michael mills wrote:Are there any ethnic Manchus, the indigenous people of manchuria, still in existence?
Yes. My late grandma was ethnic Manchu who belong to Niuhulu family, one of her ancestor was Empress Ci'An, wife of emperor Xian Feng. You may know that the other wife (concubine or secondary wife more correctly) of him was dowager Ci Xi.
There are around 11 million Manchu in China today. But most of them are half or even one fourth blooded (as me).
The last Empress of China, the Empress Dowager Cixi, also had a Manchu name, Yehenola. Presumably Puyi also had a Manchu name - does anyone know it?
Acturally Yehenola was her family name as my grandma's Niuhulu. Manchu nobles began to use Han names from late 17th century.
The imperial family's Manchurian surname is "Aisin Gioro" in Manchu or "Aixin Jueluo" in Han pronunciation. From Emperor Kang Xi(1654-1722), the fourth emperor, Manchurian emperors use Han names. After Qing Dynasty collapsed 1911, many noble Manchu families were forced to give up their original family names and took Han surnames. Many Aisin Gioros changed their surnames into "Jin" or "Zhao". Niuhulus (means "wolf" in Manchu) changed their surnames into "Lang"(Chinese pronunciation of "wolf" but wrote in other words) or "Niu". And Yehenala become "Ye".
I assume that Puyi and all of the members of the Qing Dynasty thought of themselves as Manchu rather than as Chinese, although they performed the traditional Chinese imperial role. Is it known whether Puyi or any of his entourage spoke the original Manchu language, or did they only speak Chinese? And did the Manchu language have any status in the state of Manchukuo, or was the official language Chinese?
Though they thought they were Manchu, but the last three young emperors of Qing Dynasty (Emperor Tong Zhi, Emperor Guang Xu and Emperor Xuan Tong (Puyi) ) were poor in Manchu. Puyi speak Chinese. He could only speak one Manchu word, "iri" which means "stand up", Qing emperors said to their ministers who get down on their knees.
Manchu language is almost die out today. Only some one thousand old Manchu men who live in Manchurian villages could speak Manchu language now, and they speak local dialect. No one could speak Pekin dialect now. Many young Manchu friends of mine and I could speak a few Manchu words and phrases, as "Bi jaci urgunjimbi" (I'm very glad), "sain"(very well) and I'm still learning. But it's very hard.
Manchu letters. Some alike and actually based on Mongolian alphabet.
I know that the Manchu language is closely related to Chinese, at least in its syntax. Many years ago, when I was still a public servant, I was sent to do a linguistic aptitude test. As part of the test, we were given a text written in Manchu, and asked to make a grammatical analysis of it; we had the text, and a list of all the words in the text with their meanings in English. No doubt the examiners thought that no Australian would have any knowledge of Manchu, and therefore we would be analysing a completely strange language. However, I had previously studied Japanese, so I could immediately recognise that the grammatical structure was the same as Japanese, although the actual words did not appear similar to Japanese words at all. Thus, I was able to do the test very well!
Gome nasai. The Manchu language is far different from Chinese or even Mongolian. It belongs to Tungus family, not the Han-Tibetian family.
