Descended from the Jurchen peoples of modern day Northeast China and Siberia of centuries past, the Manchu people, or Manju, as they would say in their ancestral language, have accomplished much throughout history. They had forged empires from the beating of hooves and the rattling of sabres, having acquired the Mandate of Heaven over China. Although they no longer possess their mighty domain of old, as of 2010, over 10 million ethnic Manchu still remain within the borders of China.
However, not all is well. The language of the Manchu people, a Tungusic language with its own script, has been in rapid decline. The last recorded native speakers of Manchu are located in the sparse villages of Sanjiazi and Dawujia, numbering only around 20 as of 2007, a mere drop in the ocean of Northeast China.
Portrait of Manchu bannerman Zhan Yinbao, from Ziguang Hall in Zhongnanhai, stored in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The language is of Tungusic origin, having connections with the Evenk and Yakut peoples of Siberia. Manchu has direct ties with its predecessor: Jurchen, the language of the ancestors of the ethnic Manchus, though Jurchen's written script was developed in the late 12th century and was more closely aligned with written Chinese rather than the Mongolian script used by Manchu. In 1635, then Khan of the Later Jin, Hong Taiji, proclaimed that the Jurchen people and language were to be called Manchu, with him becoming emperor of the newly christened Manchu Qing Dynasty just a year later in 1636. The Qing Dynasty replaced the native Han-governed Ming Dynasty as the power over China, the ruling class being composed of an ethnic minority within China. Over the years, the Qing became increasingly sinicized, adopting Chinese names, customs, and titles, this also caused the usage of the Manchu language to decrease overtime, as court proceedings began to increasingly use Chinese instead of the language of the dynasty's founders. As the Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing dynasty said: "If some special encouragement … is not offered, the ancestral language will not be passed on and learned."
As early as the reigns of the Qianlong (1735-1796) and Jiaqing (1796-1820) Emperors, high-ranking imperial officials of the court could not speak Manchu fluently, with multiple emperors being shocked at the pervasive spread of Chinese and the rapidly diminishing influence of Manchu. The Eight Banners, the military and administrative apparatus which had played a massive part in the ascension of the Qing Dynasty, could largely no longer comprehend Manchu by the 18th century, engulfed by sinicization.
Although Manchu was still nominally used to occasionally venerate the emperor and celebrate his deeds, and plaques bearing inscriptions in both Chinese and Manchu still adorned the halls and gates of the Forbidden City, the language had fallen into almost complete disuse when the Qing Dynasty fell in 1912, with the last emperor of the House of Aisin Gioro, Puyi, not being able to speak Manchu at all. Though archives and court records were still written in Manchu, even that had been switched to Chinese in the later years of the empire.
Most ethnic Manchus by this point had also lost touch with the Manchu language, with it being largely replaced by the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, albeit with influences from Manchu.
However, all is not lost for the Manchu language. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China and the end of the Cultural Revolution, the state has promoted several efforts into revitalizing local cultures and ethnicities across China, including Manchu. Deng Xiaoping, for instance, had shown support for education which includes multiple languages, Manchu is now taught in certain primary schools and later on as an elective. Most of the efforts of reviving Manchu itself, however, originates from individual independent organizations. One such organization which operates in
Shenyang, the former heartland of the Qing Dynasty: the Shenyang Manchu Federation, pledges to "strengthen ethnic unity" by spreading Manchu culture, history, and the language itself. Universities in Northeast China have also begun to implement courses for Manchu, as a way of promoting the language and for historical purposes. Around a couple thousand people in China can now speak Manchu as a second language as a result of the aforementioned efforts, and there will surely be more to come.
Although the Manchu language still faces several obstacles, its a prime example of what the well-organized efforts of individuals can do to preserve such an important part of history and culture.
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