Manchu Grammar Overview

This document is intended to be a brief overview of Manchu grammar. Of course, the example that is provided does not contain all of the components of Manchu grammar, but it does contain what you need to begin reading. Please utilize this text as a quick reference when you are unsure of a noun case or verb form. For an in depth analysis, please view Grammatical Points, starting on page 355 of “Manchu: A Textbook for Reading Documents” by Gertraude Roth Li. 

Noun Cases:

A Case is a grammatical value that reflects the function of a noun or pronoun in a phrase, clause or sentence. There are five cases in the Manchu language. Nominative, Genitive, Instrumental, Accusative, Dative/Locative and the Ablative case. 

• The Nominative (主格) case marks the subject of a verb and is not represented in the Manchu language. 

• Niyalma manju gisun be tacimbi - The people learn the Manchu Language

• Ilha fitheneha - the flower bloomed

• The Genitive (属格) case marks a noun that is modifying another noun. This is also called the possessive case. It is generally thought of in English as “of” or “ ‘s “; in Chinese as 的/之. It is represented in Manchu as i or ni (ni is only used after words ending in ng)

• Ama i boo - The father**’s** house/the house of the father.

• Wang ni aha - The emperor**’s** slave/the slave of the emperor

• The Instrumental (工具格) case marks indicates that a noun is the instrument or means by which the subject (nominative) achieves the action. It is also marked with i.

• Suhe i sacimbi - Cuts with axe

• Fi i arambi - write with brush

• The Accusative (宾格) case marks the direct object of the sentence. This is represented in Manchu as be 

• Niyalma manju gisun be tacimbi - The people learn the Manchu language.

• Cooha gemun be toktobuha - The army pacified the capital city.

• The Dative and the Locative case are both expressed by de,

• Dative (与格) Case marks the indirect object.

• Bi si de sarasu be fimembi  - I present you knowledge

• Ama eme de ilha be bumbi - the father gives the mother a flower.

• Locative (位置格) case marks where an action is taking place, as well as destination with verbs in motion'

  • Cooha oros de gemun be toktobuha - The army pacified the capital city in Russia
  • Alin de genehe - [he] went to the mountain 

• The Ablative (离格) case shows the point in space or time from which an action originates. It is marked by ci in the Manchu language. (This case is not shown in the example below, sorry, I forgot).

  • Alin ci wasiha - [He] came down from the mountain.
  • Nikan gurun ci Monggo gurun de geneki - please go from China to Mongolia.

That covers the basics of Manchu nouns cases. Now let’s move on to verb tenses. There are many verb tenses in Manchu, but the eight most common are what we will look at today. In order to understand how verbs are formed in the Manchu language, it is imperative to understand vowel harmony. 

Vowel harmony is a phenomenon that happens in some languages in which all the vowels in a word are members of the same subclass, for example front vowels and back vowels (google definitions). Manchu words consists of back vowels (a, o, ū) or front vowels (e, u, i). Words in Manchu can contain both front and back vowels, but when dealing with verb stems, we must look at terminating vowel, or the final vowel in the verb stem. The terminating vowel will decide the which ending we choose for the verb. Let’s look at some examples:

Verb Stem            Terminating Vowel

Tuwa - to see             a

Banji - to live              i

Tokto - to pacify         o

Du - to strike              u

And so on….

Verb Tenses 

These are the most common verb tenses that occur in the Manchu language. Please look in Möllendorf’s grammar for a complete list on pg 9, or look in the grammar section in the back of Roth Li’s text book. 

As with any language, irregular verbs exist. The irregularities are generally listed in most dictionaries that we have access to. Similarly, a list of all irregular verbs can be found in Möllendorf’s grammar on page 11.

Disregarding irregularities, let’s look at how vowel harmony happens within verb tenses. For instance, look at the perfect participle (ha, he, ho). As stated early, the verb form that you use is decided by the terminating vowel of the verb stem. That is why ara becomes araha. 

    -ha: verbs with back vocalic roots (a,o, ū) and i;

    -he: verbs with front vocalic roots (e, u);

    -ho: verbs with o in all syllables (found in Gertraude Roth Li’s textbook )

Examples:

    Tuwa - tuwaha

    Gisure - gisurehe

    O - oho

The same rules apply for the imperfect participle as well. I.e. arara, tuwara, gisurere, ojoro (irregular).

Negation of Verbs

Present tense

• Ara + akū = arakū - I don’t write

Perfect participle 

• -ha + akū = hakū = arahakū - I did not write
• -he + akū = hekū = gisurehekū - I did not speak

Imperfect participle

• -ra + akū = rakū = ararakū - ararakū niyalma - the person who did not write
• -re + akū = rekū = gisurekū - gisurekū niyalma - the person who did not speak

** All of this will become clearer once you begin translating. The best way to learn is by doing, so let’s translate the text I have prepared below!

Transliteration:

Manju gisun i sara niyalma jalan de wasiha jakade, manju hergen be kicen i tacici, buru bara boobai baksi de banjime ojoro. Ere bithe be tuwafi, te ci xuturu ejeki. Kice! 

Grammar Breakdown: *verbs are explained in the vocabulary list below as well*

Manju gisun i (genitive) sara (attributive[a verb acting as adjective]) niyalma (nominative) jalan de (locative) wasiha (past tense) jakade, manju hergen be (accusative) kicen i (instrumental) tacici (if/when), buru bara (adjective) boobai (nominative) baksi de (indirect object) banjime (concessive converb) ojoro (future tense). Ere bithe be(accusative) tuwafi, te ci (ablative) xuturu ejeki (desiderative). Kice (imperative)! 

Vocabulary:

Translation:

Because the people who know the Manchu language are declining, if you study the Manchu language with diligence, hidden treasures will be revealed to (and exist) the scholar. Now that you have read this text, please remember the grammar. Work dilligently!