Turco-Manjurica Revisited: a Closer Look at Haenisch 1951

Eric T. Schluessel
Ph.D. Candidate
Harvard University

Historical scholarship on Qing Xinjiang (East or Chinese Turkestan) has experienced something of a florescence in the Anglophone world since the publication of Millward’s 1998 Beyond the Pass, and figures importantly in most accounts of the New Qing History, with Perdue’s China Marches West earning particular attention.  However, despite the NQH priority on Manchu-language sources, advances in Manjuristics have not yet made themselves felt in this specialized field.

There are plenty of good reasons for this.  First, an informal standard has arisen in “Xinjiang Studies” that demands fluent reading ability in several other languages (Chinese, Chaghatay, Russian, Persian, etc.), and studying Manchu further increases the burden on the student. Second, there is a sense that the Manchu-language documentary record is scanty, especially for the later period of Qing rule from 1877 through 1911, during which the jurisdiction of the Ili general was formally limited to the Ili-Tarbaghatai Circuit. Moreover, scholarly attention has moved from the grand strategies that produced empire in the territorial sense, which are well-documented in Manchu monuments (though Perdue did not take advantage of these sources), and turned instead towards the infrastructure of empire, which appears as a Chinese enterprise that produced Chinese-language documentation.  While it might offend certain historiographical sensibilities to think that late-Qing Xinjiang was anything but a Chinese colony, something prefiguring Xinjiang’s relationship to the modern Chinese state, the idea that Manchu language, people, and politics retained their earlier importance up to the time of the Xinhai Revolution cannot be overlooked, even if it greatly complicates the genealogy of modern Xinjiang.

Recent scholarship on Qing Xinjiang from the earlier period, before the uprisings of the 1860s, has turned up some fascinating Turco-Manjurica, which is to say texts in Manchu and in Turkic, as well as Mongolian, documenting the interaction between Qing and Muslim authorities. Noda Jin and Onuma Takahiro’s documents and discussion of Kazakh-Qing relations stands out.[1] Laura Newby’s, Onuma’s, and Hua Li’s pieces in the recent Saguchi-Sugawara-Millward volume are not to be missed.[2] Looking towards the future, the publication last year of the 280-volume 清代新疆滿文檔案彙編, including facsimiles of documents produced as late as 1911 dealing with a wide range of topics, will, I believe, demonstrate the necessity of Manchu language for research on Xinjiang history generally. Continuing work on the Sibe, too, ought to be more fully integrated into a regional field that tends to focus on Uyghur history.

This is not, however, the first time Turco-Manjurica has come to light. I think it is valuable to revisit older work that seemed obscure at the time and see what it can offer from today’s perspective. To that end, I turn to Erich Haenisch’s 1951 article “Turco-Manjurica aus Turfan”[3], which presents two multilingual texts: one is a commandment from the Court of Colonial Affairs to the King of Qumul (Hami) in 1905. The primary text is in Manchu, and next to the Manchu words and phrases are their relative equivalents in Turki. (As both languages share a broadly similar syntax, the translation is not greatly garbled.) It bears no seal, and there are some errors in the spelling, so Haenisch concludes that it must be a draft or copy, but I must note that the copyist’s hand is far neater than in the majority of Turki official documents I have read. The other, a Manchu-Mongol-Turki phrasebook, was produced about a century earlier. Haenisch identifies it as the Manju Monggo Hoise ilan hacin-i gisun, which translates readily to the title of a work in Chun-hua’s 2008 catalog, 滿蒙回文三種譯語.[4] The phrasebook, including roughly 1,900 items, provides Mongol and Manchu translations for colloquial Turki phrases.

In the hope that these two works will soon be contextualized and joined by a richer Turco-Manjuristic corpus, I here present short passages from both pieces in a slight reworking of Haenisch’s German translation. I provide interlinear glosses and translations for both Manchu and Turki. I have also adopted Brophy’s transliteration of Turki.[5]

From the command to the King of Qumul:

1:

Manchu:	morin	deleri	feksibume	isibu
Gloss:	horse	top	gallop-CAUS-IMP.CONVERB	arrive-CAUS-IMPER
Translation:	Galloping on a horse, send this.
Turki:	aṭ	üstüni bilä	čaṗturup	yätkürsun
Gloss:	horse	top-3.POSS with	gallop-CAUS-PERF.CONVERB	arrive-CAUS-OPT
Translation:	He shall gallop atop a horse and relay it.

 

2:

tulergi	golo-be	dasara	jurgan-i	bithe
outer	land-ACC	rule-IMP.PART	office-GEN	letter
A letter from the Court of Colonial Affairs [lit. the Office that Rules the Outer Land].
līfāngänniŋ	ḫaṭi
理藩院-GEN	letter-3.POSS
Lifanyuan’s letter.

 

3-4 Hami-i jasak hoise cin wang sa de

Hami-i	jasak	hoise	cin wang ša-de	afabume	unggihe	afabume	yabubure	jalin
Qumul-GEN	jasak/banner chief	Muslim [<回子]	親王 Shāh-DAT	“be charged with”-CAUS-IMP.CONV	send-PERF.FIN	“be charged with”-CAUS-IMP.CONV	do-CAUS-IMP.PART	reason
A command sent to Qumul’s jasak Muslim Loyal King Shāh. On the matter of: commanding him (to do something).
Qumūlniŋ	jāsāk(ni?)	yärlik	čīn wāŋ šāhğä	taṗšurup	ibärgänimiz	taṗšurup	yürütürduğanniŋ	učuri
Qumul-GEN	jasak-GEN	locality-ADJ	親王 Shāh-DAT	find-CAUS-PERF.CONV	send-PERF.PART-3P.POSS	find-CAUS-PERF.CONV	run-CAUS-PRES.PART-GEN	dispatch-3.POSS
Entrusted by us to Qumul’s jasak local Loyal King Shāh. A dispatch entrusting him to do something.

 

10-11:

ishun aniya	aniya biya-i juwan uyun-i muduri erinde	doron	neimbi
next year	“first month”-GEN 10 9-GEN dragon/5th branch time-LOC	seal	open-FIN
Next year, on the 19th day of the first month, at the dragon hour [7-9 AM], the [duties of the] seal will commence.
kelür yil	birinči ayniŋ on toqquzi beliq sāʿatidä	tāmğa	ačadu
come-IMP.PART year	1-ORD month-GEN 10 9-3.POSS fish hour-3.POSS-LOC	seal	open-FIN
Next year, on the 19th day of the first month, at the fish hour, the [duties of the] seal will commence.

 

From the Manju Monggo Hoise ilan hacin-i gisun:

From dialogue 11:

siz	burun	tamākūsi	tartamsizmu
2.S.formal	nose	tobacco-3.POSS	“draw in”-INT-2.S.formal-INT
Do you snort snuff?
si	oforo	dambagu	omimbio
2.S	nose	tobacco	smoke[lit. “drink”]-FIN-INT
Do you snort snuff?

 

Dialogue 12:

siz	apīn		tartamsizmu
2.S.formal	opium		“draw in”-INT-2.S.formal-INT
Do you smoke opium?
si	yarsi	dambagu	omimbio
2.S	opium	tobacco	smoke-FIN-INT
Do you smoke opium-tobacco?

 

bizniŋ	yärlik	kiši	apīn	tamākūsi	härgiz	tartmaydu
3.P-GEN	locality-ADJ	people	opium	tobacco-3.POSS	never	“draw in”-NEG-PRES-3
We/our local people never smoke opium.
meni	hoise	niyalma	yarsi	dambagu	umai	omire	unde
3.PL-GEN	Muslim	people	opium	tobacco	not at all	smoke-IMP.FIN	not yet
We/our Muslim people don’t smoke opium-tobacco at all.

 

Some thoughts: From these brief passages, we can detect something interesting with Manchu hoise “Muslim” and Turki yärlik “local.” Why should one be a Muslim in Manchu, but a local in Turki?

It is unclear from the text whether shāh is meant as a title (P. “king”) or if it is simply a name. The King of Qumul at this time was named Shāh Mahsūd (r. 1882-1930), so it is probably the latter case.

While the Manchu text uses Manchu titles, the Turki sticks to transliterations of Chinese. I am curious to know if there was any point when Turki translations were issued of Manchu titles, or if the Turki was always figured through Chinese, perhaps out of tradition or a sense that the positions bound the King of Qumul to a distinctly Chinese order. That said, Chinese words were at this point not uncommon in colloquial Turki. Later in the command text, the Turki uses a peculiar word, bänlämäk, to translate Manchu icihiyambi “to put in order.” Bänlämäk comes from Ch. 辦 “to manage,” to which has been added a verbal suffix. It could simply be the case that Chinese loanwords were at this time nativized to such a degree that their use even in official documents seemed natural.

Finally, we have different words for tobacco and opium. What are their etymologies? I sense that a research project on leisure, consumption, and the circulation of luxury goods is in order.