We’re excited to announce the publication of Volume 17 of Saksaha: A Journal of Manchu Studies, available open-access here: https://saksaha.org.
The new issue begins with an article by Devin Fitzgerald, titled: “Manchu Language Pedagogical Practices: The Connections Between Manuscript and Printed Books,” in which he argues for the importance of Qing-era Manchu-language textbooks. In addition to describing the rich array of Manchu-learning materials produced in the Qing (and the history of their writing and printing), he explains their role in the maintenance of Qing empire, and presents them as evidence for the dynamism of Manchu even into the late Qing.
The second article, by José Andrés Alonso de la Fuente, is titled: “On the Origin of mu-Nominals in Manchu.” He argues that the suffix “mu” found in a number of Manchu nouns is not a distinct morphological entity, but an irregular shift of the better-known suffix “ma.”
Next, the issue contains a research note by Chia Ning, titled: “The Qianlong-Era Yargiyan kooli ci tukiyeme tucibuhe fe manju gisun i bithe (Book of Old Manchu Expressions Extracted from the Veritable Records) and Qing Historians Today.” In this note, the author introduces a 1766 Manchu text used as a glossary of early Manchu. She notes that for Qing writers, “old Manchu” meant not the script without dots and circles used prior to the late 1630s, but any Manchu before the standardizing reforms of the Qianlong era. In addition to describing the text, she argues that it has great value for scholars learning Manchu today, as a supplement to language-learning texts that (like most of those described in Fitzgerald’s article) were produced to help study post-1740s “new Manchu.”
The issue concludes with a book review by James Meador of Loretta Kim’s recent book Ethnic Chrysalis: China’s Orochen People and the Legacy of Qing Borderland Administration. Meador sees Kim’s book as important to the study of Chinese-Russian borderlands, as a challenge “to the dominant ethnohistorical paradigm in historiography of the region.” He also argues that it presents “a challenge to accounts of indigeneity that place authentic identity and imperial subjecthood into opposition with one another,” showing rather that “state institutions were a catalyst for the emergence of Orochen identity.”
We hope you will enjoy and profit from this issue of Saksaha, and encourage you to submit your own research on Manchu-related topics to the journal!
