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Manchu Translations of Chou Dynasty Texts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2015

Stephen Durrant*
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University

Extract

Manchu language study has played a significant role in the history of Western sinology. The Catholic Fathers who began to study Manchu after the conquest in 1644 often noted the relative ease with which it could be mastered. Unlike Chinese, which Father Domingo Navarette had described as “doubtless the most difficult [language]in the world … dreadful and stupendious (sic),” Manchu possessed a structure readily amenable to the categories and techniques of traditional Western grammatical analysis. An extreme expression of Western infatuation with this “more logical” language can be seen in H.E.M. James statement that if the Manchus “had imposed their language rather than their pigtails on their conquered foes, how much better it would have been.”

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Study of Early China 1977

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References

FOOTNOTES

1. The Travels and Controversies of Friar Domingo Navarette, ed. by Cummins, J. S. (Cambridge University Press, 1962) 2:10,168Google Scholar.

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3. The details of this dispute are given in an article currently in preparation.

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8. An intriguing example of this is Stanislas Jullen's reference to a complete Manchu translation of Shih-chi. See Bibliographie tartare. Traductions mandchoues d'ouvrages chinois,” Mémoires de la société des études japonaises 8 (1889):519Google Scholar. I have not found this text listed in any more recent catalogues.

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11. Fuchs, , Beiträge, 47Google Scholar.

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20. Fuchs, 46-47.

21. For the Harvard-Yenching Library text see the librarian's unpublished handlist. The Peking text is described by Te-ch'i, Li in Man-wen shu-chi lien-ho mu-lu (Peking, 1933), 3Google Scholar.

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25. Fuchs, 126.

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29. Li, 4.

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32. Li, 35.

33. For several other Ku-wen anthologies, see Gimm, p. lxii.