Manchu

The Manchu (Manchu: Manju; Chinese: ?? pinyin: M?nzú; often shortened to ?, M?n) are an ethnic group who originated in Manchuria. During the Manchu conquest, they conquered the Ming Dynasty in the 17th century and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until 1911.

Origins

The Manchus were descendants of the Jurchen, who had conquered northeastern China in the twelfth century. The name was formally adopted by Nurhaci of the Jianzhou Jurchens in 1635, although it may have been used as early as 1605. Nurhaci's son Hong Taiji decided they would call themselves Manchus and prohibited the use of the name Jurchen. The early significance of the term has not been established satisfactorily, although it seems that it may have been an old term for the Jianzhou Jurchens. One theory claims that the name Manchu came from the Bodhisattva Mañju?r? (the Bodhisattva of Wisdom), of which Nurhaci claimed to be an incarnation. Another theory is that the Manchus, like a number of other Tungusic peoples, take their name from the common Tungusic word *mangu(n), 'a great river'. Before the seventeenth century, the ancestors of the Manchus were generally a pastoral people, hunting, fishing and engaging in limited agriculture and pig-farming. The Manchu language is a member of the Tungusic language family, itself a member of the disputed Altaic language group, and is hypothetically related to the Korean, Mongolic and Turkic languages.

Related Topics:
Jurchen - Nurhaci - Jianzhou Jurchens - 1635 - Hong Taiji - Mañju?r? - Manchu language - Altaic language group

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