Jurchen Script
The Jurchen Script is an important element of the historical and cultural heritage of the Jurchen People, who founded the Jin Dynasty in Northeast Asia. Here's a detailed overview:
History and Development
- The script was developed in the early 12th century, likely between 1119 and 1138, during the reign of Emperor Taizong of Jin, who commissioned the creation of a script for his people.
- It was primarily based on the Khitan Small Script, with influences from Chinese Script, as the Jurchen had been under the influence of the Liao Dynasty before establishing their own rule.
Structure and Characteristics
- The Jurchen Script is a logographic system, meaning each character represents a word or a morpheme, similar to Chinese characters.
- It contains about 1,500 to 1,600 known characters, though many remain undeciphered due to the limited corpus of inscriptions and texts.
- Unlike the Chinese script, which has evolved significantly over time, the Jurchen script was relatively static, with little evidence of character evolution or simplification.
- Characters are generally written in vertical columns from top to bottom and from right to left, following the traditional East Asian writing direction.
Usage and Decline
- The script was used for official documents, inscriptions, and some literary works during the Jin Dynasty.
- After the fall of the Jin Dynasty to the Mongol Empire in 1234, the use of the Jurchen Script declined rapidly as the Jurchen people were assimilated into the broader Yuan Dynasty culture, which favored Mongolian Script and Phagspa Script.
- By the end of the 14th century, the script had largely fallen out of use, surviving only in a few relics and inscriptions.
Decipherment and Study
- Modern efforts to decipher the Jurchen Script began in the late 19th century, with significant progress made through the 20th century by scholars like Gilbert Lazard and Sergei Klyashtorny.
- The script's decipherment relies heavily on bilingual inscriptions, where Jurchen texts are found alongside Chinese or other known scripts, allowing for comparative analysis.
Resources and Further Reading
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