The lost script of an empire: unearthing the Jurchen writing system
In short: For centuries, the writing system of the Jurchen people—who founded the Jin Dynasty in 12th-century China—remained a linguistic ghost. While the language evolved into Manchu, its original script was nearly lost to history, only recently being decoded and digitized for the modern world.
The Jurchen script emerged from a complex lineage of East Asian literacy. Derived from the Khitan script, which itself was modeled after Chinese Han characters, the Jurchen system utilized both semantic and phonetic borrowing. Early Jurchen characters were often distorted copies of Chinese or Khitan symbols with similar meanings, while others were chosen purely for their phonetic similarity to Jurchen words. The script functioned through two primary classes: ideographic characters, which represented whole words or word beginnings, and phonetic characters, which recorded syllables or grammatical endings.
Historical records highlight a transition between two versions of the script. In 1119 or 1120, Wanyan Xiyin created the 'large script' under the orders of Emperor Wanyan Aguda. By 1138, Emperor Xizong promulgated a 'small script,' which was officially adopted in 1145. However, modern scholarship debates whether these were two distinct systems or a single continuum. Some scholars, like Daniel Kane, argue the 'large' and 'small' scripts simply represent a shift from purely logographic usage to a combined ideographic-phonetic system. Others, such as Aisin-Gioro Ulhicun, suggest the small script was a brief, specialized phonographic system that fell out of use after Emperor Xizong's murder.
Despite a massive translation program starting in 1164—which converted Confucian and Taoist classics into Jurchen—not a single fragment of those original books survived. Most of what we know today comes from epigraphic inscriptions on monuments, seals, and ceramics. A major breakthrough occurred in 1979 with the discovery of an eleven-page manuscript in Xi'an, believed to be a copy of the 'Jurchen Character Book.' This textbook provided a rare glimpse into the large script's structure, showing characters that represented complete words, a stark contrast to the more complex phonetic inscriptions found on later monuments.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Jurchen script
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