaishi nenji to setsusei ōchoku ron” 淸太宗實錄の初修開始年次と攝政王勅論, Tōyōshi kenkyū 2, no.  1 (1936): 64; Imanishi Shunjū 今西春秋, “Shin san chō ‘Jitsuroku’ no sanshū (ka)” 清三朝實錄の纂修（下）, Shirin 20, no. 4 (1935): 167; Xie, Qing shilu yanjiu, 180–83. Further: Matsumura Jun 松村潤, “Kōki chō chōshū Taizō jitsuroku ni tsuite” 康熙朝重修太宗実録について, in Di yi jie Zhongguo yuwai Hanji guoji xueshu huiyi lunwen ji, ed. Lianhebao Wenhua Jijin Hui Guoxue Wenxian Guan (Taipei: Lianhebao Wenhua Jijin Hui Guoxue Wenxian Guan, 1987), 655. The only Manchu version accessible (extant?) today dates from 22 October  1682 (Kangxi 21/9/22; elhe taifin-i orin emuci aniya uyun biyai orin juwe): “Daicing gurun-i taidzung su hûwangdi-i yargiyan kooli,” microfilm of manuscript held at the First Historical Archives, Beijing. 120. The draft of the first Chinese translation dated the episode to 25 April  1632 (Tiancong 6/3/7; “Neige Daku dang’an” 内閣大庫檔案, database with images, http://www .ihp.sinica .edu.tw/db/cgsa /, document no. 166449-001) but that document was not generally accessible in the Qing period. Two finished Chinese versions dated it to 19 April 1632 (Tiancong 6/3/1; “Taizong Wen Huangdi shilu” 太宗文皇帝實錄, manuscript, held at the National Palace Museum Library, Taipei with the call number 1030000144-158, 9:14b; Taizong Wen huangdi shilu 太宗文皇帝實錄, in vol. 2 of Qing shilu, facsimiles of manuscript [Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986], 156), but Dahai was there said to have carried out his work in February or March (Tiancong 6/1). In the Manchu version from 1682, however, Dahai’s contributions to Manchu script reform were dated to 19 April 1632 (Tiancong 6/3/1; “Daicing gurun-i taidzung su hûwangdi-i yargiyan kooli,” 11:19b: “The day of the Yellow Dog [i.e., wuxu], third month, sixth year of the Wise Khan” [sure han-i ningguci aniya . . . ilan biyai ice de suwayan indahûn inenggi]). 121. “Daicing gurun-i taidzung su hûwangdi-i yargiyan kooli,” 11:20b. 122. Taizong Wen huangdi shilu, reprinted version, 156. 123. Xiong Shibo 熊士伯, Dengqie yuansheng 等切元聲, held at National Taiwan Normal University Library with the call number A940 680 1 (Shangyou Tang, 1709), 9:1a. 124. Elliott, Manchu Way, ch. 8; Mark C. Elliott, “Ethnicity in the Qing Eight Banners,” in Empire at the Margins: Culture, Ethnicity, and Frontier in Early Modern China, ed.

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Pamela Kyle Crossley, Helen F. Siu, and Donald S. Sutton (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 47–50. 125. Han-i araha jakûn gûsai tung jy bithe, ed. Hûng Jeo, Maci, and Ortai (Beijing: Wuying Dian, 1739), 236:1b–2a; Baqi tongzhi, chu ji 八旗通志—初集 (Beijing: Wuying Dian, 1739), 236:1a–b. Also: Guan, “Lao Manwen gaige shijian kao,” 15. 126. The biography on file is “Da Qing guoshi renwu liezhuan ji Shiguan dang zhuanbao, zhuan’gao ziliao ku” 大清國史人物列傳及史館檔傳包傳稿資料庫, http://npmhost.npm .gov.tw/tts/npmmeta /DQ/indexcg.html, document no. 701006265 (which only gives the year, not the reign title). The passage is in the Ode: Mukden-i fujurun bithe, held at Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin with the call number Möllendorf 53-1 (1743), 44a–b (Manchu); Yuzhi Shengjing fu 御製盛京賦 | mukden-i fu bithe, held at Cambridge University Library with the call number Wade FC.99.25 (1743), 36b (Chinese). 127. Erich Hauer, ed. and trans., Huang-ts’ing k’ai-kuo fang-lüeh: Die Gründung des mandschurischen Kaiserreiches (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1926), 31–32, 373–74. The translation of the title follows Crossley, “Historical Writing,” 55. 128. Manzhou yuanliu kao 满洲源流考, by Agui 阿桂, typeset, ed. Sun Wenliang and Lu Yuhua (original dating from 1783; Shenyang: Liaoning Minzu Chubanshe, 1988), 29, 329; Pamela Kyle Crossley, “Manzhou yuanliu kao and the Formalization of the Manchu Heritage,” Journal of Asian Studies 46, no. 4 (1987): 765. 129. Knight Biggerstaff, “Some Notes on the Tung-hua lu 東華錄 and the Shih-lu 實錄,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 4 (1939): 102–5. 130. Kondō Jūzō 近藤重蔵, Kondō Seisai zenshū 近藤正齋全集 (Tōkyō: Kokusho Kankōkai, 1905–6), vol. 3, 326. I am grateful to Yongcheng Chao for pointing me toward Kondō. 131. Naitō Konan 内藤湖南, “Mukashi no Manshū kenkyū” 昔の満洲研究, in Naitō Konan zenshū (1912; Tōkyō: Chikuma Shobō, 1969), vol. 8, 260; Matsumura, “Kōki chō chōshū Taizō jitsuroku,” 657–67; Shimada Tsukuba 島田築波, “Kitashino hyōsai: Dai-Shin sanchō jiryaku no hensha” 北條氷齋—大清三朝事略の編者—, Nihon oyobi Nihonjin, 15 May 1916, 98–100. 132. Amiot’s name is encountered in a number of ways: cf. Camille de Rochemonteix, ed., Joseph Amiot et les derniers survivants de la Mission française à Pékin (1750–1795), nombreux documents inédits, avec carte (Paris: Alphonse Picard et Fils, 1915); Marie-Rose Séguy, foreword to Catalogue du fonds mandchou, by Jeanne-Marie Puyraimond in collaboration with Walter Simon (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1979), 7; Pamela Kyle Crossley and Evelyn S. Rawski, “A Profile of the Manchu Language in Ch’ing History,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 53, no. 1 (1993): 87; Joseph Dehergne, Répertoire des Jésuites de Chine de 1552 à 1800 (Rome/Paris: Institutum Historicum/Letouzey & Ané, 1973), 12; Emmanuel Davin, “Un éminent sinologue toulonnais du XVIIIe siècle, le R. P. Amiot, S.J. (1718–1793),” Bulletin de l’Association Guillaume Budé, no. 3 (1961): 386. 133. Rochemonteix, Joseph Amiot et les derniers survivants, 11; François Picard, “Amiot Joseph Marie, père,” in Dictionnaire des orientalistes de langue française, ed. François Pouillon (Paris: Karthala, 2008), 18–19. Also on Amiot: Louis Pfister, Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les Jésuites de l’ancienne mission de Chine, 1552–1773, ed. Le Bureau Sinologique (Shanghai: Imprimerie de la Mission Catholique, 1932), 837–60 (entry 392); Alexander Statman, “China Enchanted: Transformations of Knowledge in the Enlightenment World” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 2017), chs. 2–5. 134. Joseph-Marie Amiot, Éloge de la Ville de Moukden et de ses environs; poème composé par Kien-long, Empereur de la Chine & de la Tartarie, actuellement régnant, red. Joseph de

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Guignes (Paris: N. M. Tilliard, 1770), 298–300. More on Amiot’s text and its Eu ropean reception: Etō Toshio 衛藤利夫, Kenryū gyosei “Seikyō fu” ni tsuite 乾隆御製「盛京賦」に就いて (Shenyang: Hōten Toshokan [Fengtian Tushuguan], 1931); Crossley and Rawski, “Profile,” 95–96. 135. In a letter to his Pa risian patron Henri Bertin. Amiot’s purpose was to support his understanding of the Manchu script against that of Louis-Mathieu Langlès (see Chapter 8). Amiot probably added his own inferences to the narrative of the Manchu script’s history that he was reporting, which would explain that the unnamed Manchu scholars whom he cited refer to “the oldest of languages, the language of the first humans” (la plus ancienne des langues, de cette langue que les premiers hommes ont parlée) in words that seem to belong more in the Eu ropean eighteenth century than in Qing China (the language was Chinese, by the way). Reading different accounts of the origin of written Manchu and the passage of time seem to have confused things further for Amiot: Joseph-Marie Amiot to Henri Bertin, Beijing, 20 August 1790, in the collection “Correspondance des RR. PP. Jésuites missionnaires en Chine avec H.-L.-J.-B. Bertin,” letters held at Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, Paris, with the call numbers MS 1515–26 (MS 1517 for this letter), 7–8 (local pagination of letter; viz. 107a–b). 136. Amiot was the source for the later mistaken identification of the creators of the Manchu script in print by Louis-Mathieu Langlès, Alphabet mantchou, rédigé d’après le Syllabaire et le Dictionnaire universel de cette langue, 3rd ed. (1st ed., 1787) (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1807), 55. Langlès was criticized in Julius Klaproth, Mémoires relatifs à l’Asie, contenant des recherches historiques, géographiques et philologiques sur les peuples de l’Orient (Paris: DondeyDupré, père et fils, 1826), vol. 3, 58. Klaproth inferred that the events described there happened in 1641, which is not stated in the original: Julius Klaproth, Reise in den Kaukasus und nach Georgien, unternommen in den Jahren 1807 und 1808, auf Veranstaltung der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu St. Petersburg (Halle: Waisenhaus, 1814), vol. 2 (first vol. of pt. II), 561, translating the Manchu original version of Baqi tongzhi (Han-i araha jakûn gûsai, 236:4b–5a). Klaproth probably got that date from Amiot’s translation of the Ode, and thus he also in part perpetuated Amiot’s mistake.

chapter 2 Note to epigraph: Shen Qiliang 沈啟亮, Da Qing quanshu 大清全書 | daicing gurun-i yooni bithe, facsimile (1683; Shenyang: Liaoning Minzu Chubanshe, 2008), xu:4a (3). 1. Ma Yong 马镛, Qingdai juan (zhong) 清代卷（中）, vol. 10 of Zhongguo jiaoyu tongshi, ed. Wang Bingzhao, Li Guojun, and Yan Guohua (Beijing: Beijing Shifan Daxue Chubanshe, 2013), 96–97. 2. Liu Yanchen 刘彦臣, “Qingdai ‘guoyu qishe’ zhengce yanjiu” 清代“国语骑射”政策研究 (PhD diss., Dongbei Shifan Daxue, 2010), 41. 3. Stephen Durrant, “Clarity Versus Character: Abahai’s Antidote to the Complexities of Chinese,” Manchu Studies Newsletter, nos. 1/2 (1977–78): 62–63. 4. Christoph Harbsmeier, Language and Logic in Traditional China, pt. 1 of vol. 7, Science and Civilisation in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 88. A common belief that early Chinese grammatology recognized two structurally different types of written characters had been revealed as a misconception: Françoise Bottéro, “Revisiting the wen and the zi: The Great Chinese Characters Hoax,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 74 (2004): 14–33.

Notes to Pages 46–53

245

5. Gu Yanwu 顧炎武, “Rizhi lu” jiao zhu 日知錄校注, critical, typeset ed., ed. Chen Yuan (Hefei: Anhui Daxue Chubanshe, 2006), 1169–70. 6. Zhang Zilie 張自烈, Zhengzi tong 正字通, ed. Liao Wenying, held at Naikaku Bunko, Tokyo, with the call number 278 116 (1671; Jiezi Tang, 1672), Gong xu:5b–6a. 7. For Eu rope: Danièle Alexandre-Bidon, “Abécédaires et alphabets éducatifs du XIIIe à la fin du XVe siècle,” Nouvelles de l’estampe 90 (1986): 6–10; Danièle Alexandre-Bidon, “La lettre volée: Apprendre à lire à l’enfant au Moyen Age,” Annales 44 (1989): 953–92; Danièle Alexandre-Bidon, “A tavola!—les rudiments de l’éducation des enfants italiens à la fin du Moyen Age et au XVIe siècle,” Chroniques italiennes 22/23 (1990): 7–34. 8. Jacques Gernet, “L’éducation des premières années (du XIe au XVIIe siècle),” in Education et instruction en Chine: I. L’éducation élémentaire, ed. Christine Nguyen Tri and Catherine Despeux (Paris: Éditions Peeters, 2003), 7–20. 9. Gernet, “L’éducation des premières années,” 38. 10. Li Yu, “Character Recognition: A New Method of Learning to Read in Late Imperial China,” Late Imperial China 33, no. 2 (2012): 1–39. 11. Li Yu, “Learning to Read in Late Imperial China,” Studies on Asia Series II 1, no. 1 (2003): 7–28. 12. Jean-Pierre Diény, “Les années d’apprentissage de Cui Shu,” Études chinoises 13, nos. 1/2 (1994): 184. 13. Gernet, “L’éducation des premières années,” 42–43. 14. Evelyn S. Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch’ing China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1979), 45–52; Angela Ki Che Leung, “Elementary Education in the Lower Yangtze Region in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in Education and Society in Late Imperial China, 1600–1900, ed. Benjamin A. Elman and Alexander Woodside (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 393. 15. Zhang Zhigong 张志公, Chuantong yuwen jiaoyu chutan (fu mengxue shumu gao) 传統 语文教育初探（附蒙学书目稿） (Shanghai: Shanghai Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 1962), 38. 16. Yu, “Character Recognition,” 9. 17. Leung, “Elementary Education,” 393. 18. Michael Knight, “Introduction: Decoding Chinese Calligraphy,” in Out of Character: Decoding Chinese Calligraphy, ed. Michael Knight and Joseph Z. Chang (San Francisco: Asian Art Museum, 2012), 35–36. 19. Leung, “Elementary Education,” 393. 20. Knight, “Introduction,” 19–21. 21. Xue Longchun, “From ‘Dot and Strokes’ to ‘Lines’: On Changes Great and Small in Late Ming Calligraphy,” in Knight and Chang, Out of Character, 221–67. 22. Mei Yingzuo 梅膺祚, Zihui 字彙 (Mei Shiqian, Mei Shijie, 1615), fanli:4a–b. 23. Mei, Zihui, shoujuan:4a. 24. Manwen yuandang, vol. 8, 383. 25. This is the number given in Louis [Lajos] Ligeti, “À propos de l’écriture mandchoue,” Acta Orientalia Academiæ Scientarum Hungaricæ 2 (1952): 240–41. Moreover, the fact that the pairing of the inner and outer sequences did not produce all the syllables possible in Manchu compelled some writers of syllabaries to expand on this structure, causing further fluctuation of the total syllable count. 26. E.g., Lilya M. Gorelova, Manchu Grammar (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 49–76. 27. Ling Shaowen 凌紹雯 and Chen Kechen 陳可臣, Xinke Qingshu quanji 新刻清書全集 | ice foloho manju-i geren bithe (Nanjing: Tingsong Lou, 1699), vol. 1, fanli [1]:1a.

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28. Zhu Xi 朱熹, Sishu zhangju jizhu 四書章句集注, 2nd critical ed. (1983; Zhonghua Shuju, 2012), 3. For Zhu Xi’s view on the order in which the Four books should be studied, see Daniel K. Gardner, “Principle and Pedagogy: Chu Hsi and the Four Books,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 44, no. 1 (1984): 57–81. 29. Shang Yuzhang 尚玉章, Qingwen xuzi jiangyue 清文虛字講約, new ed. (Minggao Ge, 1724), 8a. 30. Joseph S. Sebes, “A Description of the Tartars (Manchus) by the Jesuit Gabriel de Magalhães in 1647 When He First Encountered Them at the Time of Their Conquest of China,” Manchu Studies Newsletter, no. 4 (1981–82): 6. The source is an archival document that was unavailable to me. Magalhães’s narrative treats both the Manchus (“Eastern Tartars”) and Mongols (“Northern” and “Western Tartars”). The description of the language occurs in a passage that is later concluded by “ These are the Tartars of the West and North,” which would imply that the language and script described is that of the Mongols. However, I have taken it to refer to the Manchu language and script because the description of the language’s vowels looks like a description of Manchu more than of Mongolian: “ There are in theory five but in reality six vowels: a, e, i, o, u, ü.” If it were a description of Mongolian, I would expect seven vowels. Furthermore, the description of the diacritics, adding aspiration or making consonants “guttural,” sounds like a description of the Manchu script. Finally, the script is said to be in twelve chapters. It might be that Magalhães included the description of the language and script in this section because he believed it was the same for all of the Tartars, writing that the eastern Tartars “have no alphabet of their own, and the one they now use they borrowed from the Western Tartars.” 31. Thomas Taylor Meadows, Manchu Literature, with the Original Texts, Prefaced by an Essay on the Language (Guangzhou: Press of S. Wells Williams, 1849), 3. 32. Langlès, Alphabet mantchou, 95–96. 33. As Langlès was writing from Paris, he cannot be considered to have been an observer. 34. Ikegami Jirō 池上二郎, “Yōroppa ni aru Manshūgo bunken ni tsuite” ヨーロッパに ある満洲語文献について, Tōyō gakuhō 45, no.  3 (1962): 106–8, 111; Kanda Nobuo 神田信夫, “Ōbei genson no Manshūgo bunken” 欧米現存の満洲語文献, Tōyō gakuhō 48, no. 2 (1965): 87–89; Kanda Nobuo, “Present State of Preservation of Manchu Liter ature,” Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 26 (1968): 69–70, 89–90; Kanda Nobuo, “Shen Ch’iliang and His Works on the Manchu Language,” in Ch’en and Jagchid, Proceedings of the Third East Asian Altaistic Conference, 136–37; “Xuxiu ‘Siku quanshu’ ” zongmu tiyao (gaoben) 續修四庫全書總目提要 (稿本), ed. Zhongguo Kexueyuan Tushuguan 中國科學院圖書館, facsimiles of manuscripts by multiple authors (Jinan: Qi-Lu Shushe, 1996), vol. 5, 662–63; Mark C. Elliott and James Bosson, “Highlights of the Manchu-Mongolian Collection,” in Treasures of the Yenching: Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Harvard-Yenching Library, ed. Patrick Hanan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard University, 2003), 94–95. 35. See, e.g., the instructions in Shier zitou 十二字頭, held at the Harvard-Yenching Library with the call number Ma5806.02 4131 (two works share this call number), 1a. I should note that these instructions in addition to recitation mention writing of the syllabary. 36. Alexandre-Bidon, “La lettre volée,” 984. 37. “Manwen zitou” 滿文字頭 | manju juwan juwe uju bithe, manuscript held at Dalian Library with the call number M22-140. 38. For which, see Zhang, Chuantong yuwen jiaoyu chutan, 40–86.

Notes to Pages 56–60

247

39. Tatiana [Tatjana] A. Pang, “Mandschurische Sprachführer aus der Sammlung der Leningrader Abteilung des Orientalischen Instituts der Akademie der Wissenschaften,” Central Asiatic Journal 22, nos. 1/2 (1988): 91–97. 40. E.g., Shen Qiliang 沈啟亮, ed., Qingshu zhinan 清書指南 | manju gisun-i jy nan, 1682, extant only as a supplement to Shen Qiliang 沈啟亮, Da Qing quanshu 大清全書 | daicing gurun-i yooni bithe, 2nd ed., 2nd printing (1683; Beijing: San yi Tang/Zungu Tang, 1713). 41. This should not be taken to mean that all intermediate-level textbooks included instructions on how to write the script even as late as the nineteenth century. For example, “Chuxue duozhen” 初學度針 | teni tacime ubaliyambure durun kemun (manuscript held at Peking University Library with the call number SB 419.1 3708 [datable to 1821–61]) taught only morphology and syntax, while being addressed to “beginners” (Ch. tongmeng 童蒙; Ma. teni tacire urse; xu:n.p.) in the study of Manchu-Chinese translation. 42. Behe, Qingyu yiyan 清語易言 | manju gisun be ja-i gisurere bithe, held at HarvardYenching Library with the call number TMA 5806.07 224 (Beijing, 1766), 4a. 43. Yingsheng 瀛生, “Tantan Qingdai de Manyu jiaoxue” 谈谈清代的满语教学, Manzu yanjiu, no. 3 (1990): 47. 44. Juntu, Yi xue san guan Qingwen jian 一學三貫清文鑑, facsimile, vol. 723 of Gugong zhenben congkan (1746; Haikou: Hainan Chubanshe, 2001), fanli:1b (3). 45. “Renming quanwei: Renwu zhuanji ziliao ku” 人名權威：人物傳記資料庫, database, http://archive.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/ttsweb/html_name/index.php, document no. 003622. On the position of qixin lang: Miyazaki Ichisada 宮﨑市定, “Shinchō ni okeru kokugo mondai no ichimen” 清朝における国語問題の一面 (1947), in Miyazaki Ichisada zenshū (Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten, 1991–94), vol. 14, 332–33; Hucker, Dictionary, 136 (item 627). 46. Guangxu Baoding fu zhi 光緒保定府志 (1881), by Zhang Yukai 張豫塏, revised by Zhang Jingxun and Li Peihu, facsimile, in vols. 30–31 of Zhongguo difang zhi jicheng: Hebei fu xian zhi ji (1886; Shanghai: Shanghai Shudian, 2006), vol. 2, 55:7b–8a (252). 47. Benjamin A. Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 300. 48. Qianlong Gaolan xian zhi 乾隆皋蘭縣志, by Huang Jianzhong 黃建中, revised by Wu Dingxin, facsimile, in vol. 3 of Zhongguo difang zhi jicheng: Gansu fu xian zhi ji (1778; Nanjing: Fenghuang Chubanshe, 2008), 7:1b (72). 49. E.g., the copy now held at Indiana University Library, as described in Hartmut Walravens, “Vorläufige Titelliste der Mandjurica in Bibliotheken der USA,” Zentralasiatische Studien 10 (1976): 578. 50. Furuya Akihiro 古屋昭弘, Chō Jiretsu “Seijitsū” jion kenkyū 張自烈「正字通」字音研究 (Tōkyō: Kōbun Shuppan, 2009), 10–33. 51. To my knowledge extant only in one, incomplete copy: Tongwen yaolan 同文要覽 | tûng wen yolan, held at Minzu University of China Library with the call number 滿 41.5512 4. 52. Wu Huifang 吳蕙芳 [Wu Huey-Fang], “Wanbao quanshu”: Ming-Qing shiqi de minjian shenghuo shilu 萬寶全書：明清時期的民間生活實錄, rev. 2nd ed. (2001; Taipei: Huamulan, 2005), 57–59, does not list the 1746 print, but one from 1739 from the same publisher. Alexander Wylie, Translation of the “T’sing wan k’e mung,” a Chinese Grammar of the Manchu Tartar Language; With Introductory Notes on Manchu Literature (Shanghai: London Mission Press, 1855), xlviii, first drew attention to the Manchu-Chinese vocabulary, also referring to the 1739 print. 53. Zhang Zilie 张自烈, Qishan wenji 芑山文集, facsimile, vols. 245–54 of Yuzhang congshu (1686; Hangzhou/Nanchang: Hangzhou Guji Shudian/Nanchang Guji Shudian, 1985),

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Notes to Pages 60–68

vol. 250, 15:19a. I found this quote through Furuya, Chō Jiretsu, 18. Some other editions of Zhang’s collection do not include the piece from which this sentence is quoted. 54. Liao, Shier zitou, shier zitou yin:4b (60). 55. Furuya Akihiro 古屋昭弘 [Guwu Zhaohong], “Guanyu Paizhang zhiyin de chengshu shijian wenti” 关于《拍掌知音》的成书时间问题, Zhongguo yuwen, no. 6 (1994): 452–53; Liao Lunji 廖綸璣, “Liao Lunji Paizhang zhiyin yingyin ben” 廖綸璣《拍掌知音》影印本, ed. Fangyan Bianji Bu, Fangyan, no. 2 (1979): 143–54. 56. I have seen the following five editions of Zhengzi tong: Chengwan Cai ed. (Tanyang), held at Naikaku Bunko, Tokyo, with the call number 楓經 521; Sanwei Tang ed., new cut, held at Naikaku Bunko, Tokyo, with the call number 278 123; Hongwen Shuyuan ed., new cut, held at the Institute for Advanced Study on Asia, University of Tokyo, with the call number 經小學字書 42 (443); Jiezi Tang ed.; Qingwei Tang ed. (1685), held at Naikaku Bunko, Tokyo, with the call number 278 125. 57. Liao, Shier zitou, shier zitou yin:1a (58). 58. Liao, Shier zitou, shier zitou yin:1a (58). 59. Liu, “Hanzi zhuyin Manwen shier zitou,” ba:2b. 60. Liao, Shier zitou, shier zitou yin:4a (60). 61. Liao, Shier zitou, shier zitou yin:3b (59). 62. Liao, Shier zitou, shier zitou yin:1b–3a (58–9). 63. Ling and Chen, Xinke Qingshu quanji, Ling xu:2b–3a; Walter Fuchs, “Neue Beiträge zur mandjurischen Bibliographie und Literatur,” Monumenta Serica 7, nos. 1/2 (1942): 1–4. The title page is reproduced in Huang Runhua 黃潤華, ed., Guojia Tushuguan cang Manwen wenxian tulu 國家圖書館藏滿文文獻圖錄 (Beijing: Guojia Tushuguan Chubanshe, 2010), 16. There was a second edition. A copy is held at Keio University Library, Tokyo, with the call number 語二 47.1. The collection where this book is found is described in Kin Bunkyō 金文京 and Takahashi Satoshi 高橋智, “Keiō Gijuku Daigaku Gengo Bunka Kenkyūjo shozō Nagashima Eiichirō shi kyūzō Chūgoku gogaku (shogaku) shiryō ni tsuite: Kaisetsu to mokuroku” 慶應義塾大学言語文化研究所所蔵永島栄一郎氏旧蔵中国言語学（小学）資料についてー解説 と目録ー, Keiō Gijuku Daigaku Gengo Bunka Kenkyūjo kiyō 34 (2002): 231–77. 64. The translation of the name of this institution is in accordance with Naquin, Peking, 90. 65. Ling and Chen, Xinke Qingshu quanji, ling xu:1a–b. 66. E.g., the book whose cover and first page are reproduced in Gugong bowuyuan 故宫博物院, ed., Tongwen zhi sheng: Qinggong cang minzu yuwen cidian 同文之盛：清宫藏民族语 文辞典 (Beijing: Zijincheng Chubanshe, 2009), 68–69. 67. Zhongguo lishi diming cidian 中國歷史地名辭典, by Fudan Daxue Lishi Dili Yanjiu Suo Zhongguo Lishi Diming Cidian Bianweihui 复旦大学历史地理研究所《中国历史地名辞 典》编委会 (Nanchang: Jiangxi Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 1986), 680. 68. Naquin, Peking, 356, map 11.1. 69. Shen, Da Qing quanshu, xu:4a–b. 70. Shen Qiliang 沈啟亮, “Yuzhi baijia xing” Man-Han heji 御製百家姓滿漢合集 | ioi jy be giya sing (Beijing: Yandu Cheng Shi [engraver], 1693), 1b. 71. Shen, “Yuzhi baijia xing,” 1b. 72. Shen Qiliang 沈啟亮, Shier zitou jizhu 十二字頭集註, held at the library of the National Museum of China (Chongli Tang, 1686), xu:1b. 73. Shen, Shier zitou jizhu, xu:2a. 74. Shen, Shier zitou jizhu, xu:2a.

Notes to Pages 68–73

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75. Shen, Shier zitou jizhu, xu:2b. 76. Liao, Shier zitou, shier zitou yin:2a–b (59). 77. Shen, Shier zitou jizhu, shier zitou:3b. 78. Shen, Shier zitou jizhu, dufa:1a–b. 79. Shen, Shier zitou jizhu, shier zitou:7a. 80. Shen, Shier zitou jizhu, shier zitou:7a. 81. Shen, Shier zitou jizhu, shier zitou:3a. 82. A. Róna-Tas, “Some Notes on the Terminology of Mongolian Writing,” Acta Orientalia Academiæ Scientiarum Hungaricæ 18, nos. 1/2 (1965): 135. 83. Shen, Shier zitou jizhu, shier zitou:3a. 84. Kanda, “Present State,” 89; Kanda, “Shen Ch’i-liang,” 129; Giovanni Stary, Opere mancesi in Italia e in Vaticano (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1985), 41–42; Yao Xiaoping 姚小平, “Fandigang Tushuguan suocang ruogan Ming-Qing yuyan wenzi shu” 梵蒂冈图书馆所藏若 干明清语言文字书, Yuyan kexue 5, no. 6 (2006): 103–4. 85. Jianzhu shier zitou 箋註十二字頭 | giyan ju ši el dzi teo, ascribed to Shen Qiliang 沈啟亮, incomplete copy held at the Vatican Apostolic Library with the call number BORG. CINESE 351.7 (Beijing: Fukui Zhai, 1701), 1a. 86. En-hua 恩华, Baqi yiwen bianmu 八旗艺文编目, typeset, ed. Guan Jixin (1941; Shenyang: Liaoning Minzu Chubanshe, 2006), 12. 87. Wu-ge 舞格, Qingwen qimeng 清文啟蒙 | cing wen ki meng bithe (Beijing: Sanhuai Tang, 1730), xu:1a. 88. Wu-ge, Qingwen qimeng, xu:2b; cf. Wylie, Translation of the “T’sing wan k’e mung,” 1 (of the “Preface”). 89. The relationship between the various editions of the book has been clarified by Ikegami, “Yōroppa ni aru Manshūgo,” who grouped them into three groups (pp.  114–16 for group I), each represented by several editions. I have used the Sanhuai Tang edition (no date of printing), classified by Ikegami as representing the original version of Qingwen qimeng. 90. Wu-ge, Qingwen qimeng, 1:52a–57a. 91. Wu-ge, Qingwen qimeng, 1:13b–14a. 92. One example is the medial form of /k/: -k-. It was not attested in the simple syllabary, which only showed /k/ either in initial or in final position, regardless of whether the front- or the back-vowel forms were used. Wu-ge discussed the behavior of /k/ as seen in actual words: Wu-ge, Qingwen qimeng, 1:20b. 93. Mårten Söderblom Saarela, “Shier zitou jizhu (Collected notes on the twelve heads): A Recently Discovered Work by Shen Qiliang,” Saksaha 12 (2014): 27. 94. Juntu, Yi xue san guan, fanli:1b (3). 95. Qinding huangchao tongzhi 欽定皇朝通志, 2nd ed. (1787; Zhejiang Shuju, 1882), 11:8a. Manchu uncehen, “tail,” referring to the last stroke of many syllables in isolated or final position, corresponded to Mongolian segül, a word with the same basic and figurative meaning: Róna-Tas, “Some Notes,” 135. 96. Fügiyün, Qingwen zhiyao 清文指要 | manju gisun-i oyonggo jorin-i bithe (1809), held at Minzu University of China Library with the call number 41.25 4, shang:14a–15b; Algitai, “Juwan juwe uju” (1902), manuscript held at the Cultural Palace of Nationalities, Beijing, with the call number 滿 92-218 4 under the retrospective title Manwen shier zitou 滿文十二字頭; “Manwen zitou”; Man-Han hebi shier zitou 滿漢合壁十二字頭 | manju nikan hergen kamcime araha juwan juwe ujui bithe, lithograph held at Minzu University of China Library with the call number 41.551 2, 11a–b.

250

Notes to Pages 73–78

97. “Man-Han ziyin lianzhu shiwen” 滿漢字音聯註釋文 (datable to 1861–75), manuscript held at Dalian Library with the call number M22-149, clearly related to “Chuxue Manwen zhimeng ge” 初學滿文指蒙歌 (datable to 1862–1911), manuscript held at Minzu University of China Library with the call number 41.5511 7. Less articulated distinctions of initial, medial, and final syllable types are seen in “Juwan juwe uju bithe,” manuscript held at the HarvardYenching Library with the call number Ma 5806.02 4130, and in “Manzhou yu bifa” 滿洲語筆 法, manuscript held at Kyujanggak, Seoul, with the call number 想白古 495.93-M314. 98. “Chuxue bianshi Qingzi xuzhi” 初學辨識清字須知 (probably written after 1830), manuscript held at the Institute for Ethnology and Anthropology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences with the call number 经 91612527 2323474.

chapter 3 1. Luo Changpei 罗常培, “Shengyun tongran ji can’gao ba”《声韵同然集》残稿跋, in vol. 8 of Luo Changpei wenji (1929; Jinan: Shandong Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 2008), 107–12; Tu Lienchê, “Liu Hsien-t’ing,” in Hummel, Eminent Chinese, vol. 1, 1521–22. 2. Inferred from Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 1, 1:xu:1a. 3. Nanchang fu zhi 南昌府志, held at Princeton University Library with the call number B 194 924 GDEC (Nanchang: Nanchang Xianxue Wenchang Ci, 1873), 42:13a. 4. Xiong Shibo 熊士伯, Guyin zhengyi 古音正義, partially illegible mimeographed book held at Beijing Normal University Library, xu:1a. 5. Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day, 268. 6. Ma, Qingdai juan (zhong), 16–20, 53, 87. 7. Xi Peng 郗鹏, “Qingdai ba qi guanxue jiaoshi shuping” 清代八旗官学教师述评, Dongbei shidi, no. 5 (2006): 60. 8. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:xu:1a. 9. Shizu Zhang huangdi shilu 世祖章皇帝實錄, in vol. 3 of Qing shilu, 66:10b–11a (518–19); Liu, “Qingdai ‘guoyu qishe,’ ” 42. 10. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:xu:1a. 11. Fu-ge 福格, Ting yu congtan 聽雨叢談 (written in the Qing period, sometime after 1850), typeset, red. Wang Beiping (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1984), 115–16; Hucker, Dictionary, 141 for jiaozhi and 142 for jiaoshou, another term for the same position. At least Xiong was later, in 1684, given a job as instructor (jiaoshou 教授; N.B. not jiaoxi) in a civilian government school: Jianchang fu zhi 建昌府志, facsimile, in vols. 6–7 of Jiangxi fu, zhou, xian zhi (1759; Haikou: Hainan Chubanshe, 2001), 36:31b (vol. 6, 391, Kangxi 23). 12. Nanchang fu zhi, 4:13a, erroneously has Nankang; Jianchang fu zhi, 36:31b (vol. 6, 391), has Nanfeng county, which was under the jurisdiction of Jianchang 建昌 prefecture. 13. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 1, Tang xu:2b and xu:1b. 14. Jianchang fu zhi, 36:31b (vol. 6, 391). 15. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 1, Tang xu:2a. 16. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:xu:1a. 17. Zhang Minquan 张民权, Qingdai qianqi guyin xue yanjiu 清代前期古音学研究 (Beijing: Beijing Guangbo Xueyuan Chubanshe, 2002), vol. 2, 154, 165. The longer title of Liu’s book is from Liu Ning 劉凝, Zhou Xuanwang shigu wen dingben 周宣王石鼓文定本, facsimile, in vol. 200 (jingbu) of “Siku quanshu” cunmu congshu (Jinan: Qi-Lu Shushe, 1997), Li xu:4a (403). The prefaces in this latter collection are dated 1665, 1667, 1679, and 1705. The

Notes to Pages 78–81

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book itself is lost. More examples of Xiong’s phonological activity around this time: Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 1, 3:1a–3b (an essay from 1703). 18. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 1, xu:1b–2a. 19. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:xu:1b is signed in that year, but no location is given. 20. Xiong, Guyin zhengyi, 1:4b; Zhang, Qingdai qianqi, vol. 2, 163 and 165. 21. Victor H. Mair and Tsu-lin Mei, “The Sanskrit Origins of Recent Style Prosody,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 51 (1991): 375–470; cf. Rao Zongyi 饒宗頤 [Jao Tsung-i], “Yindu Bonini xian zhi weituo sansheng lun lüe: Sisheng wailai shuo pingyi” 印度波儞尼仙 之圍陀三聲論略：四聲外來說平議, in Zhong-Yin wenhua guanxi shi lunji: Yuwen pian (Hong Kong: Sanlian Shudian, 1990), 21. 22. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 1, 2:1b. Song’s original has “popular custom and colloquialisms” (lisu changyan 俚俗常言): Song Qi 宋祁, Song Jingwen biji 宋景文筆記, in vol. 6 of Xuehai leibian, ed. Cao Rong, cont. Tao Yue (1831; Yangzhou: Jiangsu Guangling Guji Keyin She, 1994), shang:2b (442). Song’s book was written before 1061 and has a colophon dated 1226. 23. Zhao Yuanren 趙元任 [Yuen-ren Chao], “Fanqie yu ba zhong” 反切語八種, in Zhongyang Yanjiu Yuan Lishi Yuyan Yanjiu Suo jikan 2, no. 3 (1931): 318. 24. Purushottam G. Patel, “Akṣara as a Linguistic Unit in Brāhmī Scripts,” in The Indic Scripts: Palaeographic and Linguistic Perspectives, ed. Purushottam G. Patel, Pramod Pandey, and Dilip Rajgor (New Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 2007), 173. 25. Edwin G. Pulleyblank, “Chinese Traditional Phonology,” Asia Major, 3rd ser., 12, no. 2 (1999): 101–37. “Appendix One” gives a translation of a canonical text of Chinese Siddhaṃ studies, including a presentation of a series of twelve sounds. Pulleyblank does not stress that the vowels and syllabic consonants are paired with onsets in the operation of the syllabary, but he points out that the Chinese commentator seems to have associated the twelve with the second half of a pair of Chinese syllabic spellers, which would correspond to the nucleus and coda. I should note that Pulleyblank transcribes some elements of the series as syllabic consonants, whereas they are elsewhere— e.g., in Zhou Guangrong 周广荣, Fanyu “Xitan zhang” zai Zhongguo de chuanbo yu yingxiang 梵语《悉昙章》在中国的传播与影响 (Beijing: Zongjiao Wenhua Chubanshe, 2004), 85—transcribed as a + consonant. 26. W. South Coblin, “Zhāng Línzhī on the Yùnjìng,” in The Chinese Rime Tables: Linguistic Philosophy and Historical-Comparative Phonology, ed. David Prager Branner (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2006), 126–27. 27. Zhao Yiguang 趙宧光, Xitan jingzhuan 悉曇經傳, in Xitan jingzhuan: Zhao Yiguang ji qi “Xitan jingzhuan,” facsimile, ed. Rao Zongyi [Jao Tsung-i] (1611; Taipei: Xin Wenfeng Chubanshe, 1999), Zimu zongchi yin:9a (103). Xiong quoted this passage: Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 8:Yue Shishi zimu:12b–13a. 28. Tan Shibao 譚世寶, “ ‘Qieyun,’ ‘fanqie’ ji qi xiangguan de ‘qie,’ ‘fan’ deng ci kaobian” 切韻、反切及相關的切、反等詞考辨, Hanyu shi yanjiu jikan 3 (2000): 264. 29. W. South Coblin, “Reflections on the Shǒuwēn Fragments,” in Branner, Chinese Rime Tables, 105 (including in note 2). 30. On the alternative translation “division” for “grade”: David Prager Branner, “Introduction,” in Branner, Chinese Rime Tables, 19–20. 31. Pulleyblank, “Chinese Traditional Phonology,” 113. 32. Branner, “Introduction,” 2–12. 33. Li Xinkui 李新魁, Hanyu dengyun xue 汉语等韵学 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1983), 6–9. 34. Li Xinkui 李新魁 and Mai Yun 麦耘, Yunxue guji shuyao 韵学古籍述要 (Xi’an: Shaanxi Renmin Chubanshe, 1993), 217–19, 327.

252

Notes to Pages 81–86

35. Yu Naiyong 余迺永, ed., Xin jiao huzhu Song-ben “Guangyun” 新校互註宋本廣韻 (original dating from the eleventh century; Shanghai: Shanghai Cishu Chubanshe, 1993). 36. It is pictured in Richard VanNess Simmons, “Rime Tables and Rime Table Studies,” in Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics, ed. Rint Sybesma, Wolfgang Behr, Yueguo Gu, Zev Handel, C.-T. James Huang, and James Myers (Leiden: Brill, 2017), vol. 3, 614, figure 3, and described in Li and Mai, Yunxue guji, 479–83. 37. E.g., Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 1, 2:4b and vol. 2, 4:30b. 38. William Bright, “The Devanagari Script,” in Daniels and Bright, World’s Writing Systems, 384 (no reference to Siddhaṃ). Tan Shibao 譚世寶, “Hanyi Xitan wenzi de yi xie wenti yanjiu” 漢譯悉曇文字的一些問題研究 Zhongguo wenhua 13 (1996): 38–47; Tan Shibao, “Lüe lun Xitan xue ru Hua chuanbo shi yu dangdai Xitan xue yanjiu” 略论悉昙学入华传播史与当 代悉昙学研究, Fayin luntan, no. 8 (2007): 25–33; and Tan Shibao, Xitan xue yu Hanzi yinxue xinlun 悉曇學與漢字音學新論 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2009), 11, 101, forcefully stressed that Siddhaṃ is a syllabic writing system (as opposed to alphabetic). 39. Tan, Xitan xue, 265–66. 40. E.g., Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 10:Yue zhu yunshu:1a. 41. Zhao, Xitan jingzhuan, fanli:4b (12). 42. Zhao, Xitan jingzhuan, fanli:6a (15). 43. On the book’s authorship: Mao Ruifang 毛瑞方, “Wang Zheng yu Xi-Ru ermu zi” 王徵与《西儒耳目资》, Huaibei Shifan Daxue xuebao (zhexue, shehui kexue ban) 32, no. 6 (2011): 23–29. Some information on its phonological system is found in Shen-Yi Luo [羅慎儀], “Les premiers systèmes de notation alphabétique utilisés dans les études de phonologie chinoise,” in Succès et échecs de la rencontre Chine et Occident du XVIe au XXe siècle, ed. Edward J. Malatesta and Yves Raguin (San Francisco: Ricci Institute, 1993), 191–200. 44. Pfister, Notices, 111–20 (entry 32); Dehergne, Répertoire, 274–75 (entry 850). 45. Tan Huiying 谭慧颖, “Xi-Ru ermu zi” yuanliu bianxi 《西儒耳目资》源流辨析 (Beijing: Waiyu Jiaoxue yu Yanjiu Chubanshe, 2008), 23. 46. Tan, “Xi-Ru ermu zi” yuanliu bianxi, 45. 47. Nicolas Trigault [Jin Nige 金尼閣], Xi-Ru ermu zi 西儒耳目資, facsimile, red. Lü Weiqi, in collab. with Wang Zheng, in vol. 259 (Jingbu) of Xuxiu “Siku quanshu” (1626; Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 1995–2002), wenda:58b–59a (467). 48. His phonological work is described in, e.g., Zhao Yintang 趙蔭棠, Dengyun yuanliu 等韻源流 (Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1957), 223–26. 49. Luo, “ ‘Shengyun tongran ji,’ ” 111. 50. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 8:Yue “Ermu zi”:1a. 51. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 8:Yue “Ermu zi”:4a. 52. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 8:Yue “Ermu zi”:13b. 53. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:xu:1a. 54. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:xu:1a–b, also vol. 4, 8:Yue “Ermu zi”:9b. 55. Söderblom Saarela, “Shier zitou jizhu,” 22. 56. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:Yue Qingshu zitou:3a. 57. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:Yue Qingshu zitou:5a. 58. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:fanli:1a. 59. My knowledge of Yuan Zirang’s analysis comes from Richard VanNess Simmons, “The Evolution of the Chinese Sìhū 四呼 Concept of Syllable Classification,” Historiographia Linguistica 43, no. 3 (2016): 265.

Notes to Pages 87–92

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60. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:xu:1b. Also Yue Qingshu zitou:7b–8a for an elaboration on the vowels. 61. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:Yue Qingshu zitou:2a. 62. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:Yue Qingshu zitou:1a. 63. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:Yue Qingshu zitou:2a. 64. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:fanli:1a. 65. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:Yue Qingshu zitou:4a. 66. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:Yue Qingshu zitou:4a. 67. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:Yue Qingshu zitou:4b and 7a. Also vol. 4, 9:fanli:1a. 68. Since the mid-fifteenth century, Chinese phonologists had identified twenty initials in Mandarin. Xiong found only nineteen in Manchu, implying that Manchu syllables that we know were distinct to Manchu speakers would have had the same initial. Briefly put, Xiong treated the 微 initial as representing v-, not w-, which it did in the conservative Mandarin system that he relied on. He correctly noted that Manchu had no v-, and that “in Manchu, v- is merged with w-,” but the latter was not recognized as an initial in the Chinese system that he was following. The result was that he did not distinguish the zero initial from w- at the head of the columns. For the initials of Mandarin: Simmons, “Evolution of the Chinese Sìhū,” 258–59. For Xiong: Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:fanli:1a and vol. 4, Yue Qingshu zitou:4b and the syllabary at the end of the chapter. 69. Xiong, Dengqie yuansheng, vol. 4, 9:fanli:1a. 70. The transcriptions are approximations only and should not be treated as attempts at linguistic reconstruction. Note also that the Manchu and Chinese transcription systems are not well aligned; what I have transcribed as š in Chinese and h in Manchu Xiong evidently considered similar in pronunciation. 71. E.g., Masao Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, trans. Mikiso Hane (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974). 72. Robert I. Hellyer, Defining Engagement: Japan and Global Contexts, 1640–1868 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009); Marius  B. Jansen, China in the Tokugawa World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 9–14; Julia Ching, “Chu Shun-Shui, 1600–82: A Chinese Confucian Scholar in Tokugawa Japan,” Monumenta Nipponica 30, no. 2 (1975): 177–91. 73. Benjamin A. Elman, “Sinophiles and Sinophobes in Tokugawa Japan: Politics, Classicism, and Medicine During the Eighteenth Century,” East Asian Science, Technology and Society 2, no. 1 (2008): 93–121; Emanuel Pastreich, The Observable Mundane: Vernacular Chinese and the Emergence of a Literary Discourse on Popular Narrative in Edo Japan (Seoul: Seoul University Press, 2011). 74. Linguistic study of Japa nese: Susan L. Burns, Before the Nation: Kokugaku and the Imagining of Community in Early Modern Japan (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003); Viktoria Eschbach-Szabo, “La réflexion linguistique au Japon,” in vol. 1 of Histoire des idées linguistiques, ed. Sylvain Auroux (Liège: Pierre Mardaga, 1992), 459–64. 75. Shinmura Izuru 新村出, “Honpō Manshūgogaku shiryō danpen” 本邦滿洲語學史料 斷片, in Tōhō gengoshi sōkō (Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten, 1927), 98–99. 76. Kusunoki Yoshimichi 楠木贤道 [Nanmu Xiandao], “Jianghu shidai Xiangbao nianjian Riben youguan Qingchao ji Manyu yanjiu” 江户时代享保年间日本有关清朝及满语研究, trans. Alta, Manyu yanjiu, no. 1 (2013): 78. 77. Emanuel Pastreich, “Grappling with Chinese Writing as a Material Language: Ogyū Sorai’s Yakubunsentei,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 61, no. 1 (2001): 122–28; Olof G.

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Notes to Pages 92–98

Lidin, “Vernacular Chinese in Tokugawa Japan: The Inquiries of Ogyū Sorai,” Japonica Humboldtiana 14 (2011): 5–10. 78. Uehara Hisashi 上原久, “ ‘Manji kō’ ni tsuite” 『満字考』について, Saitama Daigaku kiyō 37 (1988): 1–9. 79. Tu Lien-chê, “Yu T’ung,” in Hummel, Eminent Chinese, vol. 2, 935–36 (on You’s father); Li Zongtong 李宗侗, “Qingdai duiyu nianqing Hanlin xi Manwen de banfa” 清代對 於年輕翰林習滿文的辦法, Zhonghua wenhua fuxing yuekan 5, no. 11 (1972): 91; Li Huan 李桓, ed., Guochao qixian leizheng, chubian 國朝耆獻類徵初編, facsimile (1884–90; Taipei: Mingwen Shuju, 1985), 109:9a–11b (148-511–148-516). A less detailed biography is found in Qingshi liezhuan, 5783 (ch. 71). Neither biography mentions You’s knowledge of Manchu. 80. You Tong 尤侗 and Sun Zhixiu 孫枝秀, eds., Baiti qianzi wen 百體千字文, held at Princeton University Library with the call number C348 1421 (1685), vol. 2; You Zhen 尤珍, “Qingshu qianzi wen” 清書千字文 | ciyan dzi wen, manuscript held at Naikaku Bunko, Tokyo, with the call number 306-0113, in which the Chinese text has been reconstituted. Kishida Fumitaka 岸田文隆, “Manshūji ni yoru kanjion hyōki no kihanka: Manshūji Senjimon o shiryō toshite” 満洲字による漢字音表記の規範化ー満洲字千字文を資料としてー, Gengogaku kenkyū 13 (1994): 1 cites a copy in the British Museum, and Puyraimond, Catalogue, 36, one at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. 81. E.g., Wang Yicheng 汪以成, ed., Tongwen qianzi wen 同文千字文, digitized copy held at Harvard-Yenching Library with the call number T6129 33125 (1582); described in Shen Jin 沈津, Meiguo Hafo Daxue Hafo-Yanjing Tushuguan Zhongwen shanben shuzhi 美國哈佛大學哈 佛燕京圖書館中文善本書志 (Shanghai: Shanghai Cishu Chubanshe, 1999), 83 (item 0168). 82. Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠, Sorai zenshū 徂徠全集, partially typeset, partially in facsimile (Tōkyō: Misuzu Shobō, 1974), vol. 2, Gengo hen, 722. 83. By Western reckoning, that is, with recto and verso counted separately. 84. Maeda Tomiyoshi 前田富祺, “a e i u e o to iroha no rekishi” アエイウエオとイロハの歴史, Gengo seikatsu 187 (1967): 18–19; Wolfram Müller-Yokota, “Abriss der geschichtlichen Entwicklung der Schrift in Japan,” Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung 10 (1987): 39–41. 85. Burns, Before the Nation, 49–51. 86. Mabuchi Kazuo 馬渕和夫, Gojūonzu no hanashi 五十音図の話 (Tōkyō: Taishūkan Shoten, 1993), 37–39. 87. Ogyū, Sorai zenshū, vol. 2, 722.

chapter 4 1. “Er ti hebi wenjian” 二體合璧文鑑 | juwe hacin-i hergen kamciha buleku bithe, manuscript held at Harvard-Yenching Library with the call number Ma 5806.05 2524. 2. A-dun 阿敦, Liu Shun 劉順, Sang-ge 桑格, and Zhang Tianqi 張天祈, Tongwen guanghui quanshu; Lianzhu ji 同文廣彙全書; 聯珠集 (1702), held at Tōyō Bunko with the call number Ma2 4-24. 3. Sangge 桑額, ed., Man-Han leishu 滿漢類書 | man han lei šu bithe (1700), microfilm of the copy held at Tenri University Library with the call number 829 44-83, 27:40b. 4. Mingcang, “Qingwen dianyao daquan” 清文典要大全 | manju bithei kooli sosohon-i yooni bithe (1793), manuscript held at Harvard-Yenching Library with the call number Ma 5806.05 6622, vol. 1, “Preface” (šutucin; xu 序), no pagination. In other copies of this work, the preface is signed by both Mingcang and Urtai.

Notes to Pages 99–105

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5. Ivan Il’ich Zakharov, Polnyĭ Man’chzhursko-Russkīĭ slovar’ (St. Petersburg: Tip. I. Akademīi nauk, 1875), xv; Ivan Il’ich Zakharov, “History of the Manchu Language, from the Preface to Professor I. Zacharoff ’s Manchu-Russian Dictionary, 1875,” trans. M. F. A. Fraser, Chinese Recorder 22, nos. 3/4 (1891): 150; Fuchs, Beiträge, 91–92; Imanishi Shunjū 今西春秋, “Shinsho shinan no koto nado” 清書指南のことなど, Biburia 7, no. 10 (1956): 10; Sŏng Paegin 成百仁 [성백인], “Ch’ogi Manjuŏ sajŏn dŭr e taehayŏ” 初期滿洲語辭典들에 대하여 (1986), in Manjuŏ wa Alt’aiŏhak yŏn’gu (1978; Seoul: T’aehaksa, 1999), 208–17. Cf. Kanda, “Shen Ch’iliang,” 132–33. 6. Shen, Qingshu zhinan, “Qingshu zhinan” shuo:2b. 7. Karin Miethaner-Vent, “Das Alphabet in der mittelalterlichen Lexikographie: Verwendungsweisen, Formen und Entwicklung des alphabetischen Anordnungsprinzips,” in La lexicographie au Moyen Âge, ed. C. Buridant (Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1986), 83–112. 8. Robert Cawdry, A Table Alphabeticall (London: Edmund Weauer, 1604), no pagination, last page of section “To the Reader.” 9. Christoph Harbsmeier and Françoise Bottéro, “The Shuowen Jiezi Dictionary and the Human Sciences in China,” Asia Major 21, no. 1 (2008): 249–71. 10. Françoise Bottéro, Sémantisme et classification dans l’écriture chinoise: Les systèmes de classement des caractères par clés du Shuowen jiezi au Kangxi zidian (Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1996), 118, 125–27. 11. Fukuda Jōnosuke 福田襄之介, “Jii izen ni okeru kakubiki kenjihō no ryūkō” 字彙以前 における画引き検字法の流行, Okayama Daigaku Hōbun Gakubu gakujutsu kiyō 13 (1960): 164– 77; Fukuda Jōnosuke, Chūgoku jishoshi no kenkyū 中国字書史の研究 (Tōkyō: Meiji Shoin, 1979), 393–405. 12. Fukuda, Chūgoku jishoshi, 414–17; Nathan Vedal, “Preferring Omission over Falsity: The Politics of Compilation in the Kangxi ‘Classic of Characters’ 康熙字典,” Historiographia Linguistica 40, nos. 1/2 (2013): 3–37. 13. Mei, Zihui, xu:1a and 2b–3a. 14. Shen, Da Qing quanshu, fanli:2b–3a (5–6). 15. Shen, Da Qing quanshu, xu:1a (2). 16. The clearest and most revelatory analysis of the arrangement of Da Qing quanshu is that found in Hayata Teruhiro 早田輝洋 and Teramura Masao 寺村政男, eds., Daishin zensho: Zōho kaitei, tsuketari Manshūgo, Kango sakuin 大清全書：増補改訂・附満洲語漢語索引 (Fuchū: Tōkyō Gaikokugo Daigaku Ajia Afurika Gengo Bunka Kenkyūjo, 2004), vol. 1, 16–19. Although I will present the arrangement in Shen’s dictionary in somewhat different terms, I owe my understanding of it largely to them. 17. Shen, Da Qing quanshu, fanli:3a–b (6). 18. Shen, Da Qing quanshu, fanli:3a–4a (6). 19. Shen, Da Qing quanshu, 1:6b–7a (12-3). 20. Shen, Da Qing quanshu, fanli:4a (6). 21. Hayata and Teramura, Daishin zensho, vol. 1, 18. 22. E.g., Hayata and Teramura, Daishin zensho, vol. 1, 3. On the verb forms mentioned here: Gorelova, Manchu Grammar, 267–72, 286–89. 23. Although this book in most regards supersedes what I wrote in my doctoral dissertation, its detailed discussion of Da Qing quanshu’s arrangement still holds water, I think. Please see Söderblom Saarela, “Manchu and the Study of Language,” 296–312, especially 306–11, for ainci.

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Notes to Pages 105–108

24. Man-Han tongwen quanshu 滿漢同文全書 | manju nikan šu adali yooni bithe, held at Minzu University of China Library with the call number 41.5512 2 (Beijing: Bishu Ge, 1690). The inside cover says that it was “published by Zhu Xingruo of Bishu Ge” 秘書閣朱星若發兌. Furthermore, the outside cover of the first volume has a seal that says “A title found at Wenjin Tang” 文錦堂藏書, which was probably the name of a store that sold it. A different copy of the same edition is described in N. N. Poppe, Leon Hurvitz, and Hidehiro Okada, Catalogue of the Manchu-Mongol Section of the Tōyō Bunko (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964), 211–12. The book has an unclear relationship to Da Qing quanshu. 25. Transcribed in Jiang Qiao 江桥, Kangxi “Yuzhi Qingwen jian” yanjiu 康熙《御制清文 鉴》研究 (Beijing: Beijing Yanshan Chubanshe, 2009), 191–92. 26. For details, see Söderblom Saarela, “Manchu and the Study of Language,” 312–15. 27. The pages are counted Western style, with two pages per folio. 28. Han-i araha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, ed. Maci and Margan (Beijing: Wuying Dian, 1708), uheri hešen:80a–83b. 29. For more details, see Söderblom Saarela, “Manchu and the Study of Language,” 316–32, 337–39. 30. Daigu, Qingwen beikao 清文備考 | manju gisun-i yongkiyame toktobuha bithe, 1st ed., with a foreword by Li Jian and an afterword by Shen Qian, microfilm made from the copy held at Tenri University Library (1722), beyei araha sioi:2a–b and 12:ba:1a (in both Manchu and Chinese versions). The former text is discussed as proof of language attrition among the Beijing Manchus in the early eighteenth century in Berthold Laufer, “Skizze der manjurischen Literatur,” Keleti Szemle 9 (1908): 19–20. I have treated the Manchu wei jiyanggiyûn as a transcription of the Chinese wei jiangjun 衛將軍, which Hucker (Dictionary, 315, 564) explains as a literary name for the “Grand Minister of the Imperial Household Department Concurrently Controlling the Imperial Guardsmen” (lingshi wei nei dachen 領侍衛內大臣). This title, in turn, is translated as I have rendered it in Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day, 26. 31. The copies I consulted have no title page, so it is hard to tell. Erich Hauer, in “Ein Thesaurus der Mandschusprache,” Asia Major 7 (1932): 632, calls it a Privatarbeit. 32. Daigu, Qingwen beikao 清文備考 | manju gisun-i yongkiyame toktobuha bithe, 2nd ed., with a foreword by Zhu Kuang, held at Minzu University of China Library with the call number 41.25 6, xu:1b. 33. Daigu, Qingwen beikao, 2nd ed., xu:1b. 34. I have consulted manuscript copies at Peking University Library (call numbers X 419.1 4347.1 and X 419.1 4347.2). 35. Li Yanji 李延基, Qingwen huishu 清文彙書 | manju isabuha bithe, 1st ed. (Shili Tang, 1724), xu:3a; Fujian tongzhi 福建通志, facsimile of manuscript, vols. 527–30 of Yingyin “Wenyuan Ge Siku quanshu” (1736; Taipei: Taiwan Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1983), 27:17b (528–359, on his licentiate); Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day, 505 (on this kind of licentiate being by imperial grace). On his work as a magistrate: Quanzhou fu zhi 泉州府志, facsimile (1870; Tainan: Dengwen Yinshuaju, 1964), 32:21b–22a (vol. 2); Sichuan tongzhi 四川通志 (1733), facsimile of manuscript, vols. 559–661 of Yingyin “Wenyuan Ge Siku quanshu,” 31:88b (560–697). 36. One reprint: Li Yanji 李延基, Qingwen huishu 清文彙書 | manju isabuha bithe, microfilm made from the copy held at Tenri University Library (1724; Sihe Tang, 1751). For the dating of this copy: Tenri Toshokan 天理圖書館, Manbun shosekishū 滿文書籍集 (Tenri: Tenri Daigaku Shuppanbu, 1955), 15. Further: Huang Runhua 黃润华 and Qu Liusheng 屈六生, eds., Quanguo Manwen tushu ziliao lianhe mulu 全国满文图书资料联合目录 (Beijing: Shumu Wenxian Chubanshe, 1991), 107.

Notes to Pages 108–111

257

37. Imanishi Shunjū 今西春秋, Tamura Jitsuzō 田村実造, and Satō Hisashi 佐藤長, eds., “Gotai Shinbunkan” yakukai 五體清文鑑譯解 (Kyōto: Kyōto Daigaku Bungakubu Nairiku Ajia Kenkyūjo, 1966), vol. 1, 19. 38. Li, Qingwen huishu, first ed., xu:2a–b. 39. Li, Qingwen huishu, first ed., xu:2b. 40. Li, Qingwen huishu, Sihe Tang ed., vol. 1, outside cover. 41. Yuzhi zengding Qingwen jian 御製增訂清文鑑 | han-i araha nonggime toktobuha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, ed. Fu-heng 傅恒, facsimile of the 1778 Siku quanshu huiyao manuscript (1772–73; Changchun: Jilin Chuban Jituan, 2005). The imperial preface is dated Qianlong 36/12/24, which corresponds to 28 January 1772. It appears that it was not printed until the following year (Qianlong 38; 1773): Imanishi Shunjū 今西春秋, “Shinbunkan: Tantai kara gotai made” 清文鑑—単体から５ 体まで, Chōsen gakuhō, nos. 39/40 (1966): 134. 42. Söderblom Saarela, “Manchu and the Study of Language,” 200–202. 43. Fügiyün, Sanhe bianlan 三合便覽 | ilan hacin-i gisun kamcibuha tuwara de ja obuha bithe | γ urban ǰüil-ün üge qadamal üǰehüi-dür kilbar bulγ aγ san bičig, privately published (1780), xu:7a–b. The book was subsequently commercially published in 1792. 44. Fügiyün, Sanhe bianlan, vol. 2, 4b–5a. Entries that were already translated in the discussion of the corresponding series in Shen Qiliang’s dictionary are not translated again here. 45. Chunhua 春花, Qingdai Man-, Mengwen cidian yanjiu 清代满蒙文词典研究 (Shenyang: Liaoning Minzu Chubanshe, 2008), 312–13. 46. Yi-xing 宜興, Qingwen buhui 清文補彙 | manju gisun be niyeceme isabuha bithe (1786), held at Capital Library, Beijing, with the call number 乙・一 46, xu:1b–2a. 47. Yi-xing 宜興, Qingwen buhui 清文補彙 | manju gisun be niyeceme isabuha bithe (1786; 1802), 2nd, rev. ed., ed. Fa-ke-jing-e, digitized copy held at Waseda University Library. 48. E.g., Da Qing quanshu, Man-Han tongwen quanshu, Qingwen beikao, and Qingwen huishu all pretended that the double -šš- (a combination not predictable on the basis of the syllabary) was a regular -š- and arranged words that contained it accordingly. Furthermore, Da Qing quanshu, Qingwen beikao, and Qingwen huishu elevated niong- (an “outer character”) to a second-level heading in the first-level section ni-, whereas Sanhe bianlan and the index to the Manchu-Chinese bilingual Mirror did not. 49. Yi-xing, Qingwen buhui, first ed., fanli:5b. 50. Brett L. Walker, “Mamiya Rinzō and the Japa nese Exploration of Sakhalin Island: Cartography and Empire,” Journal of Historical Geography 33 (2007): esp. 297–98. 51. On the study of Japa nese in Russia at this time: Mariya Sevela, “Aux origines de l’orientalisme russe: Le cas des écoles de japonais (1705–1816),” Archives et documents de la Société d’histoire et d’épistemologie des sciences du langage, 2nd ser., 9 (1993): 1–66; Peter Kornicki, Castaways and Orientalists: The Russian Route to Japan in the Early Nineteenth Century (Venice: Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, 1999). 52. Gregory Afinogenov, “The Eye of the Tsar: Intelligence-Gathering and Geopolitics in Eighteenth-Century Eurasia” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2016). 53. Uehara Hisashi 上原久, Takahashi Kageyasu no kenkyū 高橋景保の研究 (Tōkyō: Kōdansha, 1977), 895–99, 908–13; Hidehiro Okada, “The Manchu Documents in the Higuchi Ichiyō Collection on the Takadaya Kahee Incident and the Release of Captain V. M. Golovn in,” in “Tumen jalafun jecen akū”: Manchu Studies in Honor of Giovanni Stary, ed. Alessandra Pozzi, Juha Antero Janhunen, and Michael Weiers (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006), 199.

258

Notes to Pages 111–116

54. Sugimoto Tsutomu 杉本つとむ, “Takahashi Kageyasu hen ‘A-Ō gotei’ no shōsatsu” 高橋景保編『亜欧語鼎』の小察, Waseda Daigaku Toshokan kiyō 18 (1977): 12.

55. The name Globius: Grant K. Goodman, Japan and the Dutch 1600–1853 (Richmond, Surrey, U.K.: Curzon, 2000), 128, 187. 56. Yulia Frumer, “Before Words: Reading Western Astronomical Texts in Early Nineteenth-Century Japan,” Annals of Science 73, no. 2 (2016): 170–94. 57. Shinmura Izuru 新村出, “Takahashi Sakuzaemon Kageyasu no jiseki” 高橋作左衛門 景保の事蹟, in Shinmura Izuru senshū (1918; Tōkyō: Kōchō shorin, 1943), vol. 2, 123–28. 58. On Ishizuka: Uehara, Takahashi Kageyasu, 925, 972; Sugimoto, “Takahashi Kageyasu hen ‘A-Ō gotei,’ ” 12 (with speculation on Manchu-language abilities). 59. Ōno Nobutane 大野延胤, “Matsumoto Tokizō to sono chojutsu, josetsu” 松本斗機蔵 とその著述・序説, Gakushūin Joshi Daigaku kiyō 2 (2000): 53. 60. Uehara, Takahashi Kageyasu, 919–21. 61. Goodman, Japan and the Dutch, 185–89. 62. Li and Mai, Yunxue guji, 177–78, 181–82. 63. Uehara, Takahashi Kageyasu, 264. 64. Takahashi Kageyasu 高橋景保, “Roshia koku teisho Manbun kunyaku kyōkai” 魯西 亞國呈書滿文訓譯強解, manuscript held at Naikaku Bunko with the call number 和 42854 (1810), no pagination, under section “appended discussions” ( fugen 附言). Uehara, Takahashi Kageyasu, 903, transcribes and punctuates the text, which was of great help to me. 65. Sugimoto Tsutomu 杉本つとむ, Jisho, jiten no kenkyū ichi 辞書・事典の研究 I, in vol. 6 of Sugimoto Tsutomu chosaku senshū (Tōkyō: Yasaka Shobō, 1999), 38, 51; Don Clifford Bailey, “Early Japa nese Lexicography,” Monumenta Nipponica 16, nos. 1/2 (1960): 42. 66. Wolfram Müller-Yokota, “Abriss der geschichtlichen Entwicklung der Schrift in Japan,” Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung 10 (1987): 38–39. 67. Uehara, Takahashi Kageyasu, 903–4. 68. Shinmura Izuru 新村出, “Takahashi Kageyasu no Manshūgogaku” 高橋景保の滿洲 語學, Geibun 5, no. 6 (1914): 12–13, assumes that Takahashi’s book was arranged by iroha. 69. Shinmura, “Takahashi Kageyasu no Manshūgogaku,” 15–16. 70. Uehara, Takahashi Kageyasu, 919–21. 71. Takahashi Kageyasu 高橋景保, “Manbun shūin” 滿文輯韻 (1816–20), photocopies, held at Princeton University Library, of original manuscript held at the library of the Imperial Household Agency, Tokyo, with the call number 401 82, vol. 1, prefatory chapter (shukan 首巻), preface, no pagination, photocopied sheet marked “3” in pencil. Also transcribed in Uehara, Takahashi Kageyasu, 915. 72. Uehara, Takahashi Kageyasu, 915–18. 73. Copied in Takahashi Kageyasu 高橋景保, “Manji zuihitsu” 滿字随筆 (1918), with an introduction by Yamada Yoshio, manuscript, copied from another, now lost manuscript, held at National Diet Library, Kansai-kan, Kyoto, with the call number 103-392, 4a. Uehara, Takahashi Kageyasu, 915–16, transcribes it from this source. I have departed a little bit from Uehara’s punctuation of the text. 74. Takahashi, “Manbun shūin,” vol. 1, prefatory chapter (shukan 首巻), preface, no pagination, photocopied sheet marked “4” in pencil. Also transcribed in Uehara, Takahashi Kageyasu, 915. 75. John Considine, Dictionaries in Early Modern Europe: Lexicography and the Making of Heritage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 146–47 (who also notes the importance of specialized monolingual vocabularies).

Notes to Pages 116–120

259

76. Jacques Proust, “De quelques dictionnaires hollandais ayant servi de relais à l’encyclopédisme européen vers le Japon,” Dix-huitième siècle, no. 38 (2006): 20. 77. Jirō Numata, “The Introduction of Dutch Language,” Monumenta Nipponica 19, nos. 3/4 (1964): 246, 248–49; Saitō Makoto 斎藤信, “ ‘F: HALMA, NEDERDUITS WOORDENBOEK ’: Iwayuru Haruma wakai no ihon ni tsuite” いわゆる『ハルマ和解』の異本について, Kanazawa Daigaku Hōbungakubu ronshū 2 (1954): 49 (date of compilation). Moreover, the table in Sugimoto Tsutomu 杉本つとむ, Edo jidai Rangogaku no seiritsu to sono tenkai 江戸時代蘭語 学の成立とその展開 (Tōkyō: Waseda Daigaku Shuppanbu, 1976–82), vol. 3, 457, gives a sense of the Dutch dictionary projects undertaken in Tokugawa Japan and the important role played by Halma’s dictionary in several of them. 78. Takahashi, “Manbun shūin,” vol. 1, prefatory chapter, statement of editorial principles (hanrei 凡例), no pagination, photocopied sheet marked “6” in pencil. Also transcribed in Uehara, Takahashi Kageyasu, 924–25. 79. Takahashi, “Manbun shūin,” vol. 1, prefatory chapter, statement of editorial principles, no pagination, photocopied sheet marked “6” in pencil. 80. Takahashi, “Manbun shūin,” vol. 1, prefatory chapter, statement of editorial principles, no pagination, photocopied sheet marked “9” in pencil. 81. My conjecture based on a perusal of the dictionary’s first section. 82. Takahashi, “Manbun shūin,” vol. 2, ch. 1, no pagination, photocopied sheet marked “7” in pencil. The English translations follow Takahashi’s copied Chinese translation (with Japa nese reading marks). Entries that were already translated in the discussion of the corresponding series in Shen Qiliang’s and Fügiyün’s dictionaries are not translated again here. 83. Takahashi, “Manbun shūin,” vol. 2, ch. 1, no pagination, photocopied sheet marked “31” in pencil. 84. Takahashi, “Manbun shūin,” vol. 1, prefatory chapter, statement of editorial principles, no pagination, photocopied sheets marked “6” and “7” in pencil. 85. Uehara, Takahashi Kageyasu, 944. 86. Sugimoto, Jisho, jiten, 52. 87. Sugimoto, Edo jidai Rangogaku, vol. 4, 544, 550. 88. Mårten Söderblom Saarela, “The Manchu Script and Information Management: Some Aspects of Qing China’s Great Encounter with Alphabetic Literacy,” in Elman, Rethinking East Asian Languages, 187–89. 89. Whose work he edited and published: Sayišangγ-a, red., Mengwen xiyi 蒙文晰義 | monggo hergen-i jurgan be faksalaha bithe | mong γ ol üsüg-ün jirüm-i salγ aγ san bičig, privately published (1848). See Chunhua, Man-, Mengwen cidian, 323–25; also Chunhua, “Lun Saishang-a zhuan Mengwen zhiyao” 论赛尚阿纂《蒙文指要》, Manyu yanjiu, no. 1 (2005): 116–20. 90. Sayišangγ-a, “Menggu wenhui” 蒙古文彙 | monggo hergen-i isabuha bithe | mongγol üsüg-ün qariyaγ san bičig (1851), manuscript held at Minzu University of China Library with the call number 蒙 552.24 1, vol. 1 (no pagination). 91. The dictionary listed Mongolian words in Manchu script; the same words in native Mongol orthography; their translation into Chinese; and their translation into Manchu, in that order. 92. Sayišangγ-a, “Menggu wenhui,” vol. 14. The outside cover of all of the volumes carries variants of the note “original copy, corrected and ready to be transcribed.” 93. For instance, following the numbers, rearranging the words originally found in the following sequence (Mongolian in Manchu transcription first, followed by conventional

260

Notes to Pages 121–124

transcription in parentheses, if different): anurat (anurad), ahan, agasilamui (aγasilamui), ahalamui, agami (aγami), agalik (aγ alig) alim into the following sequence: anurat, agasilamui, agami, agalik alim, ahan, ahalamui.

chapter 5 Notes to epigraphs: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Selections, ed. and trans. Philip  P. Wiener (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951), 32 (original: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, “Preceptes pour avancer les sciences,” in Die philosophischen Schriften, ed. C. I. Gerhardt [1890; Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1996], vol. 7, 162–63); and Roland Barthes, “Préface au ‘Dictionnaire Hachette,’ ” in Œuvres complètes, ed. Éric Marty (1980; Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2002), vol. 5, 924. 1. Joachim Bouvet to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Beijing, 19 September 1699, in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Der Briefwechsel mit den Jesuiten in China (1689–1714): Französich/ Lateinisch–Deutsch, ed. Rita Widmaier, trans. Malte-Ludolf Babin (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2006), 230. Earlier scholarship on Leibniz and the Manchu dictionary: Wenchao Li, “Leibniz und das europäische Interesse an chinesischer Sprache und Schrift,” in Einheit der Vernunft und Vielfalt der Sprachen: Beiträge zu Leibniz’ Sprachforschung und Zeichentheorie, ed. Wenchao Li (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2014), 241–44; John Considine, “Leibniz and Lexicography,” in Yesterday’s Words: Contemporary, Current and Future Lexicography, ed. Marijke Mooijaart and Marijke van der Wal (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), 49, incl. note 37; David E. Mungello, Leibniz and Confucianism: The Search for an Accord (Honolulu: University Press of Hawai‘i, 1977), 56. 2. Charles Le Gobien to Adam Adamandus Kochański, Paris, 15 May 1698, in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe, 1st ser., ed. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1986–91), vol. 15, 572. 3. John W. Witek, “Sent to Lisbon, Paris and Rome: Jesuit Envoys of the Kangxi Emperor,” in Matteo Ripa e il Collegio dei Cinesi, ed. Michele Fatica and Francesco D’Arelli (Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 2006), 325. More on Bouvet and Leibniz: Mungello, Leibniz and Confucianism, 36–38 and ch. 3; Michael C. Carhart, Leibniz Discovers Asia: Social Networking in the Republic of Letters (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), 227– 32 (with reference to 1697–98). Carhart’s book reached me in Taipei just as I was going through the copyedits. 4. Catherine Jami, The Emperor’s New Mathematics: Western Learning and Imperial Authority During the Kangxi Reign (1662–1722) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 5. And perhaps not in the interest of the Jesuits: Donald F. Lach, The Preface to Leibniz’ “Novissima sinica”: Commentary, Translation, Text (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1957), 27. 6. Gaozong Chun huangdi shilu 高宗純皇帝實錄, in vols. 9–26 of Qing shilu, vol. 23, 465 (26 May 1782 [Qianlong 47/4/xinsi]). The quoted phrase is from the imperial preface to Qinding Liao, Jin, Yuan san shi guoyu jie 欽定遼金元三史國語解 (Imperially authorized explanations of dynastic-language [expressions] in the three histories of the Liao, Jin, and Yuan), the collective title of three books that were only published in 1824. 7. Barthes, “Préface au ‘Dictionnaire Hachette,’ ” 924. 8. Carmen Codoñer, “Encyclopédie et dictionnaire: Affinités et différences,” in Encyclopédire: Formes de l’ambition encyclopédique dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Âge, ed. Arnaud Zucker

Notes to Pages 124–125

261

(Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 244; Jürgen Mittelstraß, “Vom Nutzen der Enzyklopädie,” Die wissenschaftliche Redaktion 6 (1971): 102–10. 9. Pierre Rétat, “Encyclopédies et dictionnaires historiques au XVIIIe siècle,” in L’encyclopédisme: Actes du Colloque de Caen 12–16 janvier 1987, ed. Annie Becq (Paris: Aux Amateurs de Livres, 1991), 505–11; Henri Meschonnic, “L’encyclopédie sortant de son mot pour se voir,” in Tous les savoirs du monde: Encyclopédies et bibliothèques, de Sumer au XXIe siècle, ed. Roland Schaer (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France/Flammarion, 1996), 21. 10. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, “Unvorgreiffliche Gedancken, betreffend die Ausübung und Verbesserung der Teutschen Sprache: Ou, Considérations sur la culture & la perfection de la langue Allemande: En François & en Allemand” (written in 1697), in Opera Omnia, facsimile, ed. Louis Dutens (1768; Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1989), vol. 6, bk. 2, 38–39 (para. 77). 11. Jürgen Henningsen, “ ‘Enzyklopädie’: Zur Sprach- und Bedeutungsgeschichte eines pädagogischen Begriffs,” Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 10 (1966): chs. 1–2 and p. 308. 12. Konrad Moll, “Der Enzyklopädiegedanke bei Comenius und Alsted, seine Übernahme und Umgestaltung bei Leibniz: Neue Perspektiven der Leibnizforschung,” Studia Leibnitiana 34, no. 1 (2002): 4; Henningsen, “ ‘Enzyklopädie,’ ” 294; Walter Tega, “Encyclopédie et unité du savoir de Bacon à Leibniz,” in Becq, L’encyclopédisme, 69–96. 13. Henri-Jean Martin, “Classements et conjonctures,” in Le livre conquérant: Du Moyen Âge au milieu du XVIIe siècle, in Histoire de l’édition française, ed. Roger Chartier and HenriJean Martin (1982; Paris: Fayard/Cercle de la Librairie, 1989), 529–62; J.-F. Maillard, “Fortunes de l’encyclopédie à la fin de la Renaissance,” in Becq, L’encyclopédisme, 320. 14. Denis Hüe, “Structures et rhétorique dans quelques texts encyclopédiques du Moyen Âge,” in Becq, L’encyclopédisme, 312. Cf. Alain Rey, Miroirs du monde: Une histoire de l’encyclopédisme (Paris: Fayard, 2007), 122. 15. John Considine, Academy Dictionaries, 1600–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 16. Henri Meschonnic, Des mots et des mondes: Dictionnaires, encyclopédies, grammaires, nomenclatures (Paris: Hatier, 1991), 138–45. 17. Jacques Proust, “Diderot et le système des connaissances humaines,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 256 (1988): 117–27; Charles Porset, “L’encyclopédie et la question de l’ordre: Réflexions sur la lexicalisation des connaissances au XVIIIe siècle,” in Becq, L’encyclopédisme, 257. 18. Françoise Waquet, “Plus ultra: Inventaire des connaissances et progrès du savoir à l’époque classique,” in Becq, L’encyclopédisme, 176–77; Meschonnic, “L’encyclopédie sortant,” 51. 19. Henri-Jean Martin, “La direction des lettres,” in Le livre triomphant, 1660–1830, ed. Roger Chartier and Henri-Jean Martin, in Histoire de l’édition française (1984; Paris: Fayard/ Cercle de la Librairie, 1990), 72–87; Gerhard Kanthak, Der Akademigedanke zwischen utopischem Entwurf und barocker Projektmacherei: Zur Geistesgeschichte der Akademiebewegung des 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1987), ch. 1; Françoise Blechet, “Un précurseur de l’Encyclopédie au ser vice de l’État: L’Abbé Bignon,” in Becq, L’encyclopédisme, 395–412. 20. Kanthak, Der Akademigedanke, ch. 13; Claudia von Collani, ed., Eine wissenschaftliche Akademie für China: Briefe des Chinamissionars Joachim Bouvet S.J. an Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz und Jean-Paul Bignon über die Erforschung der chinesischen Kultur, Sprache und Geschichte (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1989), 19. 21. Marie Leca-Tsiomis, Écrire l’Encyclopédie: Diderot: De l’usage des dictionnaires à la grammaire philosophique (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1999).

262

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22. Collani, Eine wissenschaftliche Akademie für China, 16. 23. Olivier Roy, Leibniz et la Chine (Paris: Vrin, 1972), 37–38. 24. Claudia von Collani, “Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and the China Mission of the Jesuits,” in Das neueste über China: G. W. Leibnizens “Novissima Sinica” von 1697, ed. Wenchao Li and Hans Poser (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2000), 93. 25. Joachim Bouvet to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Beijing, 4 November 1701, in Leibniz, Der Briefwechsel, 362. 26. Witek, “Sent to Lisbon,” 327. 27. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Jean de Fontaney, Hannover, 28 July 1704, in Leibniz, Der Briefwechsel, 454. 28. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Pierre Jartoux, Hannover, 17 August 1705, in Leibniz, Der Briefwechsel, 472–74. 29. Han Qi 韩琦, “Cong Zhong-Xi wenxian kan Ma Guoxian zai gongting de huodong” 从中西文献看马国贤在宫廷的活动, in Fatica and D’Arelli, Matteo Ripa, 72–73; Shen Dingping 沈定平, “Ma Guoxian zai Zhongguo de huihua huodong ji qi yu Kangxi, Yongzheng huangdi guanxi shulun” 马国贤在中国的绘画活动及其与康熙、雍正皇帝关系述论, in Fatica and D’Arelli, Matteo Ripa, 88–90. 30. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Antoine Verjus, Hannover, 18 August  1705, in Leibniz, Der Briefwechsel, 478–80. 31. Mungello, Leibniz and Confucianism, 7–8, 32–36; Julia Ching and Willard G. Oxtoby, Moral Enlightenment: Leibniz and Wolff on China (Nettetal, Germany: Steyler, 1992), 41; Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Claudio Filippo Grimaldi, Hannover, 21 March 1692, in Ching and Oxtoby, Moral Enlightenment, 63–69 (English translation only); Witek, “Sent to Lisbon,” 320–23; Carhart, Leibniz Discovers Asia, 2, 13–14, 35–40. 32. Pfister, Notices, vol. 1, 443–551. 33. Leibniz to Bouvet, 18 August 1705, in Leibniz, Der Briefwechsel, 490. 34. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Claude de Visdelou, Hannover, 20 August 1705, in Leibniz, Der Briefwechsel, 498–500 (on Visdelou also, pp. 754–57). Visdelou only received Leibniz’s letter in 1713. 35. Leibniz, “Unvorgreiffliche Gedancken,” 20 (para. 33); Georg Stötzel, “Das Abbild des Wortschatzes: Zur lexikographischen Methode in Deutschland von 1617–1967,” Poetica 3 (1970): 8; Harald Weinrich, Wege der Sprachkultur (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1985), 98–99. 36. Notes and a to-do list by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Berlin, July 1700, in Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe, 4th ser., ed. Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1983–2015), 531; Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s notes on the structure and work of the Society [of Sciences] (II), Berlin, July 1700, in Sämtliche Schriften, 4th ser., 540–43; Stefan Luckscheiter, “Leibniz und die ‘Termini technici’ der ‘teutschen Sprache,’ ” contribution to the project Leibniz-Objekt des Monats, April 2016, accessed 10 November 2016, http://jahresthema.bbaw.de/2015_2016/objekt _des _monats/april. 37. Antoine Furetière, “Essai d’un dictionnaire universel” (1684), in Bernard Quemada, “Furetière: Factums contre l’académie” (PhD diss., Université de Paris, 1968), vol. 2, 465; Quemada, “Furetière,” vol. 1, 69–70; Marine Roy-Garibal, Le Parnasse et le Palais: L’œuvre de Furetière et la genèse du premier “ dictionnaire” encyclopédique en langue française (1649–1690) (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2006), pt. 2, ch. 2. 38. Alain Rey, Antoine Furetière: Un précurseur des Lumières sous Louis XIV (Paris: Fayard, 2006), 110, 128, 155.

Notes to Pages 129–132

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39. Leibniz to Visdelou, 20 August 1705, in Leibniz, Der Briefwechsel, 498–500. 40. It is hard to tell which is true. Catherine Pagani, in “Clockwork and the Jesuit Mission in China,” in The Jesuits II: Cultures, Science, and the Arts, 1540–1773, ed. John O’Malley, Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Steven J. Harris, and T. Frank Kennedy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), 663, makes the claim. 41. André Robinet, “La rencontre Leibniz-Grimaldi à Rome et l’avenir des académies,” in Li and Poser, Das neueste über China, 87. 42. Sigrid von der Schulenberg, Leibniz als Sprachforscher, written in 1929–39, ed. Kurt Müller (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1973), 38–39. 43. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz regarding the Royal Society of Sciences, Berlin, November 1701, in Leibniz und seine Akademie: Ausgewählte Quellen zur Geschichte der Berliner Sozietät der Wissenschaften, ed. Hans-Stephan Brather (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993), 165. Also: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s notes on the structure and work of the Society [of Sciences] (II), Berlin, July 1700, in Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften, 4th ser., 545; Li, “Leibniz und das europäische Interesse,” 243. Bouvet’s ideas concerning academies partially resonate with those of Leibniz. However, Bouvet’s envisioned petite Academie Apostolique, for which he sought Leibniz’s support (Joachim Bouvet to Jean-Paul Bignon and others, Beijing, 15 September 1704, in Collani, Eine wissenschaftliche Akademie für China, 81), focused on recovering Christian truths from the Chinese classics and did not involve Manchu. More impor tant, it did not involve redirecting an ongoing editorial project focused on the dynastic language of the Qing empire and overseen by the emperor himself, as Bouvet intended for his academy to be run from Eu rope, not by the Qing court (84). See also Joachim Bouvet to Bertrand-Claude Tachereau de Linyères, Beijing, 27 October 1704, in Collani, Eine wissenschaftliche Akademie für China, 27–31, 120, 124; Joachim Bouvet, Journal des voyages, ed., with an introduction, by Claudia von Collani (Taipei: Taipei Ricci Institute, 2005), 51–55. Bouvet’s letter never reached Leibniz (Collani, “Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and the China Mission,” 93). 44. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Joachim Bouvet, Hannover, 13 December  1707, in Leibniz, Der Briefwechsel, 598. 45. Leibniz to Bouvet, 13 December 1707, in Leibniz, Der Briefwechsel, 602. 46. Han Qi 韓琦, “Les ouvrages compilés et imprimés au Palais sous Kangxi,” trans. Jérome Kerlouégan, red. Pierre-Henri Durand and Jean-Pierre Drège, in Imprimer sans profit? Le livre non commercial dans la Chine impériale, ed. Michela Bussotti and Jean-Pierre Drège (Geneva: Droz, 2015), 540–51. 47. On the editions of this book: Sŏng Paegin 성백인, Chŏng Chemun 정제문, Kim Chuwŏn 김주원, and Ko Tongho 고동호, “Ŏje Ch’ŏngmun’gam ŭi p’anbon yŏn’gu” 《御製清文 鑑》의 版本研究, Alt’ai hakpo 18 (2008): 31–58. 48. Dominique Parrenin, “Lettre du Père Parennin [sic] . . . à M. de Fontenelle,” in Lettres édifiantes et curieuses écrites des missions étrangères (1738; Toulouse: Sens/Gaudé, 1811), vol. 19, 230. 49. Parrenin, “Lettre du Père Parennin . . . à M. de Fontenelle,” 228. 50. Kangxi qiju zhu 康熙起居注, typeset, ed. Zhongguo Diyi Lishi Dang’anguan 中國第 一歷史檔案館 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1984), vol. 1, 93. (I am indebted to Michael Chang for this reference.) 51. Kangxi qiju zhu, vol. 1, 93–94. 52. Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day, 45 (item 140); Zhao Zhiqiang 赵志强, “Lun Qingdai de Nei Fanshu Fang” 论清代的内翻书房, Qingshi yanjiu, no. 2 (1992): 22–28, 38; Ye

264

Notes to Pages 133–137

Gaoshu 葉高樹 [Yeh Kao-shu], Qingchao qianqi de wenhua zhengce 清朝前期的文化政策 (Banqiao: Daoxiang Chubanshe, 2002), 66. 53. Qingshi liezhuan, vol. 6, 375–76. 54. Imanishi, “Shinbunkan: Tantai kara gotai made,” 122–24. 55. Han-i araha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, amargi sioi:2b–3a; Jiang, Kangxi “Yuzhi Qingwen jian,” 196–97. 56. Christoph Kaderas, Die Leishu der imperialen Bibliothek des Kaisers Qianlong (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998), 24–25. 57. Fuchs, “Neue Beiträge,” 3–4. 58. Sangge, Man-Han leishu, xu (1):2b and xu (2):1a. 59. There were also other editions: Sŏng, “Ch’ogi Manjuŏ sajŏn dŭr e taehayŏ,” 199– 200, 219–25, clarifies their relationship. 60. Johannes L. Kurz, “The Compilation and Publication of the Taiping yulan and the Cefu yuangui,” in “Qu’était-ce qu’écrire une encyclopédie en Chine?,” ed. Florence Bretelle-Establet and Karine Chemla, Extrême-Orient, Extrême-Occident, extra number (2007): 46. 61. George Thomas Staunton, Miscellaneous Notices Relating to China and Our Commercial Intercourse with That Country, 2nd ed. (London: J. Murray, 1822–50), 95 (in reference to a later version of the Mirror). 62. Jürgen Mittelstraß, “Bildung und Wissenschaft: Enzyklopädien in historischer und wissenssoziologischer Betrachtung,” Die wissenschaftliche Redaktion 4 (1967): 103. 63. Jean-Pierre Drège, “De l’innovation des encyclopédies chinoises?,” in Zucker, Encyclopédire, 329–32. 64. Chunhua 春花, “Yuzhi Qingwen jian leimu tixi laiyuan kao” 《御制清文鉴》类目体系 来源考, Shenyang Gugong Bowuyuan yuankan 3 (2007): 107–15. 65. Raymond Queneau, “Présentation de l’Encyclopédie,” in Bords: Mathématiciens, précurseurs, encyclopédistes (Paris: Hermann, 1956), 97. 66. Wolfgang Bauer, “The Encyclopedia in China,” Cahiers d’histoire mondiale 9, no. 3 (1966): 665–91; J.-P. Diény, “Les encyclopédies chinoises,” in Becq, L’encyclopédisme, 195–200. 67. Diane M. O’Donoghue, “Reflection and Reception: The Origins of the Mirror in Bronze Age China,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 62 (1990): ch. 1. 68. Suzanne E. Cahill, The Lloyd Cotsen Study Collection of Chinese Bronze Mirrors: Volume 1: Catalogue, ed. Lothar von Falkenhausen (Los Angeles: Cotsen Occasional Press/ UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2009), 14. 69. V. I. Tsintsius, ed., Sravnitel’nyĭ slovar’ tunguso-man’chzhurskikh iazykov: Materialy k ėtimologicheskomu slovariu (Leningrad: Nauka, 1975–77), vol. 1, 82 (sub voce билкини). 70. Han-i araha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, 15:35a–b. 71. Chen Bangxian 陳邦賢, Zhongguo yixue shi 中國醫學史, 4th ed. (1938; Taipei: Taiwan Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1974), 159, 161, 163, 165, 166. 72. The original dictionary had the character jing 境, also meaning “mirror”: Bottéro, Sémantisme et classification, 141–49. 73. Charles Hartman, “Chinese Historiography in the Age of Maturity, 960–1368,” in The Oxford History of Historical Writing: Volume 2: 400–1400, ed. Sarah Foot and Chase F. Robinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 39–40. 74. Fuchs, Beiträge, 46. 75. Ritamary Bradley, “Backgrounds of the Title Speculum in Mediaeval Literature,” Speculum 29, no. 1 (1954): 100–115.

Notes to Pages 137–139

265

76. Einar Már Jonsson, “Le sens du titre Speculum aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles et son utilisation par Vincent de Beauvais,” in Vincent de Beauvais: Intentions et réceptions d’une œuvre encyclopédique au moyen âge, ed. Monique Paulmier-Foucart, Serge Lusignan, and Alain Nadeau (Paris: Vrin, 1990), 11–32; Meschonnic, “L’encyclopédie sortant,” 20–21. 77. Rey, Miroirs du monde, 121. 78. Paul Lehmann, Mittelalterliche Büchertitel, pt. 1 (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1949), 25–27; Paul Lehmann, Mittelalterliche Büchertitel, pt. 2 (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1953), 30–32; Herbert Grabes, Speculum, Mirror und Looking-Glass: Kontinuität und Originalität der Spiegelmetapher in den Buchtiteln des Mittelalters und der englischen Literatur des 13. bis 17. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1973), 9, 71–73. 79. Christel Meier, “Grundzüge der mittelalterlichen Enzyklopädik: Zu Inhalten, Formen und Funktionen einer problematischen Gattung,” in Literatur und Laienbildung im Spätmittelalter und in der Reformationszeit, ed. Ludger Grenzmann and Karl Stackmann (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1984), 476. 80. For English: Grabes, Speculum, Mirror und Looking-Glass, pt. B. 81. Rainer A. Müller, “Die deutschen Fürstenspiegel des 17. Jahrhunderts: Regierungslehren und politische Pädagogik,” Historische Zeitschrift 240, no. 3 (1985): 578–79, 588–90; Jacques Krynen, “Puissance et connaissance, royauté et aristocratie face aux savoirs,” in Schaer, Tous les savoirs du monde, 108–9. Marie-Hélène Tesnière, in “De l’Écriture, ‘jardin de la Sagesse,’ au Livre des merveilles du monde: Six modèles d’esprit encyclopédique médiéval,” in Schaer, Tous les savoirs du monde, 84, characterizes the princely mirrors as examples of encyclopedism. 82. Drège, “De l’innovation des encyclopédies chinoises?,” 323. 83. Ma Maojun 马茂军, “Songwen jian yu Songwen hai” 《宋文鉴》与《宋文海》, Daqing Shifan Xueyuan xuebao 26, no. 6 (2006): 89. 84. Zhu Yizun 朱彝尊, “Zijian xu” 字鍵序, in Pushu Ting xu ba 曝書亭序跋, typeset, ed. Du Zexun and Cui Xiaoxin (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2010), 39–40. 85. The encyclopedia: Ōtani Michiyori 大谷通順, “Enkan ruikan [Yuanjian leihan]: Ruisho no ruisho,” Gekkan shinika [Sinica] 9, no. 3 (1998): 70–74; Kaderas, Die Leishu der imperialen Bibliothek, 223–26; Nathalie Monnet, “La tradition des grands projets éditoriaux de la Chine impériale,” in Schaer, Tous les savoirs du monde, 353. The anthology: Martin Gimm, “Zur Kaiserlichen Ku-wen-Anthologie (Ku-wen yüan-chien) von 1685/6,” Oriens Extremus 15, no.  1 (1968): 61–63. 86. Han-i araha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, amargi sioi:5b–6a; Jiang, Kangxi “Yuzhi Qingwen jian,” 190. 87. Qing users of mirrors either bent over them while holding them in their hands, or had the mirrors leaning at an angle on a stand on the table, as seen in the paintings reproduced in Wu Xiaoyun 吳曉筠 [Wu Hsiao-yun], “Qianlong huangdi de jingzi—guan yu jianshang, diancang yu shiyong de xuanze” 乾隆皇帝的鏡子—關於鑑賞、典藏與使用的選擇, in Qinggong jingjian wenhua yu diancang, ed. Wu Xiaoyun (Taipei: Guoli Gugong Bowuyuan, 2015), 295. A similar metaphor was used in an encyclopedic context in medieval Eu rope: Patrice Sicard, “Savoirs et sagesse dans une école médiévale: Le cas de Saint-Victor de Paris,” in Schaer, Tous les savoirs du monde, 103. 88. Han-i araha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, sioi:3a–b. I have benefited from the translations in Jiang, Kangxi “Yuzhi Qingwen jian,” 182; and C. de Harlez, “Miscellanées Chinois,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 12 (1898): 253.

266

Notes to Pages 139–142

89. Fu-ge, Ting yu congtan, 217, suggested that the Mirror and Kangxi zidian were two sides of the same coin. 90. Yuzhi Kangxi zidian 御製康熙字典, comp. Zhang Yushu 張玉書 and Ling Shaowen 凌紹雯, digitized copy held at Harvard-Yenching Library with the call number T 5173 0735 (1716), yuzhi xu:5b–6a. 91. Han-i araha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, sioi:4a–b. 92. Sangge, Man-Han leishu, xu (1):1b–2a and xu (2):1a. 93. Parrenin, “Lettre du Père Parennin . . . à M. de Fontenelle,” 230. 94. E.g., Han-i araha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, 10:nimere nidure hacin:33b, sub voce idarambi, provides a Chinese translation for the lemma (in Manchu transcription only). 95. Han-i araha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, sioi:6a–b; Jiang, Kangxi “Yuzhi Qingwen jian,” 184; Harlez, “Miscellanées Chinois,” 255. 96. The only examples that I have found are both in Han-i araha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, 3:yamulara isin hacin:12b, sub voce imiyambi, which quotes the Veritable records of Nurhaci’s reign, and 20:mederi nimaha-i hacin (jai):36a, sub voce edeng, which quotes oral testimony. 97. Han-i araha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, amargi sioi:5b; Jiang, Kangxi “Yuzhi Qingwen jian,” 190. 98. Han-i araha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, sioi:5a; Jiang, Kangxi “Yuzhi Qingwen jian,” 183; Harlez, “Miscellanées Chinois,” 254. 99. Karl Himly, “Die Abteilung der Spiele im ‘Spiegel der Mandschu-Sprache,’ ” T’oung Pao, 1st ser., 6, no. 3 (1895): 259 (pt. 1). 100. Han-i araha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, 14:faksi sai agûra-i hacin:27b. Arthur Waley and Joseph R. Allen, trans., The Book of Songs, ed. Joseph R. Allen (New York: Grove Press, 1996), 80, translate the original Chinese version of the quote from the Poetry classic. 101. The preface was dated in the twelfth month of Shunzhi 11, a year that began in January 1655. Cf. Stephen Durrant, “Manchu Translations of Chou Dynasty Texts,” Early China 3 (1977): 53. 102. Pierre Rétat, “L’âge des dictionnaires,” in Chartier and Martin, Le livre triomphant, 232–41. 103. Meschonnic, Des mots et des mondes, 138–45; Rey, Antoine Furetière, ch. 4; Roy-Garibal, Le Parnasse et le Palais, 391–424. 104. Anthony Grafton, The Footnote: A Curious History (1997; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 194, 210. 105. Augustin Calmet, Dictionnaire historique, critique, chronologique, géographique et littéral de la Bible, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (1722; Geneva: Bousquet, 1730), “épître,” 1–2; Editor’s introduction in Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique (1764–82), critical ed., ed. Christiane Mervaud, in vol. 35 of Les œuvres complètes de Voltaire (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1994), 3. 106. Robert Darnton, The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the “Encyclopédie,” 1775–1800 (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1979), 15. 107. For the collection of classified writings published by the court (but not actually compiled on imperial orders): Otto Franke, “Zwei wichtige literarische Erwerbungen des Seminars für Sprache und Kultur Chinas zu Hamburg,” Mitteilungen aus dem Seminar für Sprache und Kultur Chinas zu Hamburg 32 (1914), offprint (Hamburg: Otto Meissners, 1915), 9–10. For the topically arranged anthology: R. Kent Guy, The Emperor’s Four Treasuries: Scholars and the State in the Late Ch’ien-lung Era (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1987).

Notes to Pages 143–151

267

108. Mingdo, Yin Han-, Qingwen jian 音漢清文鑑 | nikan hergen-i ubaliyambuha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, held at Princeton University Library with the call number TA 161 4010 (Beijing: Wenrui Tang, 1735). I have consulted copies from four different printers. In addition to the one just cited, copies are held at Harvard-Yenching Library with the call numbers TMA 5806.05 2491.6, M 5806.05 2491.5, and TMA 5806.05 2491.7. 109. Chunhua, Man-, Mengwen cidian, 94–99. 110. Jiang, Kangxi “Yuzhi Qingwen jian,” 32. 111. Denis Sinor, “I fondamenti della letteratura mancese,” in Storia delle letterature d’Oriente, ed. Oscar Botto (Milan: Vallardi Società Editrice Libraria, 1969), vol. 4, 399.

chapter 6 1. Pfister, Notices, 501–17 (entry 233); Dehergne, Répertoire, 195–96 (entry 611); Ouyang Zhesheng, “The ‘Beijing Experience’ of Eighteenth-Century French Jesuits: A Discussion Centered on Lettres édifiantes et curieuses écrites des missions étrangères,” Chinese Studies in History 46, no. 2 (2012–13): 47. He also baptized more than ten thousand Chinese babies: Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, “Twilight in the Imperial City: The Jesuit Mission in China, 1748–60,” in O’Malley, Bailey, Harris, and Kennedy, Jesuits II, 728. 2. Parrenin, “Lettre du Père Parennin . . . à M. de Fontenelle,” 215–16. On the letter: Richard C. Rudolph and Hartmut Walravens, “Comprehensive Bibliography of Manchu Studies (1909–2003),” Monumenta Serica 57 (2009): 367 (item 973); Tatiana A. Pang and Giovanni Stary [T. A. Pang 庞 and G. Sidali 斯达理], “Faguo Yesu Hui chuanjiao shi Ba Duoming guanyu Manwen de shuxin” 法国耶稣会传教士巴多明关于满文的书信, trans. Huang Xihui, red. Liu Min, Manyu yanjiu, no. 2 (1994): 94–99, 82. 3. Parrenin, “Lettre du Père Parennin . . . à M. de Fontenelle,” 216–17. 4. These are the numbers of letters seen on pages 59 and 70 in Gorelova, Manchu Grammar, and the number 7 from the list on pages 71–72. 5. [Ferdinand Verbiest], Elementa linguæ tartaricæ (written in 1677–78), 2nd ed., ed. Melchisédech Thévenot (1686; Paris: Thomas Moette, 1696), 7. 6. Parrenin, “Lettre du Père Parennin . . . à M. de Fontenelle,” 218. 7. Parrenin, “Lettre du Père Parennin . . . à M. de Fontenelle,” 216. 8. Paola Paderni, “The Problem of kuan-hua in Eighteenth-Century China: The Yungchêng Decree for Fukien and Kwantung,” Annali [dell’Università di Napoli “L’Orientale”] 48, no. 4 (1988): 258–68. 9. Giovanni Stary, “An Unknown Chapter in the History of Manchu Writing: The ‘Indian Letters’ (tianzhu zi 天竺字),” Central Asiatic Journal 48, no. 2 (2004): 280–91. 10. J. R. P. King, “The Korean Elements in the Manchu Script Reform of 1632,” Central Asiatic Journal 31, no. 3/4 (1987): 260–65. 11. Oshibuchi Hajime 鴛淵一, Manshū hiki kō 満洲碑記考 (Tōkyō: Meguro Shoten, 1943), 8–9. On the discovery of this stele: Yamashita Taizō 山下泰蔵, “Manshū seijin Dahai no hi” 滿洲聖人達海の碑, Man-Mō 14, no. 7 (1933): 192–95. Other stele discussing Dahai do not contain this claim: Qian Yiji 錢儀吉, ed., Beizhuan ji 碑傳集, facsimile (1893; Taipei: Mingwen Shuju, 1985), vol. 1, 3:17a-b (106-251-2); Beijing Tushuguan 北京圖書館, Beijing Tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian 北京圖書館藏中國歷代石刻拓本匯編 (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Chubanshe, 1989–91), vol. 62, 52–53. On the latter stele: Zhao

268

Notes to Pages 151–155

Xiaohua 赵晓华, “Dahai bei ji xiangguan mubei kaoshu” 达海碑及相关墓碑考述, Liaohai wenwu xuekan 24, no. 2 (1997): 130–35. 12. E.g., Shen, Qingshu zhinan, 1:1b and 2b. 13. Yang, Liubian jilüe, 8b. 14. Wu Jing 吳暻, “Zuosi biji” 左司筆記 (written after 1688), facsimile of manuscript, in vol. 26 (shibu) of “Siku quanshu” cunmu congshu (Jinan: Qi-Lu Shushe, 1997), 349. 15. Liu, “Hanzi zhuyin Manwen shier zitou,” sections 13 and 14. 16. Ling and Chen, Xinke Qingshu quanji, vol. 2. 17. Zhou, Fanyu “Xitan zhang,” 160. 18. Kevin Conrad Schoenberger Jr., “Resonant Readings: Musicality in Early Modern Chinese Adaptations of Traditional Poetic Forms” (PhD diss., Yale University, 2013); Nathan Vedal, “Scholarly Culture in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century China” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2017). 19. Mårten Söderblom Saarela, “Alphabets avant la lettre: Phonographic Experiments in Late Imperial China,” Twentieth-Century China 41, no. 3 (2016): 242–46. 20. Söderblom Saarela, “Shier zitou jizhu”; Nie Hongyin 聂鸿音 and Sun Bojun 孙伯君, “Xifan yiyu” jiaolu ji huibian 《西番译语》校录及汇编 (Beijing: Shehui Kexue Wenxian Chubanshe, 2010), 4–9. 21. Ling and Chen, Xinke Qingshu quanji, vol. 2, Man-Han beikao, fanli:1b and shang:3a. 22. Elliott, “Whose Empire Shall It Be?,” 279. 23. Yue Shaofeng 樂韶鳳 and Song Lian 宋濂, Hongwu zhengyun 洪武正韻, new ed., digitized copy held at Harvard-Yenching Library with the call number T 5127 2907b (1375; 1567), vol. 1, xu:3b. 24. John E. Wills Jr., “Contingent Connections: Fujian, the Empire, and the Early Modern World,” in The Qing Formation in World-Historical Time, ed. Lynn  A. Struve (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004), 192–93. 25. On Cho Ng, Cheng-Zhu Confucianism in the Early Qing: Li Guangdi (1642–1718) and Qing Learning (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001). 26. Jami, Emperor’s New Mathematics, 69. 27. T. H. Barrett, review of Cheng-Zhu Confucianism in the Early Qing: Li Guangdi (1642– 1718) and Qing Learning by On Cho Ng, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 65, no. 3 (2002): 647; Fang Chao-ying, “Li Kuang-ti,” in Hummel, Eminent Chinese, vol. 1, 473–75. 28. Li Qingzhi 李清植, Wenzhen Gong nianpu 文貞公年譜, facsimile, in vol. 15 of Qingchu mingru nianpu (1825; Beijing: Beijing Tushuguan Chubanshe, 2006), 1:2a–b (Kangxi 9–11). 29. Li, Wenzhen Gong nianpu, 1:14a. 30. Li, Wenzhen Gong nianpu, 1:16b, referring to 1676 (Kangxi 15). 31. Zhang, Qingdai qianqi, vol. 2, 191. 32. Li Guangdi 李光地, Rongcun quanji 榕村全集 (written before 1718), facsimile, in vol. 160 of Qingdai shi-, wenji huibian (1736; Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2009), 20:17a. 33. Luo Changpei 罗常培, “Wang Lansheng yu Yinyun chanwei” 王兰生与《音韵阐微》 (1943), in vol. 8 of Luo Changpei wenji (Jinan: Shandong Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 2008), 451–52. 34. Luo, “Wang Lansheng yu Yinyun chanwei,” 458. 35. Li, Rongcun quanji, 29:22a–b. Relatedly: Lin Jiayou 林家有, “Shilun Manzu wenzi de chuangzhi ji Manyu, Manwen zhujian feiqi de yuanyin he yingxiang” 试论满族文字的创制

Notes to Pages 156–164

269

及满语满文逐渐废弃的原因和影响, in Minzu shi luncong, ed. Shehui Kexue Zhanxian Bianji

Bu (Changchun: Jilin Renmin Chubanshe, 1980), 262. 36. Söderblom Saarela, “Alphabets avant la lettre,” 247–48. 37. Lin Qingxun 林慶勳, “Yinyun chanwei” yanjiu 音韻闡微硏究 (Taipei: Taiwan Xuesheng Shuju, 1988), 9–10. 38. Du-si-de 都四德, “Huangzhong tongyun” 黃鐘通韻 (1753), facsimile, in vol. 185 (jingbu) of “Siku quanshu” cunmu congshu, juan xia:24a (755). 39. Ye, Qing qianqi de wenhua zhengce, 90. 40. Qinding tongwen yuntong 欽定同文韻統, by Yun-lu 允禄, facsimile, in vol. 723 of Gugong zhenben congkan (1750; Haikou: Hainan Chubanshe, 2001), zouyi:2a. 41. Qinding tongwen yuntong, zouyi:4a. 42. Yuzhi zengding Qingwen jian, Siku quanshu huiyao ed. 43. Studied in Ochiai Morikazu 落合守和, “Zōtei Shinbunkan jūni jitō no sangō setsuon” 《增訂清文鑑》十二字頭の三合切音, Shizuoka Daigaku Kyōyōbu kenkyū hōkoku 20, no. 2 (1985): 75–99. 44. Qinding Qing-Han duiyin zishi 欽定清漢對音字式 (1773; Jinggu Tang, 1836). 45. Yuzhi Manzhu, Menggu, Hanzi sanhe qieyin Qingwen jian 御製滿珠蒙古漢字三合切音 清文鑑 | han-i araha manju monggo nikan hergen ilan hacin-i mudan acaha buleku bithe | qaγan-u bicigsen manju mongγ ol kitad üsüg γ urban jüil-ün ayalγ u neilegsen toli bicig (Beijing: Wuying Dian, 1780). 46. For this understanding of qie: Coblin, “Reflections,” 105, including note 2. The source for the first Manchu translation is Yuzhi zengding Qingwen jian, Siku quanshu huiyao ed., vol. 1, xu:13a–b (83-8). The source for the second is Yuzhi Manzhu, Menggu, Hanzi sanhe qieyin Qingwen jian, xu:1a. The term appears here in verbal form. 47. Yuzhi zengding Qingwen jian, Siku quanshu huiyao ed., vol. 1, juwan juwe uju:ang eng ing:10b (83-52). Note that the Modern Standard Mandarin syllable xiong reflects two syllables in eighteenth-century normative Mandarin: hiong and siong in Manchu transcription. 48. Yuzhi zengding Qingwen jian, Siku quanshu huiyao ed., vol. 1, 1:9a (83-63). 49. Hong Sŏnp’yo 홍선표, ed., Sipch’il, sipp’al segi Chosŏn ŭi oeguk sŏjŏk suyong kwa toksŏ silt’ae: mongnok kwa haeje 17 ・18 세기 조선의 외국서적 수용과 독서실태—목록과 해제 (Seoul: Hyean, 2006), 169. 50. Sŏng Paegin 成百仁, “Han-, Ch’ŏngmun’gam haeje” 《漢清文鑑》解題 (1998), in Manjuŏ wa Alt’aiŏhak yŏn’gu, 25. 51. Ogura, Zōtei hochū Chōsen gogakushi, 619; Chŏng Kwang 鄭光, “Ch’ŏng’ŏ ‘Nogŏltae’ sinsŏk kwa Ch’ŏnghak sasŏ”『清語老乞大新釋』과 清學四書, in Chŏng, Yŏkhaksŏ, 635; Yi Kap 李 𡊠, Yŏnhaeng kisa 燕行記事, facsimile of manuscript, in vol. 20 of Hanguo Hanwen Yanxing wenxian xuanbian (Shanghai: Fudan Daxue Chubanshe, 2011), 31; Sŏng, “Han-, Ch’ŏngmun’gam haeje,” 12. 52. Wang, “Sounds of Our Country.” 53. Ledyard, “International Linguistic Background,” 48–49; Pak Hyŏng’ik 박형익, Han’guk chajŏn ŭi yŏksa 한국 자전의 역사 (Seoul: Yŏngnak, 2012), 172–77. 54. Pak, Han’guk chajŏn ŭi yŏksa, 172–77. 55. Sŏul Taehakkyo Kyujanggak 서울大學校奎章閣, ed., Kyujanggak sojang ŏmunhak charyo: ŏhak p’yŏn: haesŏl 奎章閣所蔵語文學資料: 語學篇: 解說 (Seoul: T’aehaksa, 2001), 161. 56. Ch’oe Sejin 崔世珍, Sasŏng t’onghae 四聲通解, microfilm of book held at Kyujanggak, Seoul, with the call number 奎貴 1593 (1517; 1614), pŏmnye:4a.

270

Notes to Pages 164–169

57. Ki-joong Song, The Study of Foreign Languages in the Chosŏn Dynasty, 1392–1910 (Seoul: Jimoondang Publishing Company, 2001), 1–50. 58. Prominent people on embassies: Gari Ledyard, “Korean Travelers in China over Four Hundred Years, 1488–1887,” Occasional Papers on Korea, no. 2 (1974): 3, 5. The interpreters’ positions: Man’gi yoram 萬機要覽, comp. Sŏ Yŏngbo 徐榮輔, new ed. (1808; Seoul: Minjok Munhwa Ch’ujinhoe, 1971), vol. 1, 201–2 (annotated Korean translation on pp. 542–45). Also: T’ongmun’gwan chi 通文館志 (1720, expanded and revised in 1778, material appended in 1888– 1907), by Kim Kyŏngmun 金慶門, facsimile (Seoul: Chōsen Sōtokufu [Chosŏn Ch’ongdokpu], 1944), 3:1a–5a. 59. K. Robinson, “Policies of Practicality”; Adam C. I. Bohnet, “ ‘On Either Side of the River’: The Rise of the Manchu State and Chosŏn’s Jurchen Subjects,” in The Exploitation of the Landscape of Central and Inner Asia: Past, Present and Future, ed. Michael Gervers, Uradyn E. Bulag, and Gillian Long (Toronto: Asian Institute, University of Toronto, 2008), 111–25. 60. Mende, “Korea Between the Chinese and Manchu.” 61. Han-, Ch’ŏngmun’gam 漢清文鑑, by Yi Tam 李湛 and Kim Chinha 金振夏, facsimile, with an introduction by Min Yŏnggyu (Seoul: Yŏnhŭi Taehakkyo Tongbanghak Yŏn’guso, 1956), pŏmnye:1a (1). The book was reprinted under the title Han-, Han-, Ch’ŏngmun’gam 韓漢清文鑑 (Mirror of the Korean, Chinese, and Manchu languages), which is an invention of the editors. 62. Han-, Ch’ŏngmun’gam, pŏmnye:1b (1). The Manchu transcriptions of these Chinese characters are found in Yuzhi zengding Qingwen jian, Siku quanshu huiyao ed., vol. 1, 2:12a (83-80) and 5:35b (83-175). 63. Sven Osterkamp, “Early Adaptations of the Korean Script to Render Foreign Languages,” in The Idea of Writing: Writing Across Borders, ed. Alex de Voogt and Joachim Friedrich Quack (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 93. 64. Han-, Ch’ŏngmun’gam, pŏmnye:2b (1). 65. Han-, Ch’ŏngmun’gam, pŏmnye:1b (1). 66. Urs App, The Birth of Orientalism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010). 67. Jeffrey D. Burson, “Chinese Novices, Jesuit Missionaries and the Accidental Construction of Sinophobia in Enlightenment France,” French History 27, no. 1 (2013): 21–44. 68. Huttman appears to have died in relative poverty: “Deaths, Arranged in Counties,” Gentleman’s Magazine (February 1845): 212. 69. “Advertisements Connected with Literature and the Arts,” Literary Gazette and Journal of the Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c., no. 986 (December 12, 1835). 70. William Huttman, “On the Chinese Mode of Expressing the Sounds of Manchu Words,” Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British and Foreign India, China, and Australia, new ser., 23 (1837): 197. 71. Huttman, “On the Chinese Mode,” 198. 72. Huttman, “On the Chinese Mode,” 197. 73. Joseph Edkins, A Grammar of the Chinese Colloquial Language Commonly Called the Mandarin Dialect, 2nd rev. ed. (Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press, 1864), pt. 1, 79.

chapter 7 Note to epigraph: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Essai sur l’origine des langues, où il est parlé de la mélodie et de l’imitation musicale” (finished in manuscript form by 1763 but only published posthumously in 1781), ed. Jean Starobinski, in Écrits sur la musique, la langue et

Notes to Pages 169–171

271

le théâtre, ed. Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond, in vol. 5 of Œuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1995), 385. This statement is contextualized in Jean Starobinski, “[Introduction à l’]Essai sur l’origine des langues,” in Rousseau, Écrits sur la musique, la langue et le théâtre, clxxix– clxxx; Jacques Derrida, De la grammatologie (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1967), 416–27; and Nicholas Hudson, Writing and Euro pean Thought, 1600–1830 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), ch. 6. Cf. the different translation in JeanJacques Rousseau, “Essay on the Origin of Languages, Which Treats of Melody and Musical Imitation,” trans. John H. Moran, in On the Origin of Language, trans. John H. Moran and Alexander Gode, with an introduction by Alexander Gode (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1966), 17. 1. Edwin J. Van Kley, “News from China; Seventeenth-Century Eu ropean Notices of the Manchu Conquest,” Journal of Modern History 45, no. 4 (1973): 561. 2. Judi Loach, “Revolutionary Pedagogues? How Jesuits Used Education to Change Society,” in O’Malley, Bailey, Harris, and Kennedy, Jesuits II, 71. 3. Peter N. Miller and François Louis, “Introduction: Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Eu rope and China,” in Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life, ed. Peter N. Miller and François Louis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012), 1–24. 4. Jacob Spon, Réponse à la critique publiée par M. Guillet sur le “Voyage de Grèce” de Jacob Spon (Lyon: T. Amaulri, 1679), 67, 71; Peter N. Miller, “Writing Antiquarianism: Prolegomenon to a History,” in Miller and Louis, Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life, 37. 5. Knud Lundbæk, T. S. Bayer, 1694–1738: Pioneer Sinologist (London: Curzon Press, 1986), 17. 6. I am aware of the dif fer ent view in Byron Ellsworth Hamann, “How Maya Hieroglyphs Got Their Name: Egypt, Mexico, and China in Western Grammatology Since the Fifteenth Century,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 152, no. 1 (2008): 41–43. 7. Mary Baine Campbell, “Literature,” in Early Modern Science, ed. Katherine Park and Lorraine Daston, vol. 3 of The Cambridge History of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 761–62. 8. Hamann, “How Maya Hieroglyphs Got Their Name,” 10–14. 9. Auroux, Révolution; Considine, Dictionaries. 10. Erik Iversen, The Myth of Egypt and Its Hieroglyphs in European Tradition (1961; Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993), 65. 11. Theodor Benfey, Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft und orientalischen Philologie in Deutschland seit dem Anfange des 19. Jahrhunderts mit einem Rückblick auf die früheren Zeiten (Munich: J. G. Cotta, 1869), 217–18; G. Lloyd Jones, The Discovery of Hebrew in Tudor England: A Third Language (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1983), chs. 1–3; MarieLuce Demonet [Demonet-Launay], “L’hébreu dans la Renaissance française,” Jewish Language Review, no. 5 (1985): 17. 12. Johann Fück, Die arabischen Studien in Europa bis in den Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1955), chs. 2–9. 13. Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken, “Johann Potken aus Schwerte, Propst von St. Georg in Köln: Der erste Äthiopologe des Abendlandes,” in Aus kölnischer und rheinischer Geschichte, ed. Hans Blum (Cologne: H. Wamper, 1969), 81–114; Renato Lefevre, “L’Etiopia nella stampa del primo cinquecento,” Africa: Rivista trimestrale di studi e documentazione dell’Istituto italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente 20, no. 4 (1965): 345–69. 14. Benfey, Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft, 223.

272

Notes to Pages 171–172

15. Stéphane Yérasimos, “Le turc en Occident: La connaissance de la langue turque en Eu rope: XV–XVIIe siècles,” in L’inscription des langues dans les relations de voyage: XVIe et XVIIIe siècles, ed. Michèle Duchet (Fontenau-aux-Roses: E. N. S. Fontenay/Saint-Cloud, 1992), 191–210. 16. Georg Schurhammer and C. W. Cottrell Jr., “The First Printing in Indic Characters,” Harvard Library Bulletin 6, no. 2 (1952): 147–60; Toshinori Uetani and Marie-Luce Demonet, “Les langues des Indes orientales entre Renaissance et Âge classique,” Histoire Épistémologie Langage 30, no. 2 (2008): 116–24. 17. Francis Richard, “Aux origines de la connaissance de la langue persane en France,” Luqmān 3, no. 1 (1986–87): 23–42; Toon van Hal, “The Earliest Stages of PersianGerman Language Comparison,” in History of Linguistics 2008: Selected Papers from the Eleventh International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHOLS XI), 28 August–2 September  2008, Potsdam, ed. Gerda Haßler (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011), 147–65. 18. Th. Zachariae, “Das Devanāgarī-Alphabet bei Athanasius Kircher: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Wissenschaften,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 15 (1901): 313–20. 19. Liselotte Dieckmann, Hieroglyphics: The History of a Literary Symbol (St. Louis: Washington University Press, 1970). 20. Marie-Luce Demonet, Les voix du signe: Nature et origine du langage à la Renaissance (1480–1580) (Paris: Champion-Slatkine, 1992), 200, 429–30; Cordula Neis, “Laut vs. Buchstabe,” in Lexikon sprachtheoretischer Grundbegriffe des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, by Gerda Haßler and Cordula Neis (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009), 1572; Hudson, Writing and European Thought, ch. 1. 21. David Porter, Ideographia: The Chinese Cipher in Early Modern Europe (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001), ch. 1. 22. O. Nachod, “Die ersten Kenntnisse chinesischer Schriftzeichen im Abendlande,” in Hirth Anniversary Volume (London: Probsthain Co., 1923), 235–73; Nicolas Trigault, ed. and trans., De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Iesu, by Matteo Ricci (Augsburg: Christopher Mangius, 1615), 25–26; Nicolas Trigault, Histoire de l’expédition chrestienne au royaume de la Chine entreprinse par les P.P. de la Compagnie de Jésus, by Matteo Ricci, trans. David-Floris de Riquebourg-Trigault (Lille: Pierre de Rache, 1616), 20–22; Madeleine V.David, Le débat sur les écritures et l’hiéroglyphe aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles et l’application de la notion de déchiffrement aux écritures mortes (Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1965), 32–33; C. R. Boxer, ed., South China in the Sixteenth Century: Being the Narratives of Galeote Pereira, Fr. Gaspar da Cruz, O.P., Fr. Martín de Rada, O.E.S.A., (1550–1575) (1953; Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2004), 73, 162 (Gaspar da Cruz), 297 (Martín de Rada [1533–78]). 23. Bruce Rusk, “Old Scripts, New Actors: Eu ropean Encounters with Chinese Writing, 1550–1700,” East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine 26 (2007): 68–116. 24. Dinu Luca, The Chinese Language in European Texts: The Early Period (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 75–76. 25. Álvaro de Semedo [Alvarez Semedo], The History of That Great and Renowned Monarchy of China (London: Iohn Crook, 1655), 33; David E. Mungello, Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology (1985; Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1989), 76–79. Also see Luca, Chinese Language, 146, for a slightly earlier mention of characters composed of other characters.

Notes to Pages 172–175

273

26. Joachim Bouvet, Histoire de l’empereur de la Chine, facsimile (1699; Tianjin, 1940), 78, 85; J. C. Gatty and Joachim Bouvet, Voiage de Siam du Père Bouvet: Précédé d’une introduction avec une biographie et une bibliographie de son auteur (Leiden: Brill, 1963), lxv, note 3. 27. Martino Martini, Sinicæ historiæ, first part (Amsterdam: Joannis Blaeu, 1659), 7. 28. Martino Martini, Atlas extremæ Asiæ, sive Sinarum imperii geographica descriptio, in vol. 10 of Asia, quae est Geographiae Blavianae, ed. Ioannis Blaeu (1655; Amsterdam: Ioannis Blaeu, 1662), 20. Martini erroneously gave the direction of Manchu writing as going from right to left, not left to right. Another early description is seen in Sebes, “Description,” 6 (see also Gabriel de Magalhães [Magaillans], Nouvelle relation de la Chine, contenant la description des particularitez les plus considerables de ce grand empire [Portuguese original written in 1668], trans. Claude Bernou [Paris: Claude Barbin, 1688], 33; Karel de Jaegher, “Le père Verbiest, auteur de la première grammaire mandchoue,” T’oung Pao 22, no. 3 [1923]: 190). 29. Editor’s introduction in Boxer, South China, xvii. 30. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Historia de la conquista de la China por el Tartaro (Paris: Antonio Bertier, 1670), 337–38; Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Histoire de la conqueste de la Chine par les Tartares, trans. Collé (Paris: Antoine Bertier, 1670), 414. 31. David Cram, “Universal Language Schemes in Seventeenth-Century Britain,” Histoire, Epistémologie, Langage 7, no. 2 (1985): 35–44; Hudson, Writing and European Thought, ch. 2. 32. John Wilkins, An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language (London: Sa. Gellibrand & John Martin, 1668), 14, 376. 33. Pan Jixing 潘吉星, “Shen Fuzong zai shiqi shiji Ouzhou de xueshu huodong” 沈福宗 在十七世纪欧洲的学术活动, Chuantong wenhua yu xiandai hua 1 (1994): 67; Isabelle LandryDeron, “Le Dictionnaire chinois, français et latin de 1813,” T’oung Pao 101, nos. 4/5 (2015): 412; Huang Gu 黃谷, “Qing chu lü Ou xianxingzhe—Shen Fuzong” 清初旅歐先行者—沈福宗, Zijincheng 5 (1992): 20. 34. Paul Pelliot, L’inscription nestorienne de Si-ngan-fou, ed. Antonino Forte (Kyoto/Paris: Scuola di studi sull’Asia orientale/Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, 1996), 102–3. 35. Bolesław Szcześniak [Boleslaw Szczesniak], “The Writings of Michael Boym,” Monumenta Serica 14 (1949–55): 494–96. 36. Joscelyn Godwin, Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of the World (London: Thames and Hudson, 2009), 237 (in the caption of fig. 13.1). 37. Marion Leathers Kuntz, “Guillaume Postel and the Syriac Gospels of Athanasius Kircher,” Renaissance Quarterly 40, no. 3 (1987): 467, where the Latin original is also given. 38. Athanasius Kircher, Prodromus Coptus sive Ægyptiacus (Rome: Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, 1636), ch. 3; Mungello, Curious Land, 164–72; Pelliot, L’inscription nestorienne, chs. 1–3, especially pp. 108–10; Michael Keevak, The Story of a Stele: China’s Nestorian Monument and Its Reception in the West, 1625–1916 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008), ch. 2. 39. Eva S. Kraft, “Frühe chinesische Studien in Berlin,” Medizinhistorisches Journal 11, nos. 1/2 (1976): 105. 40. Georg Lehner, Der Druck chinesischer Zeichen in Europa: Entwicklungen im 19. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004), 61–70; Cécile Leung, Étienne Fourmont (1683–1745): Oriental and Chinese Languages in Eighteenth-Century France (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002), 241–46.

274

Notes to Pages 175–176

41. Bottéro, Sémantisme et classification; Mårten Söderblom Saarela, “Shape and Sound: Organizing Dictionaries in Late Imperial China,” Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America, no. 35 (2014): 187–208. 42. Danielle Elisseeff-Poisle, “Mécénat royal et sinologie: Les caractères chinois de Fourmont et l’édition des 214 clefs,” in L’art du livre à l’Imprimerie Nationale (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1973), 163–69; Jonathan Spence, “The Paris Years of Arcadio Huang,” Granta 32 (1979): 125–32; Danielle Elisseeff [Elisseeff-Poisle], Nicolas Fréret (1688–1749): Réflexions d’un humaniste du XVIIIe siècle sur la Chine (Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1978), 41–51, 64–79. 43. He also admitted to using printed Jesuit sources: Nicolas Fréret to Joseph-Henri Marie de Prémare, 1735, in Documents inédits relatifs à la connaissance de la Chine en France de 1685 à 1740, ed. Virgile Pinot (1932; Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1971), 106–7. 44. Nicolas Fréret, “Réponse de Fréret aux accusations portées contre lui dans le Catalogue des ouvrages de M. Fourmont l’aîné,” in Elisseeff, Nicolas Fréret, 147–50. 45. Noël Golvers, “The ‘Elementa linguae Tartaricae’ by Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (1623– 1688): Some New Evidence,” in Italia ed Europa nella linguistica del Rinascimento: Confronti e relazioni, ed. Mirko Tavoni, Pietro U. Dini, John Flood, Aldo Gallotta, Kristian Jensen, Pierre Lardet, Hans-Josef Niederehe, and Guiliano Tamani (Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini, 1996), 581–93. 46. Pentti Aalto, “L’esquisse de la grammaire mongole qu’on trouve chez Melchisédech Thévenot,” Central Asiatic Journal 8, no. 3 (1963): 154. 47. [Verbiest], Elementa, 4–5. I have consulted the translation in Pentti Aalto, “The ‘Elementa Linguae Tartaricae’ by Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J., Translated,” Zentralasiatische Studien 11 (1977): 35–120. 48. Von der Schulenberg, Leibniz als Sprachforscher, 103; Daniel Droixhe, La linguistique et l’appel de l’histoire (1600–1800): Rationalisme et révolutions positivistes (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1978), 132, passim. 49. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s discussion with Claudio Filippo Grimaldi, Rome, 1689, in Leibniz, Der Briefwechsel, 4. I have benefited from Babin’s German translation on the facing page and the information on Grimaldi on pp. 609–10. 50. E.g., Antoine Verjus to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Paris, 30 March  1695, in Leibniz, Der Briefwechsel, 56, 628–29. 51. Nicolaas [Nicolaes] Witsen, Noord en Oost Tartarye (Amsterdam, 1692). 52. Among Leibniz’s sources were reports from the Netherlands, in which a Mongol, part of a Russian diplomatic mission, had been put to questioning: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Heinrich Wilhelm Ludolf, Hannover, November  1697, in Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften, 4th ser., vol. 14, 736. 53. Johann Jacob Julius Chuno to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Berlin, April 1695, in Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften, 4th ser., vol. 11, 409. 54. Melchisedech Thévenot to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Paris, May 1692, in Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften, 4th ser., vol. 8, 249–50. 55. Johann Baptist Podesta to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Vienna, May 1695, in Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften, 4th ser., vol. 11, 447. 56. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Johann Jacob Julius Chuno, Hannover, July 1695, in Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften, 4th ser., vol. 11, 577. 57. Acquired, that is, from Chuno: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Johann Jacob Julius Chuno, Hannover, 12 September 1696, in Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften, 4th ser., vol. 13, 266.

Notes to Pages 176–179

275

58. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Johan G. Sparfvenfelt, Hannover, 29 January 1697, in Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften, 4th ser., vol. 13, 544. The translation follows Pentti Aalto, “The ‘Elementa Linguae Tartaricae’ by Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J.,” in Tractata Altaica: Denis Sinor sexagenario optime de rebus altaicis merito dedicata, ed. Walther Heissig, John R. Krueger, and Felix J. Oinas (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1976), 2. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Johann Jacob Julius Chuno, Hannover, 23 February 1696, in Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften, 4th ser., vol. 12, 450, specifies that Leibniz had only received the first half of the grammar. Leibniz’s inquiries continued beyond this point: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Nicolaas Witsen, Hannover, 5 April 1697, in Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften, 4th ser., vol. 15, 482–83; Jean de Fontaney to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Paris, 10 September 1705, in Leibniz, Der Briefwechsel, 510, 706–7. See further: Carhart, Leibniz Discovers Asia, 118–21. 59. Thomas Hyde, Veterum Persarum et Parthorum et Medorum religionis historia (1700; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1760), 551. 60. Nicolas Fréret, “Réflexions sur les principes généraux de l’Art d’écrire, et en particulier sur les fondemens de l’écriture chinoise” (dated to 6 December 1718), in Mémoires académiques, ed. Catherine Volpilhac-Auger (1729; Paris: Fayard, 1996), 50. 61. Brigitte Schlieben-Lange, “Les Idéologues et l’écriture,” in Les Idéologues: Sémiotique, théories et politiques linguistiques pendant la Révolution française, ed. Winfried Busse and Jürgen Trabant (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1986), 181–206; cf. Hudson, Writing and European Thought, 56–59, who credits Fréret with the separation of ideographs into the two kinds of figurative and nonfigurative. 62. Roland Schmidt-Riese, “Ordnung nach Babylon: Frühneuzeitliche Spracheninventare in Frankreich und ‘Deutschland,’ ” in Sammeln, Ordnen, Veranschaulichen: Zur Wissenskompilatorik in der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Frank Büttner, Markus Friedrich, and Helmut Zedelmaier (Münster: Lit, 2003), 53–81. 63. David Abercombie, “What Is a ‘Letter’?,” in Studies in Phonetics and Linguistics (1949; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), 78, 80–81. Further: Demonet, Les voix du signe, 47, 68, 138; Hudson, Writing and European Thought, 94–95. 64. Nicolas Beauzée [B.E.R.M.], “Lettres,” in Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, ed. Denis Diderot (Paris: Briasson & David l’âiné & Le Breton & Durand, 1751–72), vol. 9, 405. Chambers, centuries later, adhered to the word’s etymology as “formed from litus, the participle of linere, to smear, or mark”: Ephraim Chambers, “Letter,” in Cyclopaedia, or, an universal dictionary of arts and sciences, 5th ed. (London: Midwinter, 1741), vol. 1, sig.5Uu2r. 65. Demonet, Les voix du signe, 138–39, 142. 66. Luca, Chinese Language, 86, 155. 67. Peter T. Daniels, “The Study of Writing Systems,” in Daniels and Bright, World’s Writing Systems, 4. 68. Johann Potken, Psalterium in quatuor linguis Hebraea, Graeca, Chaldaea, Latina (Cologne, 1518), no pagination, toward end of volume. Note that Potken calls Ge‘ez “Chaldean,” believing it was the language used by the Jews during the Babylonian captivity (see also von den Brincken, “Johann Potken”). 69. On Eu ropean contact with Siam, especially the French embassy of 1685: Gatty and Bouvet, Voiage de Siam, chs. 1–2. 70. Athanasius Kircher, ed., China monumentis qua sacris qua profanis, nec non variis naturae et artis spectaculis, aliarumque rerum memorabilium argumentis illustrata (Amsterdam: Jacob Meurs, 1667), unpaginated table titled “Elementa Lingua Hanscret seu Brahmanica,” following

276

Notes to Pages 179–181

p. 162; Zachariae, “Das Devanāgarī-Alphabet”; Bolesław Szcześniak [printed as Baleslaw Szczesniak], “Athanasius Kircher’s China Illustrata,” Osiris 10 (1952): 399. 71. Hamann, “How Maya Hieroglyphs Got Their Name,” 33–41, esp. note 88; Cordula Neis, “Beschreibung der Schrift,” in Haßler and Neis, Lexikon, 1685; Cordula Neis, “Eu ropean Conceptions of Writing from the Renaissance to the Eighteenth Century,” in Haßler, History of Linguistics 2008, sec. 4, but cf. the dissenting views discussed in Paolo Rossi, The Dark Abyss of Time: The History of the Earth and the History of Nations from Hooke to Vico, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pt. 3. 72. Louis Bourguet, “Plan abregé de l’Histoire Critique de l’origine des Lettres,” Histoire critique de la république des lettres 2 (1713): 301–6. See further: “Abrégé historique de la Vie de M. Bourguet,” Journal helvétique (February 1743): 190; F.-A.-M. Jeanneret, Biographie neuchâteloise, cont. J.-H. Bonhôte (Locle: Eugène Courvoisier, 1863), vol. 1, 62. 73. Louis Bourguet to Daniel Ernst Jablonski and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for forwarding to Joachim Bouvet, Neuchâtel, 6 March 1707, in Leibniz, Der Briefwechsel, 550–52, 560–62, also 558–62, 566–68. The letter was published as Louis Bourguet, “Lettre de Mr. Bourguet . . . au R.P. Bouvet,” Mercure suisse (March 1734): 42–61. 74. Louis-Mathieu Langlès, “Notice des livres Tatars-Mantchoux de la Bibliothèque Nationale,” pt. 1, Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale 5 (1797–98): 595. 75. Andreas Müller, who failed to produce a “key” to Chinese, published descriptions of several scripts in grid form (e.g., Bruno Lewin, “Andreas Müller und sein ‘Japanisches Syllabar,’ ” in Language and Literature: Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages, ed. Karl Heinrich Menges and Nelly Naumann [Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1999], 91–108), some of which (Syriac) might have been useful to Bayer. 76. Jean Domenge, “Fragmens d’un Essay de Méthode pour apprendre La langue des Moüan-tchoux ou Tartares Orientaux qui sont aujourd’hui Maitres de la Chine,” manuscript copied by Louis-Mathieu Langlès and held at Bibliothèque Nationale de France with the call number Mandchou 275 (1789). 77. Lundbæk, T. S. Bayer. 78. Gottlieb [Theophilus (I will refer to him as Gottlieb henceforth)] Siegfrid Bayer, “Miscella Tartarica,” earliest item dated 1717, cover page dated 1719 (Königsberg), manuscripts held as part of the Hunterian Collection at the University of Glasgow with the call number HS Hunter 213 (u.2.4), 3a; Maturin Veyssière de la Croze to Gottlieb Siegfrid Bayer, Berlin, 14 October 1716, in Thesavri epistolici Lacroziani, ed. Johann Ludwig Uhl (Leipzig: Io. Frid. Gleditschii, 1742–46), vol. 3, 7–8; Franz Babinger, “Gottlieb Siegfried Bayer (1694–1738): Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der morgenländischen Studien im 18. Jahrhundert” (PhD diss., König. Bayer. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 1915), 56, 65; Golvers, “ ‘Elementa,’ ” 588; Henri Cordier, Bibliotheca Sinica: Dictionnaire bibliographique des ouvrages relatifs à l’empire chinois, 2nd ed. (Paris: Librairie Orientale & Américaine, 1904–8), 1650. 79. Gottlieb Siegfrid Bayer to Maturin Veyssière de la Croze, Leipzig, 11 April 1717, in Uhl, Thesavri, vol. 1, 13 (dated to “3 Id. Aprilis”; I am a little unsure of my calculation). 80. Gottlieb Siegfrid Bayer to Maturin Veyssière de la Croze, Leipzig, 11 April 1717, in Uhl, Thesavri, vol. 1, 12. 81. Bayer, “Miscella Tartarica,” unpaginated sheet with the note “Literae Mongolicae | Gabrielis Mogulensis manu.” 82. Gottlieb Siegfrid Bayer, “De Litteratura Mangjurica,” Commentarii & Acta Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitanae 6 (1732–33 [published in 1738]): 300; “Rodde, Kaspar Matthias,” in “CERL Thesaurus” database, record http://thesaurus.cerl.org /record /cnp01005634.

Notes to Pages 182–185

277

83. Gottlieb Siegfrid Bayer, “Epistolæ II. de libris ignotis nuper ad mare Caspium repertis,” Historie der Gelehrsamkeit Unserer Zeiten 5 (1722): 390. 84. Gottlieb Siegfrid Bayer, “Epistola ad J. B. M.” (dated 1725), Actorum eruditorum quæ Lipsiæ publicantur, supplementa 9 (1729): 23. 85. Bayer, “Epistola ad J. B. M.,” 25. 86. Bayer, “Epistola ad J. B. M.,” fig. 4. 87. Bayer, “Miscella Tartarica,” unpaginated sheet. 88. Hartmut Walravens, “Die erste mongolische Handschrift in Deutschland: Eine Nachbemerkung,” Zentralasiatische Studien 27 (1997): 93–98; Hartmut Walravens, “Some Notes on Early Tibetan Studies in Eu rope,” in Images of Tibet in the 19th and 20th Centuries, ed. Monica Esposito (Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 2008), 150–52; Alexander Zorin, “The History of the First Tibetan Texts Acquired by the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the 18th  Century,” Journal of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies [= Kokusai Bukkyō Gakuin Daigaku Kenkyū kiyō] 19 (2015): 142–84 (1–43). 89. Spread out in Bayer, “Miscella Tartarica.” 90. Bayer, “Epistolæ II.”; Gottlieb Siegfrid Bayer to Maturin Veyssière de la Croze, Leipzig, 11 April 1717, in Uhl, Thesavri, vol. 1, 12–13; Bayer, “Epistola ad J. B. M.,” 22; Gottlieb Siegfrid Bayer to Maturin Veyssière de la Croze, 6 January 1725, in Uhl, Thesavri, vol. 1, 55 (dated to “8 Id. Ianuarii”; I am a little unsure of my calculation). 91. Tatiana A. Pang, “The ‘Russian Company’ in the Manchu Banner Organization,” Central Asiatic Journal 43, no. 1 (1999): 133–39. 92. Meng Ssu-Ming 孟思明, “The E-lo-ssu Kuan (Russian Hostel) in Peking,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 23 (1960–61): 34–46. 93. Gottlieb Siegfrid Bayer, “Elementa litteraturae Brahmanicae, Tangutanae, Mungalicae,” Commentarii & Acta Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitanae 3 (1728 [published in 1732]): 389–422. On Messerschmidt: Vermeulen, Before Boas, ch. 3, esp. 115–24. 94. Liu Ruomei 柳若梅, “Qing qian-, zhongqi yuyan yu shijie yuyan xue shi” 清前中期 语言与世界语言学史, Qingshi yanjiu, no. 1 (2015): 54–55; Bayer, “Miscella Tartarica,” unpaginated sheet with “Legati Sinici, qui A. 1732. Petropolin venerunt . . .”; Gottlieb Siegfrid Bayer, “Sermo cum Legatis Sinicis,” manuscript held as part of the Hunterian Collection at the University of Glasgow with the call number MS Hunter B E31. 95. Gottlieb Siegfrid Bayer, presentation at the Imperial Academy of Sciences and notes on Manchu orthography, 1730, Cod. Guelf. 115.1 Extrav., pt. 1, folio 54a–74a, Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel. The script is in German, but on the first page it is specified: “An die Kayserl. Academie der Wissenschaften. | Aus dem Lateinischen.” Perhaps Bayer wrote it in Latin and translated it into German for the occasion. Walter Fuchs, Chinesische und mandjurische Handschriften und seltene Drucke, bk. 1, pt. 12 of Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1966), 128. 96. Giovanni Stary, “Manchu Toponymy in the Atlas of Matteo Ripa,” in Fatica and D’Arelli, Matteo Ripa, 185–93. 97. Including his own “Mongolian alphabet,” manuscripts received from Samuel Köleséri (Koleseri de Keres-eer; 1663–1732), and Witsen’s book: Gottlieb Siegfrid Bayer, “De Litteratura Mangjurica” (written before 1732), manuscripts held as part of the Hunterian Collection at the University of Glasgow with the call number HS Hunter 607 (s.4.1), 2b; Bayer, “De Litteratura Mangjurica,” published version, 327. 98. Gottlieb Siegfrid Bayer, “Orthographia Mungalica, quam Academiæ Petropolitanæ tradidit A. 1730, Ca. Dec.,” Acta Eruditorum, publicata Lipsiæ, no. 7 (1731): 315.

278

Notes to Pages 185–188

99. Bayer, “De Litteratura Mangjurica,” draft version, 1a; Bayer, “De Litteratura Mangjurica,” published version, 325. 100. Hartmut Walravens, “Chinesische und mandjurische Bücher in St. Petersburg im 18. Jahrhundert,” Monumenta Serica 46 (1998): 397, 402, 413. On Lang: Afinogenov, “Eye of the Tsar,” 63–65. 101. Lobsang Tschi [Wasili Timofejew], “Elementa Calmvcca,” cont. Gottlieb Siegfried Bayer (1731), microfilm of manuscript held as part of the Hunterian Collection at the University of Glasgow with the call number HS Hunter 382 (v.2.2) and the repository code GB 0247, no pagination; Cordier, Bibliotheca Sinica, 1653. 102. Gottlieb Siegfrid Bayer, “Elementa calmucica,” Commentarii & Acta Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitanae 3 (1734–35 [published in 1740]): 345. 103. Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information, 11th ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), vol. 20, 357. 104. M. Hoefer, ed., Nouvelle biographie générale depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’à nos jours avec les renseignements bibliographiques et l’indication des sources à consulter (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1853–66), vol. 7, 564–65. 105. A copy of the book is found among Bayer’s papers (Hunterian Collection, University of Glasgow, call number HC 69). 106. Bayer, “Orthographia Mungalica,” 318. Bayer also wrote there that the book was accompanied by a Russian translation. A manuscript syllabary with Russian transcriptions is found among Bayer’s papers: Bayer, “Syllabarivm Manjvricvm” (1730), microfilm of manuscript held as part of the Hunterian Collection at the University of Glasgow with the call number HS Hunter 382 (v.2.2) and the repository code GB 0247; described in Cordier, Bibliotheca Sinica, 1652–53. Later, Bayer wrote that he had made use of Qingshu quanji: Bayer, “De Litteratura Mangjurica,” draft version, 3a; Bayer, “De Litteratura Mangjurica,” published version, 329 and table XVI. 107. Bayer, “Orthographia Mungalica,” 319. 108. Gottlieb Siegfrid Bayer, “Syllabarivm Manjvricvm et Mongolicvm,” held as part of the Hunterian Collection at the University of Glasgow with the call number HS Hunter 382 (v.2.2) and the repository code GB 0247, no pagination; Cordier, Bibliotheca Sinica, 1653. 109. Bayer, “Orthographia Mungalica,” 314. 110. The grid accompanying his lecture notes already contains (first and second columns, tenth row) medial forms of back-vowel -t-. This might have been the result of Bayer’s “own investigations,” carried out before he got access to the Qing syllabary, or it might represent a later addition. In the manuscript from the Hunterian collection, Bayer has further added a front vowel -t- (first column, row eleven). This version also contains other corrections (e.g., of g’-), leading me to infer that it is the more recent of the two. 111. Rudolph and Walravens, “Comprehensive Bibliography,” 242 (item 43), where it says that the journal issue in question only appeared in 1738. 112. Bayer, “De Litteratura Mangjurica,” published version, 329. 113. Bayer, “De Litteratura Mangjurica,” published version, 329–30. 114. Bayer, “De Litteratura Mangjurica,” published version, 330; Bayer, “De Litteratura Mangjurica,” draft version, 3b. 115. The tables are also in the article manuscript: Bayer, “De Litteratura Mangjurica,” draft version, 9a–15a.

Notes to Pages 190–193

279

chapter 8 1. J. Lamoureux, “François de Neufchâteau (Nicolas-Louis)” (1838), in Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne, ed. Louis-Gabriel Michaud, several editions with continually numbered volumes (Paris: L.-G. Michaud/Louis Vivès, 1811–65), vol. 64, 439–53. 2. His full name was Philippe-Daniel Duboy de Laverne: J.-P. Jourdain, “Duboy de Laverne, Philippe-Daniel” (1814), in Michaud, Biographie universelle, vol. 12, 90–91; F. A. Duprat, Histoire de l’Imprimerie Impériale de France (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1861), 235–38. 3. Report presented to Nicolas-Louis François de Neufchâteau, 3 Ventôse year 7 (21 February 1799), Paris, in the collection titled “Imprimerie de la République, 5e à 8e années, dossiers XIII à XLVIII,” call number F/18/31/A, Archives Nationales de France, Saint-Denis. 4. Rienzi and Ferdinand Hoefer, “Didot, célèbre famille d’imprimeurs français,” in Nouvelle biographie générale, depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’à nos jours, ed. Ferdinand Hoefer (Paris: Firmin-Didot frères, 1855), vol. 15, 112–19. 5. Louis-Mathieu Langlès to Nicolas-Louis François de Neufchâteau, 9 Ventôse year 7 (27 February 1799), Paris, in the collection “Imprimerie de la République.” 6. Louis-Mathieu Langlès to Joachim Lebreton, 9 Ventôse year 7 (27 February 1799), Paris, in the collection “Imprimerie de la République.” On the recipient of this letter: Royé, “Lebreton, Joachim” (1842), in Michaud, Biographie universelle, vol. 71, 41–42. 7. Philippe-Daniel Duboy de Laverne to Amolrie, 27 Germinal year 7 (16 April 1799), Paris, in the collection “Imprimerie de la République.” 8. J.-P. Jourdan, “Pour une histoire des traitements des fonctionnaires de l’Administration au XIXe siècle: L’apport du Bulletin des Lois à travers les années 1789–1814,” Histoire, économie, société 10, no. 2 (1991): 239. 9. Report presented to Nicolas-Louis François de Neufchâteau, 5 Floréal year 7 (25 April 1799), Paris, in the collection “Imprimerie de la République.” 10. Weiss, “Chardon de la Rochette, Simon” (1836), in Michaud, Biographie universelle, vol. 60, 450–53; Weiss, “Barbier, Antoine-Alexandre” (1834), in Michaud, Biographie universelle, vol. 57, 139–43. Also, for the council’s secretary: Weiss, “Coquille des Long-Champs, Henri” (1836), in Michaud, Biographie universelle, vol. 61, 352. 11. Report made at the Conseil de Conservation des Objets de Sciences et d’Arts regarding Citizen Langlès, written by [Henri] Coquille [des Long-Champs] and signed by [Simon] Chardon de la Rochette and [Antoine-Alexandre] Barbier, 1 Brumaire year 8 (23 October 1799), Paris, in the collection “Imprimerie de la République”; report presented to Nicolas-Louis François de Neufchâteau, 30 Brumaire year 8 (30 November 1799), Paris, in the collection “Imprimerie de la République.” 12. H. Audiffret, “Langlès, Louis-Mathieu” (1842), in Michaud, Biographie universelle, vol. 70, 189. 13. M. Dacier, “Notice historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. Langlès,” paper presented to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres on 29 July 1825, Revue encyclopédique 28 (1825): 356. 14. Reinaud, “Caussin de Perceval, Jean-Jacques-Antoine” (1836), in Michaud, Biographie universelle, vol. 60, 324–25. 15. Henry Laurens, “Silvestre de Sacy en son temps,” in Silvestre de Sacy: Le projet européen d’une science orientaliste, ed. Michel Espagne, Lafi Nora, and Pascale Rabault-Feuerhahn

280

Notes to Pages 193–195

(Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2014), 11–21; Sylvette Larzul, “Silvestre de Sacy Antoine-Isaac,” in Pouillon, Dictionnaire des orientalistes, 953–55. 16. Jean-Jacques-Antoine Caussin [de Perceval], “Funérailles de M. Langlès” (1824), Institut Royal de France Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. 17. Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, “Deshautesrayes [sic], Michel-Ange-André Le Roux,” in Michaud, Biographie universelle, vol. 9, 516–17; Henri Cordier, Fragments d’une histoire des études chinoises au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1895), 73. Deshauterayes’s remaining manuscripts dealing with “Oriental” languages and history do not include anything related to Manchu, except for a copy of the engraved plate of the Manchu script that he produced. The mentions of things tartare in the papers seem to all refer to Turkic, not Manchu or Mongolian: Michel-Ange-André Le Roux Deshauterayes, “Papiers 1. Traductions et mémoires” and “Papiers 2. Études sur les langues,” disparate manuscripts and prints held at Bibliothèque Nationale de France with the call numbers NAF 8942 and NAF 8943. 18. Leung, Étienne Fourmont. 19. Domenge, “Fragmens d’un Essay,” 113; Jean Domenge, “Essai de méthode pour apprendre la langue des Mantchoux ou Tartares Orientaux, qui sont aujourd’hui Maîtres de la Chine,” ed. Louis-Mathieu Langlès, nine pages of print proofs held at Bibliothèque Nationale de France as part of a batch of Langlès’s papers with the call number NAF 22171, 33 (129a). 20. Silvestre de Sacy, “Deshautesrayes,” 517; Jean-Raymond de Petity, ed., Bibliothèque des artistes et des amateurs, ou Tablettes analytiques, et méthodiques, sur les sçiences et les beaux arts (Paris: P. G. Simon, 1766), vol. 2, 546–84. 21. In Petity, Bibliothèque des artistes et des amateurs, vol. 2, 554–55. 22. Proofs prepared by Langlès for an unfinished printing of this manuscript are extant: Domenge, “Essai de méthode,” 5 (folio 129a of the archival collection of which it is part). 23. Jean-Pierre Abel Rémusat, “Article nécrologique sur M. Langlès,” Journal Asiatique 4 (1824): 151. 24. Audiffret, “Langlès,” 189; Dacier, “Notice historique,” 358. 25. On Bertin: Statman, “China Enchanted,” 66–74. 26. Weiss, “Bertin, Henri-Léonard-Jean-Baptiste” (1835), in Michaud, Biographie universelle, vol. 58, 140. 27. Gwynne Lewis, “Henri-Léonard Bertin and the Fate of the Bourbon Monarchy: The ‘Chinese Connection,’ ” in Enlightenment and Revolution: Essays in Honour of Norman Hampson, ed. Malcolm Crook, William Doyle, and Alan Forrest (Farnham, U.K.: Ashgate, 2004), 69, 83. 28. Jean-Pierre Babelon, “De l’ancienne à la nouvelle Académie des Inscriptions et BellesLettres à travers ses archives,” Comptes rendues des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles- Lettres 115, no. 2 (1971): 378. 29. Jeffrey D. Burson, “Between Power and Enlightenment: The Cultural and Intellectual Context for the Jesuit Suppression in France,” in The Jesuit Suppression in Global Context: Causes, Events, Consequences, ed. Jeffrey D. Burson and Jonathan Wright (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 40–64. 30. Nii Yōko 新居洋子, “Jūhasseiki zaika Iezusu kaishi Amio to Manshūgo” 十八世紀在 華イエズス会士アミオと満洲語, Tōyō gakuhō 93, no. 1 (2011): 29–53. 31. Rochemonteix, Joseph Amiot et les derniers survivants, 101–2, 108. 32. Isabelle Landry-Deron, “The Kangxi Emperor’s Lessons in Western Sciences as Recounted by the Jesuit Fathers  J. Bouvet and J.-F. Gerbillon,” in Acta Pekinensia: Western

Notes to Pages 195–198

281

Historical Sources for the Kangxi Reign, ed. Macau Ricci Institute (Macau: Macau Ricci Institute, 2013), 266 (where it is not mentioned that the Portuguese were weaker in Manchu than in Chinese, which is my own inference). 33. E.g., Dominique Parrenin [printed as Parennin], “Lettre du Père Parennin au Père Duhalde [sic]: Préceptes de morale des Chinois,” in Lettres édifiantes et curieuses concernant l’Asie, l’Afrique et l’Amérique, ed. L. Aimé-Martin (Paris: Société du Panthéon littéraire, 1840), vol. 3, 750–60. 34. Joseph-Marie Amiot to Henri Bertin, Beijing, 10 October 1789, in the collection “Correspondances des RR. PP. Jésuites,” call number Ms 1517, 40 (local pagination of this letter). 35. Joseph-Marie Amiot to Henri Bertin, Beijing, 2 October 1784, in the collection “Correspondances des RR. PP. Jésuites,” call number Ms 1516, 3–4. 36. Joseph-Marie Amiot, “Alphabet Mantchou” (1784), manuscript held at Bibliothèque Nationale de France with the call number Mandchou 272, cover. 37. See further Klaproth, Mémoires relatifs à l’Asie, vol. 3, 11. 38. [Henri-Léonard Bertin], undated manuscript note in the collection “Correspondances des RR. PP. Jésuites,” call number Ms 1526, 121a–b. 39. Markus Messling, “Duell in Rom: Das Ringen um die Hieroglyphen,” Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte 3, no. 4 (2009): 24; Markus Messling, “Philologie, déchiffrement d’écritures et théorie des civilisations,” in Espagne, Nora, and Rabault-Feuerhahn, Silvestre de Sacy, 220. 40. William Warburton, The Divine Legation of Moses, in The Works of the Right Reverend William Warburton (1737–79; London: John Nichols, 1788), 77–79; Ephraim Chambers, “Alphabet,” in Cyclopaedia, vol. 1, sig.IT1b–IT2a, but cf. the more restricted meaning presented in Chambers, “Letter,” in Cyclopaedia, vol. 1, sig.5Uu1b. 41. Chambers, “Alphabet,” sig.1T1b. 42. César Chesneau [F.] du Marsais, “Alphabet,” in Diderot, Encyclopédie, vol. 1, 295. These words echo the Port-Royal grammarians: Neis, “Laut vs. Buchstabe,” 1568. 43. “Buchstab,” in Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon aller Wissenschaften und Künste, ed. Johann Heinrich Zedler, cont. Carl-Günther Ludovici (Leipzig: Zedler, 1732–50), vol. 4, 1778–79. 44. [E. R. M. B., viz. Douchet and/or Beauzée?], “Syllabaire,” in Diderot, Encyclopédie, vol. 15, 713. 45. Charles de Brosses, Traité de la formation méchanique des langues (Paris: Saillant & Vincent & Desaint, 1765), vol. 1, 307–15; Neis, “Beschreibung der Schrift,” 1689. 46. Geoffrey Roper, “Arabic Printing and Publishing in England Before 1820,” Bulletin (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies) 12, no. 1 (1985): 13; Fück, Die arabischen Studien, 30 and ch. 13. 47. J. F. Coakley, The Typography of Syriac: A Historical Catalogue of Printing Types, 1537– 1958 (London: Oak Knoll Press, British Library, 2006), 22–23. 48. Donald F. Lach, “The Chinese Studies of Andreas Müller,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 60, no. 4 (1940): 564–75; Mungello, Curious Land, 198–244; Johann Dill, “Die Typographia Sinica in der Asien-Afrika-Abteilung der Deutschen Staatsbibliothek,” Marginalien 100 (1985): 85–96; Lehner, Der Druck, 103–4. 49. Wolfgang Schmieder, “Breitkopf, Johann Gottlob Immanuel,” in Neue Deutsche Biographie (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1955), vol. 2, 578–79. 50. Samuel Friedrich Günther Wahl, Allgemeine Geschichte der morgenländischen Sprachen und Litteratur (Leipzig: Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf, 1784); C. Siegfried,

282

Notes to Pages 182–202

“Wahl, Samuel Friedrich Günther,” in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1896), vol. 40, 593–94. 51. Wahl, Allgemeine Geschichte, “Vorrede” (no pagination). 52. Gregory Afinogenov, personal communication (2014). Afinogenov cites the Russian State Historical Archive archival document RGIA f. 796 op. 27 d. 341 l509v. The identification of Karpow as the author is from Jean-Pierre Abel Rémusat, “Recherches sur les langues tartares,” manuscript held at Bibliothèque Nationale de France with the call number NAF 8944, 107. 53. V. P. Taranovič, “Ilarion Rossochin und seine sinologischen Arbeiten,” trans. Hartmut Walravens (Russian original published in 1945), Nachrichten der Gesellschaft für Naturund Völkerkunde Ostasiens 118 (1975): 62. 54. The writing of the last name of members of the Guignes family changed over time: Landry-Deron, “Le Dictionnaire,” 417 (note 34). I will use Guignes for the father and Deguignes for the son in the main text. 55. Isabelle Landry-Deron, “Guignes Joseph de,” in Pouillon, Dictionnaire des orientalistes, 496. 56. Joseph de Guignes, Essai historique sur la typographie orientale et grecque de l’Imprimerie Royale (1787), 76–77. 57. Joseph de Guignes, Principes de composition typographique, pour diriger un compositeur dans l’usage des Caractères Orientaux de l’Imprimerie Royale (1790), 78. 58. Karl Gottlieb Hausius, “Biographie Herrn Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopfs: Ein Geschenk für seine Freunde,” in Imprimatur: Ein Jahrbuch für Bücherfreunde (1794; Weimar: Gesellschaft der Bibliophilen, 1938), 10 (this piece is in an appendix with separate pagination); Martin Gimm, “Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopfs Versuch von 1789, chinesische Zeichen mit beweglichen Typen zu drucken,” in Folia rara: Wolfgang Voigt LXV. diem natalem celebranti dedicata, ed. H. Franke, W. Heissig, and W. Treue, supplemental vol. 19 of Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1976), 46. 59. This story of divisible Chinese type had a sequel in the nineteenth century: Thomas S. Mullaney, The Chinese Typewriter: A History (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2017), 89–103. 60. Langlès, Alphabet mantchou, 5 (in the notes) for the date, but no details on the manuscripts. 61. [Bertin], undated manuscript note in the collection “Correspondances des RR. PP. Jésuites,” 121a. 62. Louis-Mathieu Langlès to Joseph-Marie Amiot, Paris, 25 November 1786, in the collection “Correspondances des RR. PP. Jésuites,” call number Ms 1517, 42a. 63. Langlès to Amiot, Paris, 25 November 1786, 42a–44a. 64. Joseph-Marie Amiot to Louis-Mathieu Langlès, Beijing, 8 August 1788, in the collection “Correspondances des RR. PP. Jésuites,” call number Ms 1517, 46a–b. Langlès later published this letter: Langlès, Alphabet mantchou, 174–75. 65. Statman, “China Enchanted,” 98. 66. Louis-Mathieu Langlès to Joseph-Marie Amiot, Paris, 25 November 1786, in the collection “Correspondances des RR. PP. Jésuites,” call number Ms 1517, 42a. 67. A. G. Camus, Histoire et procédés du polytypage et de la stéréotypie (Paris: Baudouin, 1799), 67 (in the notes). 68. Louis-Mathieu Langlès, Alphabet Tartare-Mantchou, dédié à l’Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, avec des détails sur les lettres et l’écriture des Mantchoux, 1st ed. (Paris: Didot l’aîné, 1787), 8.

Notes to Pages 203–208

283

69. Langlès, Alphabet Tartare-Mantchou, 1st ed., 8. 70. Langlès, Alphabet Tartare-Mantchou, 1st ed., 16–17. 71. Langlès did not specify exactly how the type was made, referring only to “certain typographical measures” (certains procédés typographiques) used for producing the modified matrices: Langlès, Alphabet Tartare-Mantchou, 1st ed., 19. 72. One punch and its matrix cost 18 livres, whereas a modified matrix made from an existing punch cost only 6 livres: Louis-Mathieu Langlès, “Mélanges sur la langue des Tartares Mantchous,” collection of manuscripts and prints held at Bibliothèque Nationale de France with the call number NAF 22171, 138. 73. Langlès, Alphabet Tartare-Mantchou, 1st ed., 19. 74. Louis-Mathieu Langlès, “Alphabet Mantchou, dédié à l’Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, avec des détails sur les lettres et l’écriture des Mantchoux,” 2nd ed., in Dictionnaire Tartare-Mantchou François, composé d’après un Dictionnaire MantchouChinois: Rédigé et publié avec des additions et l’alphabet de cette langue, ed., with an introduction by, Louis-Mathieu Langlès (Paris: Didot l’aîné, 1789–90), vol. 1, xxix. 75. Langlès, “Mélanges,” 138. 76. Audiffret, “Langlès,” 190. 77. Langlès, “Notice des livres,” 597, in the notes. 78. Nicolas Joseph Raux to Henri Bertin, Beijing, 17 November 1786, in “Les correspondants de Bertin, Secrétaire d’état au XVIIIe siècle,” by Henri Cordier, T’oung Pao 14, no. 2 (1913): 239. On Ventavon: Pfister, Notices, 913–19 (entry 426). 79. Nicolas Joseph Raux to Henri Bertin, Beijing, 12 November 1789, in Cordier, “Les correspondants de Bertin,” 244. 80. Nicolas Joseph Raux to Henri Bertin, Beijing, 18 October 1789, in Cordier, “Les correspondants de Bertin,” 252. Raux called the machine a machine à écrire des charactères, a term close to the later generic term for the modern typewriter, machine à écrire. 81. Nicolas Joseph Raux to Henri Bertin, Beijing, 14 November 1790, in Cordier, “Les correspondants de Bertin,” 254. Also: Alexander Statman, “A Forgotten Friendship: How a French Missionary and a Manchu Prince Studies Electricity and Ballooning in Late Eighteenth Century Beijing,” East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine 46 (2017): 101. 82. Catherine Pagani, Eastern Magnificence and European Ingenuity: Clocks of Late Imperial China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 53–54. 83. Nicolas Joseph Raux to Henri Bertin, Beijing, 14 November 1790, in Cordier, “Les correspondants de Bertin,” 254–55. 84. Nicolas Joseph Raux, “Methode pour apprendre les caractères et la Langue des Tartares-Mantchou extraite de la Grammaire Sinico-Tartare-Mantchou appellée ‘Tsing-ouenki-mong’ ” (1788), manuscript held at Bibliothèque Nationale de France with the call number Mandchou 276. 85. Deguignes also received “a Tartar and Chinese grammar” from Raux: ChrétienLouis-Joseph Deguignes to Henri Bertin, Guangzhou, 25 October  1786, in Cordier, “Les correspondants de Bertin,” 503. 86. E.g., over Ma. ša, which was transcribed chā, a note identified the Manchu letter š- in initial position as “= ch.” Likewise, the initial-form letter y- was glossed as “= y-”: Basilio Brollo [Basilius a Glemona], “Dictionarium Sinico-Latinum,” cont. Julius Klaproth, manuscript held at the British Library with the call number Add Ms 11709, 365a–b. Brollo first compiled his dictionary in 1694. Mounted on the flyleaf of this copy is a note saying that the dictionary was “sent from the city of Peking: 1788 by Mr. [Nicholas Joseph] Raux.”

284

Notes to Pages 209–213

The following page repeats this information (spelling the name of the book’s recipient as “De Guignes,” referring to Chrétien-Louis-Joseph). However, the Dictionarium has been cataloged at the British Library as having been “enlarged and revised” by Julius Klaproth in 1813. The origin of the Manchu syllabary is not mentioned in the cata log. 87. Audiffret, “Langlès,” 189. Langlès only presented the first volume. The second appeared only in 1789. 88. Louis-Mathieu Langlès, De l’importance des langues orientales pour l’extension du commerce, les progrès des lettres et des sciences, adressé à l’Assemblée Nationale (1790). 89. Louis-Mathieu Langlès, “Note sur les Caractères orientaux de l’Imprimerie Nationale exécutive” (written in 1793/94 [year 2 of the Republic]), in the collection “Commission temporaire des arts—Inventaire de bibliothèques. An II,” manuscripts held with the call number F/17/1261, dossier 3 (pièces 103–26), Archives Nationales de France, Saint-Denis. 90. Charles Athanase Walckenaer, “Notice sur Louis-Mathieu Langlès, membre de la Société des Bibliophiles Français,” Mélanges publiés par la Société des Bibliophiles François (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1826), 6. The early history of the school is outlined in Louis Bazin, “L’École des Langues Orientales et l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres,” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 4 (1995): 983–89. 91. Audiffret, “Langlès,” 192. 92. The text might have been written with the assistance of Jacques-Joseph ChampollionFigeac (1778–1867), the famous Egyptologist’s older brother. Éric Gady, “Dacier Bon-Joseph,” in Pouillon, Dictionnaire des orientalistes, 268; Ginette Lacaze, “Champollion-Figeac (Champollion dit) Jacques-Joseph,” in Pouillon, Dictionnaire des orientalistes, 208–9. 93. Dacier, “Notice historique,” 360. 94. V. M., Lettre écrite de Lintz par un orientaliste allemand au sujet d’un orientaliste françois celèbre par ses traductions, ses rédactions, ses éditions, ses notes, &c., &c, trans. F. P. J. (Strasbourg: Frédric Offenhertzig, 1815), 9. 95. Langlès, “Notice des livres,” 596, in the notes. 96. Audiffret, “Langlès,” 192. 97. Weiss, “Bertin,” 140. 98. Langlès, “Mélanges,” 138. 99. Statistics from 1800 show slightly under 110 livres for one worker per year, if I am reading A. Chabert, Essai sur les mouvements des revenus et de l’activité économique en France de 1798 à 1820 (Paris: Librairie de Médicis, 1949), 193 (graph no. 2), correctly. 100. Langlès, “Notice des livres,” 605. 101. Klaproth, Mémoires relatifs à l’Asie, vol. 3, 46 (in the notes). 102. Audiffret, “Langlès,” 196. 103. Jean-Louis Labarrière, “Le signe écrit, l’éducation et la démocratie: Quelques remarques à partir du chapitre V de la Grammaire de Destutt de Tracy,” in Busse and Trabant, Les Idéologues, 167–79; Schlieben-Lange, “Les Idéologues et l’écriture.” 104. Audiffret, “Langlès,” 195–96. 105. “Death of Professor Langlès,” Asiatic Journal 17, no. 99 (1824): 273. 106. Michela Bussotti, “Du dictionnaire chinois-latin de Basilio Brollo aux lexiques pour le marché: Deux siècles d’édition du chinois en Italie et en France,” T’oung Pao 101, nos. 4/5 (2015): 378. 107. Landry-Deron, “Le Dictionnaire,” 417–18. 108. Bussotti, “Du dictionnaire chinois-latin,” 386.

Notes to Pages 213–217

285

109. Landry-Deron, “Le Dictionnaire,” 428. 110. Landry-Deron, “Le Dictionnaire,” 424–35. 111. Kmar Bendana-Kchir and Alain Messaoudi, “Journal asiatique,” in Pouillon, Dictionnaire des orientalistes, 558–59; Annick Fenet, “Silvestre de Sacy, premier président de la Société Asiatique (1822–1829 et 1832–1834),” in Espagne, Nora, and Rabault-Feuerhahn, Silvestre de Sacy, 153–87. 112. Hartmut Walravens, Zur Geschichte der Ostasienwissenschaften in Europa: Abel Rémusat (1788–1832) und das Umfeld Julius Klaproths (1783–1835) (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1999), 93, 96–97; Hartmut Walravens, “Les recherches sur l’Extrême-Orient au début du XIXe siècle ou Paris, Mecque des orientalistes allemands,” trans. Céline Trautmann-Waller, Revue germanique internationale 7 (2008): 42. 113. Langlès, Alphabet mantchou, 95–96. I already cited this passage in Chapter 2. 114. Joseph-Marie Amiot to Henri Bertin, Beijing, 25 January 1787, in the collection “Correspondances des RR. PP. Jésuites,” call number Ms 1516, 6 (local pagination for this letter). 115. Joseph-Marie Amiot to Henri Bertin, Beijing, 10 October 1789, in the collection “Correspondances des RR. PP. Jésuites,” call number Ms 1517, 32 (local pagination for this letter). 116. Amiot to Bertin, 10 October 1789, 32. 117. Joseph-Marie Amiot to Louis-Mathieu Langlès, Beijing, 24 September 1790, in the collection “Correspondances des RR. PP. Jésuites,” call number Ms 1517. 118. Joseph-Marie Amiot to Henri Bertin, Beijing, 20 August 1790, in the collection “Correspondances des RR. PP. Jésuites,” call number Ms 1517, 106b (6). On Amiot’s “openness”: Statman, “Forgotten Friendship,” 111. 119. Amiot to Bertin, 20 August 1790, 106b–107a (6–7). 120. Joseph-Marie Amiot, “Alphabet Mantchou; Grammaire Tartare-Mantchou,” ed. Louis-Mathieu Langlès, three sets of print proofs held at Bibliothèque Nationale de France as part of a batch of Langlès’s papers with the call number NAF 22171, set 2, 1 (in the notes). This note is not included in the edition of the grammar from 1788. 121. Amiot to Bertin, 20 August 1790, 106b (6). 122. Patrick Beillevaire and Timur Beisembiev, “Klaproth Heinrich Julius,” in Pouillon, Dictionnaire des orientalistes, 574–76. 123. See, e.g., Henri Cordier, “Un orientaliste allemand: Jules Klaproth,” Comptes-rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 61, no. 4 (1917): 303–4. 124. Knud Lundbæk, “Notes on Abel Rémusat and the Beginning of Academic Sinology in Eu rope,” in Actes du VIIe colloque international de sinologie, Chantilly 1992 (Paris and Taipei: Ricci Institute, 1995), 208. 125. Jean Rousseau and Denis Thouard, eds., Lettres édifiantes et curieuses sur la langue chinoise: Un débat philosophico-grammatical entre Wilhelm von Humboldt et Jean-Pierre AbelRémusat (1821–1831) (Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 1999), 280–81 (in the notes). 126. Mark C. Elliott, “Abel-Rémusat, la langue mandchoue et la sinologie,” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (April–June 2014): 981–87. 127. Charles Athanase Walckenaer, “Funérailles de M. Abel-Rémusat,” Institut Royal de France Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1832), 4. 128. Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat to l’Abbé de Montesquiou, Paris, 24 December 1814, in a collection with the call number F/17/13557, Archives Nationales de France, Saint-Denis.

286

Notes to Pages 217–219

129. Lundbæk, “Notes on Abel Rémusat,” 218, for Rémusat’s political views (the rest is my own inference). 130. Julius Klaproth, Archiv für asiatische Litteratur, Geschichte und Sprachkunde (Saint Petersburg: Kaiserlichen Academie der Wissenschaften, 1810), vol. 1, 3–5. 131. Klaproth also referred to Manchu-language sources in a separate publication from that year, described in Rudolph and Walravens, “Comprehensive Bibliography,” 321 (item 634). 132. Julius Klaproth, “Abhandlung über die Sprache und Schrift der Uiguren,” Fundgruben des Orients 2 (1811): 195. 133. He added a note: Julius Klaproth, Abhandlung über die Sprache und Schrift der Uiguren (Berlin, 1812), 90–91. 134. V. M., Lettre écrite de Lintz. The authorship of this book is unclear. In one collection, it was grouped together with works definitely by Julius Klaproth and attributed to him (Catalogue des livres, la plupart rare et précieux, et tous de la plus belle condition, faisant partie de la bibliothèque de M. le Marquis de Ch*** [Paris: J.-S. Merlin, 1827], 177). Another copy was recorded in the nineteenth century to have the following note on the flyleaf: “This brochure is by Mr. Abel de Rémusat. It was printed not in Strasbourg, but in Besançon by Chalandre in early 1815” (Maisonneuve, Catalogue de livres de linguistique anciens et modernes en vente aux prix marqués [Paris: Maisonneuve, 1872], 36). At least some of that information is correct, as the municipal library of Besançon holds (Ms 1325; not seen) what appears to be the author’s holograph (Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France: Départements: Tome XLV, Paris, Arsenal, Mazarine, Sainte-Geneviève, Besançon, Aix-en-Provence [2e supplément] [Paris: Plon, 1915], 133). 135. V. M., Lettre écrite de Lintz, 17–19. 136. “Pa risian Anecdotes: From the New Monthly Magazine,” Spirit of the English Magazines 1, no. 10 (1817): 730; Audiffret, “Langlès,” 197; Hartmut Walravens, “Mandjurica curiosa,” in Klassische, moderne und bibliographische Studien zur Mandschuforschung, ed. Martin Gimm, Giovanni Stary, and Michael Weiers (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1991), 225–29. 137. The letters were later reprinted under Klaproth’s name in Klaproth, Mémoires relatifs à l’Asie, vol. 3. Klaproth’s authorship of the letters is also asserted in Hartmut Walravens, Julius Klaproth (1783–1835): Leben und Werk (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1999), 82–84. 138. Julius Klaproth, trans., Lettres sur la littérature mandchou, traduites du russe, by Afanasii Larionowitch Leontiew (Paris: Fain, 1815), on the flyleaf. 139. Klaproth, Lettres sur la littérature mandchou, 24. 140. Klaproth, Lettres sur la littérature mandchou, 29–30. 141. Audiffret, “Langlès,” 197. 142. Langlès’s personal, annotated copy of Amiot’s Dictionnaire Tartare-Mantchou François is now held at the Royal Asiatic Society, London. According to a note on the inside cover, the copy was presented to the society by Lord Viscount Kingsborough on 5 November 1825. The annotations are almost all additions to the dictionary, either in the form of new Manchu words or augmented definitions. The original text is almost never directly corrected. The annotations mention the third edition of Langlès’s Manchu alphabet (e.g., vol. 1, 48; vol. 3, 574). There are occasional marginalia in English, perhaps written by Lord Kingsborough. 143. Jean-Pierre Abel Rémusat, “Nécrologie [sur Louis-Mathieu Langlès],” Journal Asiatique 4 (1824): 152. 144. Rémusat, “Nécrologie,” 152.

Notes to Pages 220–228

287

145. At least if the manuscript at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France represents an early version: Rémusat, “Recherches sur les langues tartares.” 146. Jean-Pierre Abel Rémusat, Recherches sur les langues tartares ou Mémoires sur différens points de la grammaire et de la littérature des Mandchous, des Mongols, des Ouigours et des Tibétains (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1820), vol. 1, 106. 147. Rémusat, Recherches sur les langues tartares, vol. 1, 106. 148. Relatedly: Markus Messling, “Repräsentation und Macht: Selbstkritik der Philologie in Zeiten ihrer Ermächtigung (Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, Eugène Jacquet, Wilhelm von Humboldt),” in Sprachgrenzen—Sprachkontakte—kulturelle Vermittler: Kommunikation zwischen Europäern und Außereuropäern (16.-20. Jahrhundert), ed. Mark Häberlin and Alexander Keese (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010), 247–60. 149. Ivan Il’ich Zakharov, A Grammar of Manchu, with an introduction by Alexander Vovin (1879; Folkestone, Kent, U.K.: Global Oriental, 2010), 1. 150. Peter Schmidt, “Chinesische Elemente im Mandschu: Mit Wörterverzeichnis,” Asia Major 7 (1932): 578. 151. Ligeti, “À propos de l’écriture mandchoue.”

conclusIon 1. Gao Aijun 高艾军 and Fu Min 傅民, Beijing hua cidian 北京话词典 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2013), 781. 2. Lao She 老舍, Er Ma 二马 (1929), in Lao She wenji (Beijing: Renmin Wenxue Chubanshe, 1980), vol. 1, 528. My translation departs somewhat from the one in Lao She, Mr. Ma and Son in London, trans. William Dolby (Bruntsfield, U.K.: Carreg Publishers, 2005), 184. 3. Martin J. Heijdra, “The East Asia Library and the Gest Collection at Princeton University,” in Collecting Asia: East Asian Libraries in North America, 1868–2008, ed. Peter  X. Zhou (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Association for Asian Studies, 2010), 120–35. 4. Zhao Wanli 趙萬里 [Lizhou 蠡舟], “Ping Zhu Shizhe Qingshi gao yiwen zhi,” 評朱式 轍清史稿藝文志, in Youguan “Qingshi gao” bianyin jingguo ji ge fang yijian huibian, ed. Xu Shishen (Taipei: Zhonghua Minguo Shiliao Yanjiu Zhongxin, 1979), vol. 2, 1153–4. 5. Some points of view are discussed in Dai Zhaoming 戴昭铭, “ ‘Manshi Hanyu’ he Jingqiang kouyin” “满式汉语”和京腔口音, Manyu yanjiu no. 2 (2016): 5–13. 6. J. A. Dunn, “An Early Eighteenth-Century Russian-Chinese-Manchu Dictionary,” Scottish Slavonic Review 9 (1987): 7–25. 7. Nicolas Standaert, The Intercultural Weaving of Historical Texts: Chinese and European Stories About Emperor Ku and His Concubines (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 117–49. 8. Afinogenov, “Eye of the Tsar,” 121–38. 9. J. E. du Halde, ed., Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l’empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise (The Hague: Henri Scheurleer, 1736), vol. 4, 266–67. 10. Gugong Bowu Yuan 故宫博物院, Qingdai gongting huihua 清代宫廷绘画 (Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 1992), 149–53. 11. Wolfgang Reinhard, “Sprachbeherrschung und Weltherrschaft: Sprache und Sprachwissenschaft in der europäischen Expansion,” in Humanismus und Neue Welt, ed. Wolfgang Reinhard (Weinheim: Acta humaniora, VCH, 1987), 5–6; Auroux, La révolution, 9.

288

Notes to Pages 228–231

12. Mark Häberlin and Alexander Keese, “Einleitung,” in Häberlin and Keese, Sprachgrenzen— Sprachkontakte—kulturelle Vermittler, 9–11. 13. Necin and Bandi, Manchu palace memorial dated Qianlong 13/9/6 (1748/10/27), with a rescript dated Qianlong 13/9/19 (1748/11/9), held at the First Historical Archives, Beijing, with the call number 03-0170-0155-008. For other examples of the court’s linguistic scholarship and the imperial project: Matthew Mosca, From Frontier Policy to Foreign Policy: The Question of India and the Transformation of Geopolitics in Qing China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2013), 71–73. 14. John Barrow, Travels in China (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1804), 270; Durrant, “Clarity Versus Character,” 62. 15. Pär Cassel, “ ‘Spelling Like a State’: Some Thoughts on the Manchu Origins of the Wade-Giles System,” Central Asiatic Journal 58, nos. 1/2 (2015): 43–44. 16. Shinmura Izuru 新村出, “Nagasaki Tōtsūji no Manshūgogaku” 長崎唐通事の滿洲語學, in Tōhō gengoshi sōkō (Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten, 1927), 80–92; Uehara Hisashi 上原久, “Nagasaki tsūji no Manshūgogaku” 長崎通事の満洲語学, Gengogaku ronsō 11 (1971): 13–24. 17. The quote is from stele (now lost) transcribed in Haneda Tōru 羽田亨, “ ‘Shinbun kan wage,’ ‘Mango sanhen’ kaisetsu” 清文鑑和解、満語纂編解説, Tōyōshi kenkyū 1, no.  6 (1937): 40–41. 18. Mårten Söderblom Saarela, “A Guide to Mandarin, in Manchu: On a Partial Translation of Guanhua zhinan (1882) and Its Historical Context,” East Asian Publishing and Society 9 (2019): 4–6. 19. Rudolph and Walravens, “Comprehensive Bibliography,” 295 (item 436), 337 (item 745); Juan Huang, “Official Documents in Manchu as a Vehicle of Social Change and Civilisational Exchange,” presentation given at the twenty-second biennial conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies, Glasgow, Scotland, 31 August 2018. 20. Christopher Bayly, Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), ch. 8. 21. Söderblom Saarela, “Alphabets avant la lettre,” 242–54. 22. Jing Tsu, Sound and Script in Chinese Diaspora (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010), chs. 2–3.

Index

Page numbers in italics refer to figures. Académie Française, 130 Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 194, 206, 210, 212 Académie Royale des Sciences, 130 Aisin Gioro Yingsheng, 57 Alphabet mantchou (Amiot and Langlès), 7, 144, 195–96, 199–206, 211–12, 215, 219 alphabetic writing, 178, 186, 189, 196–97, 211–12. See also Roman alphabet Amassed jades of the storehouse of rhymes, 113 Amiot, Joseph-Marie: and Alphabet mantchou, 195–96, 215, 244n136; and Henri Bertin, 200–201; knowledge of Manchu, 225–26; and Louis-Mathieu Langlès, 210–11, 214–16, 244nn135–36; translation of Ode to Mukden, 41–42 The annotated parrot, 119 Arabic, 171, 172, 176, 178, 198, 209 Aramaic, 22 Attiret, Jean-Denis, 227 Ayushi Güüshi, 25–26 Baba Sajūrō, 111, 117 Baijia xing, 47, 55 Baiti qianzi wen, 92 banner system: education and, 30–31, 44, 54, 55, 57, 77; influence on Beijing culture, 7; lexicography and, 100; place in Manchu society, 4, 29, 226–27; and post-Qing Manchu studies, 8 Baqi tongzhi, 39–40 Barbier, Antoine-Alexandre, 191 Barrow, John, 229 Barthes, Roland, 121 Basilio (Brollo) da Gemona, 283n86

Bayer, Gottlieb (Theophilus) Siegfried: decipherment of Manchu, 61, 169, 184–89, 201, 202, 213, 214; range of linguistic interests, 182, 215; resources for studying Manchu, 170, 181–84, 225, 278n106; subsequent neglect of the work of, 191–92; tabular presentation of Manchu script, 96, 180, 184–85, 187–89, 278n110; understanding of Manchu script as an alphabet, 169, 186–87, 216 Beijing: as center of Manchu life, 4, 7, 77, 226–27; dialect of, 223, 225; established as Qing capital, 38; as publishing center, 118, 123, 143, 226; use of Manchu in, 68, 73, 256n30 Beijing hua cidian, 223, 225, 230 Bertin, Henri-Léonard-Jean-Baptiste: and Joseph-Marie Amiot, 195–96, 200–201, 214, 215, 216, 244n135; as a liaison for French Jesuits in Beijing, 194–95; and Louis-Mathieu Langlès, 196, 199, 211, 214, 215, 216; on the Manchu syllabary, 200; and Nicolas Joseph Raux, 206–7, 208; payment of bill for Manchu type, 205 Bibliothèque Nationale, 190, 210, 211 Bibliothèque Royale, 203, 217 Bithei boo, 30, 32, 34 Bodoni, Giambattista, 190 Book made from a combination including three languages, 109, 119 Bourguet, Louis, 179 Bouvet, Joachim, 121, 122–23, 126, 128, 130, 131, 263n43 Boym, Michael, 174 Breitkopf, Immanuel, 198–99

290

Index

Brosses, Charles de, 197 Bruce, Jacques-Daniel, 186 Buddhism: and Chinese phonological studies, 79, 152; and the development of Inner Asian scripts, 21, 26, 150; and Eu ropean decipherment of Manchu script, 183; importance to the Mongols, 30; and the Tibetan language, 25 Büttner, Christoph Andreas, 198 calligraphy, 47–48, 59, 69 Cang Jie, 17, 18 Canstadt, Paul Schilling von, 213 Catherine II, empress of Russia, 206 Caussin de Perceval, Jean-Jacques-Antoine, 193 Chambers, Ephraim, 197, 275n64 Champollion, Jean-François, 170 Change classic, 102, 131 Character standard of the [reign of] Secure Peace, 102, 139, 142 The characters collected (Mei Yingzuo), 48–49, 101–2, 103, 108, 113, 132, 143 Chardon de la Rochette, Simon, 191 Chen Kechen, 64, 151, 152 Cheng Mingyuan, 71 Cheng Yi, 53 Chinese: influence of Manchu on, 224–25; Jurchen knowledge of, 27–28; as a lingua franca, 30; linguistic change in, 81, 155, 164; Manchu knowledge of, 31, 32, 40, 54, 55; term for “mirror,” 136–37, 138; terms for “word” in, 45–46; as a threat to Manchu, 7, 122. See also Chinese phonology; Chinese script; Mandarin Chinese Chinese pedagogy, 46–48, 54–55, 57 Chinese philology, 10–13 Chinese phonology: influence of Indic learning on, 79–80, 93, 94; and Manchu pedagogy, 57, 153; and the Manchu script, 76; and method of syllabic spelling, 79–80; structure of the syllable in, 44, 80, 84, 86–87, 164; study of rhymes in, 79, 80–81, 94; study of tones in, 78–79, 81 Chinese script: analyzed into strokes, 46, 48–49, 69–70, 101, 172; central place in empire, 3; compared to Roman alphabet and Manchu script, 146–47, 148; compared to Siddhaṃ, 82–83; early Eu ropean descriptions of, 171–72, 178,

179, 181, 244n4; influence on Inner Asian scripts, 20; and Korean language, 25; origins, 17–18, 19; phonographic use of, 2; teaching of, 46–47; and terms for “writing,” 46; use of characters, 5; used to represent Manchu, 158, 168; used to represent non-Chinese languages, 24, 151–52, 157, 166. See also fanqie spelling Ch’oe Sejin, 163 Chosŏn dynasty, 25, 30, 31, 149, 164–65 Cing wen ki meng bithe (Wu-ge), 70–72, 208 civil ser vice examinations, 3, 47, 53, 59, 64, 77 “classified writings,” 133–36, 137–38 Collected notes on the twelve heads (Shen Qiliang), 45, 65–70 Collection of words for everyday use, 114 Collège de France, 193, 217 Compiled Manchu rhymes (Takahashi), 115–16, 117 Complete book in standardized Manchu and Chinese writing, 105, 108, 114, 116, 117, 256n24, 257n48 Complete book of a myriad treasures, expanded, 59 Complete book of the Great Qing (Shen Qiliang), 99–101, 104, 106, 107, 110, 257n48 Complete collection of Manchu writing, newly cut (Ling and Chen), 63–64, 186 [Complete writings on the] origins of rhymes (Liu Ning), 78 Comprehensive examination of the four tones, 163 Comprehensive explanation of the four tones (Chʼoe Sejin), 163–64, 165, 166 Comprehensive mirror for the aid of government, 137, 138 Comprehensive treatise of the eight banners, 39–40 Correct meaning of ancient sounds (Xiong Shibo), 78–79 Correct rhymes of the Hongwu [period], 153–54, 163 Čosgi Odsir, 23 Cruz, Gaspar da, 171 Cyclopaedia, or a Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (Chambers), 197 Da Qing quanshu (Shen Qiliang), 99–101, 104, 106, 107, 110, 257n48 Dacier, Bon-Joseph, 210

Index Dahai: in Baqi tongzhi, 39–40; in Ode to Mukden, 40–41, 42; and reform of Manchu script, 32–33, 38–39, 150, 242n120; and representatives of Chosŏn dynasty, 32, 240–41n92 Daicing gurun-i fukjin doro neihe bodogon-i bithe, 41 Daigu, 107–8 Daxue, 53 Definitive collection of the Manchu language (Daigu), 107–8, 257n48 Deguignes, Chrétien-Louis-Joseph, 208, 213, 282n54, 283–84n86 Dengqie yuansheng (Xiong Shibo), 79, 81 Deshauterayes, Michel-Ange-André Le Roux. See Le Roux Deshauterayes, Michel-Ange-André Devanagari script, 171, 179 Di Cosmo, Nicola, 238n53 dictionaries: Chinese, 59, 92, 97–98, 101–2; Chinese-French, 209, 212; ChineseLatin, 208; Chinese-Manchu, 98, 102, 119; Dutch, 115, 116–17; and encyclopedias, 124, 125–26, 129; Eu ropean, 118, 124–25, 130, 142, 171; German, 129; indexes to, 105–6, 107; Japa nese, 112, 113–14, 118–19; Korean, 149; and Manchu syllabary, 100–101, 116, 159; Manchu-Chinese, 44, 99–101, 105, 113, 114, 121, 132; ManchuChinese-Mongolian, 109; ManchuFrench, 7, 144, 195, 199–206, 211–12, 215; manuscript, 212–13, 217; MongolianChinese-Manchu, 119, 259n91; “outer characters” section in, 63, 106–7, 109–10; of rhymes, 81, 153–56, 163. See also lexicography Dictionary of Beijing Dialect, 223, 225, 230 Dictionnaire Flaman et Français (Halma), 116–17 Dictionnaire universel (Furetière), 125, 129 Diderot, Denis, 123, 142, 197 Didot, Firmin, 190, 192, 202, 204–5, 207, 210, 211 Directorate of Education, 76 [Doctrine of] the mean, 3 Domenge, Jean, 96, 180–81, 185, 193, 201 Donghua lu (Jiang Liangqi), 41 Dorgi bithe ubaliyambure boo, 132, 140 Du-si-de, 156 Dutch, 2, 97, 111–12, 116 Dzungar people, 182

291

École Spéciale des Langues Orientales Vivantes, 210 Edkins, Joseph, 168, 221 Egyptian hieroglyphs, 170, 171 Elementa linguae Tartaricae (Verbiest), 175, 181, 184, 185 encyclopedias, 124, 129, 133–36, 137, 141, 142 Encyclopédie (Diderot), 123, 142, 197 Er Ma (Lao She), 223–24 Erdeni: as creator of Manchu script, 30, 36–37, 38; execution by Nurhaci, 29, 33, 34; included in Baqi tongzhi, 39–40; as keeper of earliest Manchu records, 28–29; in Ode to Mukden, 42; praised by Hong Taiji, 34, 35–36 Essential readings in translation, 59 Ethiopian, 171, 178–79, 275n68 The expanded rhymes, 81 F: Halma, Nederduits woordenboek, 117 Fang Yizhi, 84 fanqie spelling: explained, 80; and Manchu script, 149, 151, 156, 166; sanhe qieyin (tripartite), 152–53, 156, 158–59, 161–62; use in Japan, 94; as used in rhyme tables and dictionaries, 94, 156, 157–58, 165–66; used to represent Inner Asian languages, 157 Fontaney, Jean de, 126 Fourmont, Étienne, 181, 193, 213 France, 209 French, 110, 116, 123, 126, 161 Fréret, Nicolas, 175, 177, 180, 188–89, 213 Fudari, 133 Fügiyün, 109, 119 Fujian Province, 154 The fundamental sounds, spelled and arranged in grades (Xiong Shibo), 79, 81 Fundamentals of the study of characters (Yuan Zirang), 81, 86–87 Furetière, Antoine, 125 Fuxi, 17–18 Gabriel the Mongol, 181 Galdan, 134 galik alphabet, 26, 27, 150 Geʻez, 171, 178–79, 275n68 Gerbillon, Jean-François, 128 Giyan ju ši el dzi teo, 70 Godwin, Joscelyn, 174 grammatology, 178–79, 196–98, 221

292

Index

Great learning, 53 Grimaldi, Claudio Filippo, 128, 176 Gross, Christian Friedrich, 186 Grosses Universal-Lexicon (Zedler), 197 Guangyun, 81 Guangzhou, 53 Guide to syllabic spellings of the correct sounds in the classics and histories, 81 Guide to the Manchu language (Shen Qiliang), 65, 66, 75, 85, 89, 185–86 Guignes, Joseph de, 199, 208, 213, 282n54 Guoshi Guan, 41 Guozi Jian, 76 Guyin zhengyi (Xiong Shibo), 78–79 Gʼagʼai, 36–37 Hafu buleku bithe, 137 Halma, François, 116–17 Han-, Ch’ŏngmun’gam (Yi Tam et al.), 162–68 hangul: invention, 24–25, 163; used to represent Chinese, 150, 162–66; used to represent Manchu, 2, 4 Han-i araha manju gisun-i buleku bithe (Kangxi). See Mirror of the Manchu language (Kangxi) Han-i araha nonggime toktobuha manju gisun-i buleku bithe (Qianlong). See Mirror of the Manchu language (Qianlong) Hanlin Secretariat, 77, 133, 134 Hebrew, 171, 172, 174, 198 Hife, 36, 40, 42 Himly, Karl, 141 Hindi, 230 History of the Jin, 21, 36, 37–38 History of the Liao, 38 History of the Yuan, 23–24, 36, 38 Hoang, Arcadio, 173, 175, 213 Hong Taiji, 30–31, 34–36, 37–39 Hongmu chŏng’un yŏkhun, 163 Hongwu zhengyun, 153–54, 163 Huang Jialüe, 173, 175, 213 Huang Qing kaiguo fanglüe, 41 Huangzhong tongyun, 156 Hucker, Charles O., 256n30 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 217 Hundred surnames, 47, 55 Huttman, William, 168, 221, 270n68 Hyde, Thomas, 177, 181, 182 Imperial digest [from the era of Rousing the State through] Great Tranquillity, 134–35

Imperially authorized elucidation of the subtleties of phonology (Li and Wang), 153–56, 157, 159, 161, 167–68 Imperially authorized Manchu and Chinese characters presented in corresponding sounds (Qianlong), 158 Imperially authorized rhyme systems in standardized writing, 157 Imperially commissioned Manchu, Mongolian, and Chinese script mirror with tripartite spellings, 158 Imperially commissioned Mirror of the Manchu language (Kangxi). See Mirror of the Manchu language (Kangxi) Imperially commissioned mirror of the Manchu language, expanded and emended (Qianlong). See Mirror of the Manchu language (Qianlong) Imprimerie Nationale, 190, 209–10 In Jy, Prince, 145–46, 148, 149, 167 Inamura Sanpaku, 117 Inō Tadataka, 111 Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, 210 “Iroha uta,” 114, 115 Ishizuka Kakusai, 111–12 Jakûn gûsai tung jy, 39–40 Japan: knowledge of Chinese in, 91–92, 111; knowledge of Dutch in, 111–12; knowledge of Manchu history in, 41; lexicography in, 101; study of Manchu in, 5, 6–7, 12, 91, 110–13, 226, 229 Japa nese, 12, 92, 94, 111 Jartoux, Pierre, 126 Jesuits: as conduit for information on Manchu, 1, 169, 173; early encounters with Manchu, 172, 227; of France, 194–95, 227; hoped-for role in Kangxi’s Mirror project, 122–23, 127–28; introduction of Roman alphabet to China, 5; manuscript dictionaries of Chinese, 212–13, 217; of Portugal, 195; role at Qing court, 130, 131, 148, 227; typographical experiments, 206–9; as “Western classicists,” 83 Jiang Liangqi, 41 Jiang Qiao, 143 Jianzhou, 3–4, 20, 27 Jianzhu shier zitou, 70 Jin dynasty, 3, 19, 21, 27, 37, 41

Index Jinchuan campaigns, 228, 230 Jingshi zhengyin qieyun zhinan, 81 Jinshi, 21, 36, 37–38 Jōgon, 94 Jurchen language: effort to maintain, 38; use of “tripartite” spellings to represent, 152; written as language of state, 3–4, 19, 20, 22, 24, 27–30, 37 Jurchen people, 21. See also Qing empire kana syllabaries, 94, 112, 114 Kangxi emperor: commemoration of Dahai on stele, 150–51; concern over status of Manchu, 122, 132, 136; conflict with Western Mongols, 134; interest in engraving, 127; interest in Korean phonological literature, 12, 155; interest in science and mathematics, 130, 131; letter to Austrian monarch, 176; in line of Manchu rulers, 17; role in rhyme dictionary, 153–56, 166. See also Mirror of the Manchu language (Kangxi) Kangxi zidian, 102, 139, 142 Karpow, Soson, 198 Keichū, 94 Khitan people, 19, 20, 21, 24 Khitan script, 19, 21, 22, 235–36n12 Kingsborough, Edward King, Viscount, 286n142 Kircher, Athanasius, 174 Klaproth, Julius, 216–20, 244n136, 286n134 Kondō Jūzō, 41 Korea: invasions by Qing, 31, 164; knowledge of Chinese in, 4; relations with Inner Asia, 24; relations with Japan, 91; relations with Jurchen state, 4, 27, 28, 164; study of Manchu in, 4, 6, 164, 226; study of phonology in, 12; use of court interpreters in, 164. See also hangul Kubilai Khan, 23–24, 37 Kuntz, Marion Leathers, 174 Kûrcan, 32, 34, 35, 36, 38 La Croze, Maturin Veyssière de, 181 Lange, Lorenz, 185 Langlès, Louis-Mathieu: and Alphabet mantchou, 196, 199–206, 211–12, 215, 286n142; background and education, 192–93; and the creation of a Manchu typeface, 190–91, 196, 197, 199–206; critics of, 213–21, 244n136; description of

293

Manchu syllabary, 53, 214; and the French Revolution, 209–11; on Gottlieb Bayer, 180; and Henri Bertin, 196, 211; in the Napoleonic era, 211–13; proposal to publish human rights tracts in Oriental languages, 209–10 Lao She, 223–25 Latin, 5, 116, 123, 126, 161, 173 Laverne, Duboy de, 190, 191, 211 Le Roux Deshauterayes, Michel-AngeAndré: and Chinese dictionary project, 213; interest in Near Eastern languages, 201, 215, 280n17; and Joseph de Guignes, 199; method of printing Manchu, 194, 202; treatise on Manchu, 193–94, 218, 219; understanding of Manchu script as an alphabet, 194, 201 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm: grammatological ideas, 176–77, 197; hopes for Kangxi’s Mirror, 121–44, 226; ideas on Manchu, 169, 176, 225; promotion of academies, 125, 263n43; sources of information on Manchu, 176, 274n52 leishu, 133–38 Leont’evskii, Zakhar Fedorovich, 234–35n1 lexicography: alphabetic arrangement in, 97, 99–100, 101, 112–13, 118, 124–25; arrangement by rhyme or pronunciation in, 113–14, 116, 117, 118; codifying impulse in, 139; and divinatory symbols, 102–3; graphological arrangement in, 44, 97–99, 101–5, 107–10, 119–20, 175, 213; importance to historians, 13; and iroha order, 114–15; semantic arrangement in, 104–5; topical arrangement in, 98, 99, 105, 114, 116, 142. See also dictionaries Li Guangdi, 153, 154–55, 159, 166 Li Qifeng, 34 Li Yanji, 108, 113 Liao dynasty, 19, 21, 137 Liao Lunji: career and background, 44, 59, 60; compared with Shen Qiliang, 65, 67, 68; on Manchu script, 18, 39, 62; “Prelude to the twelve character heads,” 60–61, 62; syllabary, 59–64, 75, 85, 89, 92, 93, 186 Liao Wenying, 59, 60 Liaoshi, 38 Ligeti, Louis, 221, 245n25 Ling Shaowen, 63–64, 77, 134, 151, 152 Literary Institute, 30, 32, 34

294

Index

Liu Dou: background and career, 44, 58; Manchu syllabary, 58–59, 61–63, 68, 73, 151; on the origins of the Manchu script, 18 Liu Housheng, 239n57 Liu Ning, 78 Liu Xianting, 76, 84 Louis XIV, king of France, 130 Louis XV, king of France, 194 “Luo Writing,” 17–18 Magalhães, Gabriel de, 53, 246n30 Malay, 209, 210 Manbun shūin (Takahashi), 115–16, 117 Manchu: as a bridge language, 122, 143–44, 173, 174, 190, 226, 227; Chinese knowledge of, 43, 61, 77; earliest texts in, 28, 31, 239n57; as a lingua franca, 2; loan-words from Mongolian, 238n55; modern Western analysis of, 51; phonological features, 31, 73, 85, 253n68; in the post-Qing era, 7–9, 223–25, 230–31; as prestige marker, 77; and the search for a universal language, 173; term for “mirror,” 136–37, 138; under threat of decline, 122, 132, 139, 143, 256n30; translation of Chinese texts into, 6, 40, 132, 140, 142, 149, 150. See also Manchu script; Manchu syllabaries Manchu and Chinese classified writings (Sangge), 134 Manchu collected (Li Yanji). See Qingwen huishu (Li Yanji) Manchu collected, supplemented (Yi-xing), 109, 118 Manchu education: of bannermen, 28, 30–31, 44; Directorate of Education and, 77; Qing dynasty’s promotion of, 6; shift to Chinese language, 44; social groups with access to, 4, 43; teachers, 60, 64, 77 Manchu pedagogy: aural-oral paradigm in, 49, 53–54, 57, 63, 95; for Chinese speakers and readers, 43, 61, 73, 95; convergence with Chinese pedagogy, 54; and lexicography, 109; place of memorization in, 55, 73; place of syllabary in, 44, 52–54, 223–25, 227; sociolog ical factors in, 227; teaching of writing in, 54–55, 57, 58, 62, 68–70, 71; textbooks used in, 55, 56, 70–72. See also Manchu syllabaries

Manchu script: analyzed into subsyllabic parts, 44, 69–70, 73, 100–101, 103, 159, 208; based on Uighur-Mongol script, 18, 20, 25, 38; changing shape of characters in, 61, 68–69, 71–72, 73, 186, 187, 200; compared to Chinese script, 18, 19, 62, 83, 87, 146; compared to Japa nese script, 172; compared to Roman alphabet, 146–47; construed as an alphabet, 169, 186–87, 199–206, 208, 213–21; diacritics, 29, 32, 33, 88, 202, 204, 216, 246n30; direction of writing, 273n28; Eu ropean efforts to decipher, 1–2, 169, 170, 175–77, 180–89, 246n30; and Jurchen script, 41; ligatures, 202, 203, 205; as a link among languages, 157, 166–67, 230–31; origins, 5, 17, 21–22, 34, 36–37, 39–41, 173; “outer characters,” 72, 109–10, 117–18, 151, 206, 257n48; printing of, 7, 12; reform under Hong Taiji, 30–33, 38–39, 88, 150; representation of foreign sounds, 6, 52, 93, 145–50, 151, 157; technical, humanistic study of, 10–13; terms for strokes in, 69, 73, 249n95; used to represent Chinese, 72, 92–93, 149, 150–51, 153, 156, 157. See also UighurMongol script Manchu syllabaries: arrangements of syllables, 63, 65, 71, 75–76, 88–90, 93–95; bilingual, 58–59, 64, 72–73; compared with fanqie spelling, 151; earliest extant copies of, 49; fifth section of, 151; importance to learning Manchu, 44, 52–54, 55–57, 227–28; included in Chinese dictionaries, 59, 60; as self-contained textbooks, 57–58; in stone, 58–59; structure, 49–52; treatment of pronunciation, 63, 65, 67–68, 70, 86–87. See also Manchu pedagogy Manchu-Chinese Translation Office, 132, 140 Manchu-language primer (Wu-ge), 70–72, 208 Mandarin Chinese: knowledge in Japan of, 91; Korean interest in, 155, 161, 162, 164–66, 167; as a lingua franca, 30; as the national language, 229–30; phonology of, 253n68, 269n47; as reference point for studies of Manchu, 86–87, 88, 89, 92; use of Manchu script to transcribe, 7, 93, 161, 167. See also Chinese Man-Han leishu (Sangge), 134

Index Man-Han tongwen quanshu, 105, 108, 114, 116, 117, 256n24, 257n48 Manju gisun-i amaga tacire ursebe ibebure tasan-i bithe, 18, 73 Manju gisun-i jy nan (Shen Qiliang), 65, 66, 75, 85, 89, 185–86 Manju isabuha bithe (Li Yanji). See Qingwen huishu (Li Yanji) Manual for the advancement of the beginning student of Manchu, 18, 73 Manzhou yuanliu kao (Qianlong), 41 Martini, Martino, 172, 173, 179, 197, 273n28 Mastery of correct characters (Zhang Zilie), 59, 60, 92 Matsumoto Tokizō, 112, 115–16 Meadows, Thomas, 53 Mei Dingzuo, 102 Mei Yingzuo, 48–49, 71, 102, 132 Mencke, Johann Burckhardt, 182 Messerschmidt, Daniel Gottlieb, 183 Middle Chinese, 78, 86, 153, 154, 164, 238n55 Ming dynasty: and advances in syllabic spelling, 155, 157; calligraphic terminology in, 48; conflict and defeat by the Qing, 4, 30, 60; conflict with Jurchen state, 27; reference works produced in, 134, 153; relations with Chosŏn dynasty, 25, 30, 163 Mingcang, 98, 99, 102 Mingdo, 143 Mirror of Song writing, 138 Mirror of the Chinese and Manchu languages (Yi Tam et al.), 162–68 Mirror of the Manchu language (Kangxi): bilingual and trilingual editions, 143, 158, 166; genre classification of, 133–36, 141–42; index to, 105–7; influence on subsequent publications, 108, 123, 142–43; Leibniz’s hopes for, 121–23, 126–31, 142; as a monolingual reference work, 131–32, 139–40; title of, 136–38, 265n87 Mirror of the Manchu language (Qianlong): as a bilingual reference work, 158, 160, 161–62; date of, 257n41; in Japan, 112, 114, 229; in Korea, 163, 165, 166; and lexicography, 109, 117 missionaries. See Jesuits Monggo hergen-i isabuha bithe (Sayišangɣ-a), 119–20 Mongɣol üsüg-ün qariyaɣsan bičig (Sayišangɣ-a), 119–20

295

Mongol people, 3–4, 19–20, 23, 25–27, 28–29, 182, 183 Mongolian: in contact with Manchu, 6; dictionaries of, 109, 119–20; early Eu ropean encounters with, 175, 182; and Khitan language, 21; as language of state, 28–29; printing of, 207; vowel harmony in, 31; written with Tibetan script, 26; written with “tripartite” transcription, 152, 157. See also Uighur-Mongol script Mongolian collected, 119–20 Mr. Ma and Son (Lao She), 223–24 Muduri mukdeke ucun, 17, 19 Mukden-i fujurun bithe, 40–42 Müller, Andreas, 175, 276n75 musical theory, 152, 155, 156 Napoléon I, emperor of France, 192, 209, 211–12, 213, 217 Nei Fanshu Fang, 132, 140 Nei Guoshi Yuan, 30, 34, 40–41 Neo-Confucianism, 53, 131, 154 Netherlands, 91, 111, 274n52 Neufchâteau, François de, 190, 211 New history of the five dynasties, 19 Nurhaci: biographical details, 27–28; and creation of Manchu script, 19, 35, 36–37, 40; and Dahai, 32; and Erdeni, 29, 34, 38; records of reign of, 239n57, 242n113; in “Song on the rise of the dragon,” 17 Ode to Mukden, 40–42 Ogyū Hokkei, 91 Ogyū Sorai, 75, 90–95, 96, 202, 226 Oirad language, 26, 109, 183, 186 Oirad people, 26 Ōmushō, 119 Öndür Gegen, 26 Osterman, Andreĭ Ivanovich, 186 Ouyang Xuan, 21 Palace Historiographic Academy, 30, 34, 40–41 Palafox y Mendoza, Juan de, 172 Parrenin, Dominique: on the Chinese script, 146, 167; on Kangxi’s Mirror, 131–32, 138–39, 140; knowledge of Manchu, 214, 226; on the Manchu transcription of consonant clusters, 148–49, 161; missionary activities, 267n1; on the superiority of the Roman alphabet, 145–50, 180

296

Index

Peiwen yunfu, 113 Persian, 171, 193, 209 ʻPhags-pa Lama, 23, 24, 37 ʻPhags-pa script, 22–26, 37 Podesta, Johann Baptist, 176, 182 Potken, Johann, 179, 275n68 Princeton University, 224 printing: of Chinese by Eu ropeans, 197, 198, 199, 206–9; of Manchu by Eu ropeans, 7, 12, 190–221; at the Manchu court, 31, 119; of Manchu in China, 194; and nonEuropean scripts, 171, 198–99, 209–10; xylographic, 59, 196, 202 Pulleyblank, Edwin G., 251n25 Qianlong emperor: bilingual edition of Kangxi’s Mirror, 109, 112, 114, 117, 158, 229; First Jinchuan Campaign of, 228, 230; Ode to Mukden, 40–41; program of publication, 39, 123, 157; request for printing “machine,” 207. See also Mirror of the Manchu language (Qianlong) Qianzi wen, 47, 55, 75, 92, 93 Qinding Qing-Han duiyin zishi (Qianlong), 158 Qinding tongwen yuntong, 157 Qinding yinyun chanwei (Li and Wang), 153–56, 157, 159, 161, 167–68 Qing empire: assimilation to Chinese ways, 38; bilingualism in, 54, 55, 61, 132; Chinese allegiance to, 60; establishment, 4, 30, 43, 169; historiography of, 7–9, 36; invasions of Korea, 31, 164; legal statutes, 91; plurilingual, multiethnic nature, 3, 8, 10, 122, 143, 149; relations with Russia, 5, 183; and status of Manchu language, 210, 225, 228–29; use of classical Chinese to legitimize, 3; wars against the Oirads, 26. See also Beijing; Manchu Qingshu quanji (Ling and Chen), 63–64, 151, 186 Qingshu zhinan (Shen Qiliang), 65, 66, 75, 85, 89, 185–86 Qingwen beikao (Daigu), 107–8, 257n48 Qingwen buhui (Yi-xing), 109, 118 Qingwen houxue jinfa, 18, 73 Qingwen huishu (Li Yanji): and Amiot’s Alphabet mantchou, 196; arrangement and contents, 108, 113, 117, 120, 257n48; expanded edition by Yi-xing, 109, 110; use in Japan, 115, 117

Qingwen jian. See Mirror of the Manchu language (Kangxi) Qingwen qimeng (Wu-ge), 70–72, 208 Quanzhou dialect, 60 Queneau, Raymond, 135–36 Raux, Nicolas Joseph, 201, 206–9, 293n86 Recherches sur les langues tartares (Rémusat), 220 Records from [inside] Donghua [gate] (Jiang Liangqi), 41 Rémusat, Jean-Pierre Abel, 216–21, 286n134 Researches on Manchu origins (Qianlong), 41 rhyme books and tables, 80–82, 113, 153–56, 163. See also fanqie spelling Rhymes to be used with the yellow bell tonic, 156 Ripa, Matteo, 127, 183, 212–13 Rodde, Kaspar Matthias, 181 Roman alphabet: alleged superiority of, 145–50, 180; compared to Manchu script, 1, 84–88; in Eu ropean pedagogy, 55; introduction to China, 5, 83–85; in lexicography, 99–100, 112–13 Rossokhin, Larion, 226 Roth, Heinrich, 179 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 169, 189 Russia: knowledge of Chinese in, 185; knowledge of Manchu in, 5, 110–11, 176, 278n106; letters to Japan, 2, 110–11, 113, 227; relations with Qing empire, 5, 183 Sai Kōsuke (Kiseki), 229 Saint Petersburg, 5, 17, 182–83 Sangge, 134, 139 Sanhe bianlan, 109, 119 Sanskrit, 80, 171 Sanzi jing, 47 Saskiya Pandita, 23 Sasŏng t’onggo, 163 Sasŏng t’onghae (Chʼoe Sejin), 163–66 Sassetti, Filippo, 178 Sayišangɣ-a, 119–20 Scaliger, Julius Caesar, 178 Schmidt, Peter, 221 School of Oriental and African Studies, 224 Sejong, king of Korea, 24–25 Semedo, Álvaro de, 172 Setsuyōshū, 114 Shang Yuzhang, 53 Shen Fuzong, 173

Index Shen Qiliang: career and background, 44, 64; dictionary, 99–101, 103–7, 110, 113, 118; explication of structure of Manchu script, 61, 68–70, 73, 100–101; focus on pronunciation, 65, 67–68; syllabaries, 45, 65–70, 75, 85, 89, 185–86 Shengjing fu, 40–41, 41–42 Shier zitou jizhu (Shen Qiliang), 45, 65–70 Shinbun infu (Takahashi), 113, 115 Shufang, 30, 32, 34 Shunzhi emperor, 77 Siamese, 179, 197 Sibe people, 8, 234–35n1 Sichuan Province, 228 Siddhaṃ, 80, 82, 94, 251n25, 252n38 The Siddhaṃ treatise and its commentary (Zhao Yiguang), 82–83 Siebold, Philipp Franz von, 112 Sillok, 25 Silvestre de Sacy, Antoine-Isaac, 193, 211, 213 Sinor, Denis, 143 Société Asiatique, 213 Sogdian people, 23 Song dynasty, 21, 46, 134, 135, 138 “Song on the rise of the dragon,” 17, 19 Song Qi, 79 Songwen jian, 138 soyombo script, 26 Spon, Jacob, 170 Stary, Giovanni, 234–35n1 State Historiographer’s Office, 41 Storehouse of Qing rhymes (Takahashi), 113, 115 Storehouse of rhymes from the Admiration of Literature [Studio], 113 Strategic narrative of the founding of the nation, 41 Surirey de Saint-Remy, Pierre, 129 syllabaries, 178–79, 186, 189, 196–97 Syriac language, 171, 172, 174 Syriac script, 22–23, 51, 173, 176, 178, 198 Taiping yulan, 134–35 Taiwan, 4, 8, 60 Taizong, emperor of the Song, 135 Takahashi Kageyasu, 97, 111–12, 113–19 Takahashi Yoshitoki, 111 Tang dynasty, 20 Tang Zhudun, 78, 79 Tangut, 21

297

Tchi, Lobsang, 186 Thai, 179, 197 Thousand-character essay, 47, 55, 75, 92, 93 Thousand-character essay in a multitude of styles, 92 Three-character classic, 47 Tibetan: early Eu ropean encounters with, 182; importance to Mongols, 25, 26; printing of, 207; represented in Chinese characters, 157; script, 22, 23, 82; Tangut as related to, 21 Timofejew, Wasili, 186 Tongwen yaolan, 59 Trigault, Nicolas, 83–85, 88 Turkish, 171, 209 The twelve heads, annotated, 70 Uighur people, 23 Uighur-Mongol script: as basis for Manchu script, 18, 19, 26–29, 38, 95; and “clear” script, 26, 27; direction of writing, 181; extension through galik alphabet, 25–26, 27, 150; originating in Syriac script, 22–23, 180; and ʻPhags-pa script, 24; and structure of Manchu syllabary, 50–51; terms for strokes in, 69, 73, 249n95. See also Manchu script United Kingdom, 229, 230 United States, 8 Universal-Lexicon (Zedler), 197 Urano Motochika, 112, 115 Ventavon, Jean-Mathieu de, 207 Verbiest, Ferdinand, 147, 161, 167, 175–76, 214 Veritable records (Hong Taiji), 36–37, 38–39 Veritable records (Nurhaci), 36 Veritable records (Sejong), 25 Verjus, Antoine, 128 Visdelou, Claude de, 128 Wade, Thomas, 229 Wahl, Samuel Friedrich Günther, 198 Wang Lansheng, 153, 154–55, 166 Wanyan Xiyin, 22, 37 Warburton, William, 197 Weiers, Michael, 241n107 The Western classicists’ resources for the ears and eyes, 83–84, 85–86 Western Xia, 21 Wilkins, John, 173, 189, 197

298 Witsen, Nicolaas, 176, 182 Woordenboek der Nederduitsche en Fransche Talen (Halma), 116–17 writing, systems of, 178–79, 196–98, 221 Wu Jing, 151 Wu-ge, 44, 61, 70–73, 93, 109, 249n92 Wulu, 37 Xi Xia, 21 Xie Guozhen, 29 Xin (Fò çum), Michael, 173, 177 Xin wudai shi, 19 Xinke Qingshu quanji (Ling and Chen), 63–64, 186 Xiong Shibo: application of phonological studies to non-Chinese languages, 154; career and background, 76–78, 250n11; interest in other scripts, 82–85; on the method of syllabic spelling, 79; publications on phonology, 78–79; resources for learning Manchu, 74, 75, 185–86; tabulation of Manchu syllabary, 81, 85–90, 93–94, 95; thoughts on origin of Manchu script, 39, 87–88, 89, 95 Xi-Ru ermu zi, 83–84, 85–86 Xitan jingzhuan (Zhao Yiguang), 82–83 Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu, 91 Yang Bin, 19, 39, 151 Yang Xuanqi, 76, 84 Yi Tam (Su), 163–67

Index Yijing, 102, 131 Yi-xing, 109–10, 118 Yongzheng emperor, 123, 149 Yoshio Chūjirō, 111 You Zhen, 92 Yuan dynasty, 19, 23 Yuan Zirang, 81, 86–87, 88 Yuanjian Zhai, 138 Yuanshi, 23–24, 36, 38 Yunfu qunyu, 113 Yunyuan [quanshu] (Liu Ning), 78 Yuzhi Manzhu, Menggu, Hanzi sanhe qieyin Qingwen jian, 158 Yuzhi zengding Qingwen jian (Qianlong). See Mirror of the Manchu language (Qianlong) Zakharov, Ivan, 221 Zaya Pandita, 26 Zedler, Johann Heinrich, 197 Zengbu wanbao quanshu, 59 Zhang Zilie, 59, 60 Zhao Wanli, 224 Zhao Yiguang, 82–83 Zhengzi tong (Zhang Zilie), 59, 60, 92 Zhongyong, 3 Zhu Kuang, 108 Zhu Xi, 53 Zihui (Mei Yingzuo), 48–49, 101–2, 103, 108, 113, 132, 143 Zixue yuanyuan (Yuan Zirang), 81, 86–87 Zizhi tongjian, 137, 138

Acknowledgments

I began research contributing to this book at Princeton University; I completed the manuscript at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin. I am very grateful to Benjamin Elman, Nicola Di Cosmo, Mark Elliott, Anthony Grafton, and Susan Naquin for helping me become an independent researcher. I also learned a lot from other professors at Princeton and, before that, at the School of Oriental and African Studies. I want in particular to mention Joy Kim, Federico Marcon, Willard Peterson, Bernhard Fuehrer, Margaret Hillenbrand, and Andrew Lo. In addition, Staffan Rosén at Stockholm University encouraged my interest in Korea. Later, at Departments III and II of the MPIWG, Dagmar Schäfer and Lorraine Daston enabled me to do the research, writing, presenting, and networking necessary to write the book. During the early years of the project, I received help from Martin Heijdra, Setsuko Noguchi, Sören Edgren, and Janet Chen at Princeton; in China, from Chunhua, Ding Yizhuang, Qiu Yuanyuan, Geng Zhensheng, Li Xiong­ fei, Li Ting, Oyunbilig, Huang Aiping, and Xiang Xuan; in Korea, from Kim Seonmin, Yi Sŏnae, Adam Bohnet, and Chong Daham; in Taiwan, from Ku­ming Kevin Chang and Chu Ping­yi; and in France, from Catherine Jami, Pierre­Etienne Will, Delphine Spicq, and Gregory Afinogenov. I was also helped by György Kara, Michael Weiers, Hartmut Walravens, Bruce Rusk, Pär Cassel, Oliver Corff, Matthew Mosca, Peter Kornicki, and Tobias Rådeskog. During my years at the MPIWG, I was helped by Jing Tsu, Michela Bussotti, Wolfgang Behr, Isabelle Landry­Deron, Henning Klöter, Martina Siebert, Joachim Kurtz, Masato Hasegawa, Alexander Statman, Hansun Hsiung, Mario Cams, Bian He, Dinu Luca, Zhang Xue, Nathan Vedal, Fresco Sam­Sin, C. A. Aylmer, Cordula Gumbrecht, Alice Crowther, Brian Tawney, Florence Hsia, Peter Pormann, David Weston, Nelly Gable, Didier Barrière, Esther Chen, Ellen Garske, Ruth Kessentini, Cathleen Paethe, Matthias Schwerdt,

300

Acknowledgments

Viola Schmitt, Urte Brauckmann, Joshua Seufert, Janet Theiss, Jane Hacking, Mo Xiaoxia, Rachel Koroloff, and others already mentioned (and, I fear, unmentioned—please forgive me). Mosca’s comments on two versions of the book prospectus greatly influenced both the contents and the argument of the book. The two anonymous readers for the press gave suggestions that improved the manuscript. Sandy Xu helped me at all stages of the project, in Boston, Beijing, Newark, and Berlin. The research and writing was funded by the Graduate School and the East Asian Studies Program at Princeton University, a Chinese Government Scholarship, a travel grant from Kyujanggak (Seoul National University), and Departments II and III of the MPIWG. Department II subsidized publication, the MPIWG library acquired sources and secured permissions for images, and the East Asia department of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin digitized a source at short notice. Parts of this work were presented at Princeton’s Early Modern Workshop (2012), China Undisciplined at UCLA (2012), the Annual Graduate Student Conference on East Asia at Columbia University (2013), the Dictionary Society of North America’s nineteenth biennial conference (2013), the eighth Conference for Junior Scholars at Renmin University Institute for Qing History (2013), the Association for Asian Studies annual conference (in 2014 and 2018), the fourteenth International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia (2015), the University of Gothenburg (2015), École des hautes études en sciences sociales (2015), the MPIWG Department III colloquium (2015), New Directions in Manchu Studies at the University of Michigan (2016), Universität Zürich (2016), the twenty­first biennial conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies (2016), the MPIWG Department II Translation Reading Group (2016), Sinophone Studies: New Directions at Harvard University (2016), the University of Utah (2017), the MPIWG Department III Chinese Text Reading Group (2017), the fourteenth International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (2017), the Making of the Humanities VI (2017), Stockholm University (2017), Lund University (2017), Academia Sinica’s International Conference for Research on Ming­Qing History (2017), Zhejiang University (2018), Freie Universität Berlin (2018), and Universität Göttingen (2018). Several of my earlier publications partially overlap with the chapters of this book in argument or subject matter. I have cited those publications whenever they provide more detail than I do in this book. In addition, I am contractually obligated to make the following statements:

Acknowledgments

• Parts of Chapters 2 and 4 are based on “The Manchu Script and Information Management: Some Aspects of Qing China’s Great Encounter with Alphabetic Literacy,” in Rethinking East Asian Languages, Vernaculars, and Literacies, 1000–1919, ed. Benjamin A. Elman, 169–97 (Leiden: Brill, 2014). • Chapter 6 is derived in part from an article published in Twentieth-Century China 41, no. 3 (2016): 234–57. Copyright © Twentieth-Century China. Reprinted with permission by Johns Hopkins University Press. • Material for Chapters 3, 4, and 6 first appeared in the article “Mandarin over Manchu: Court­Sponsored Qing Lexicography and Its Subversion in Korea and Japan,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 77, no. 2 (2017): 363–406.

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