Re: VMs: Manchu theory

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

At 16:57 11/05/2004 -0300, Jorge Stolfi wrote (quoting Rafal Prinke):
> Rafal has kindly provided an execturive summary:
>
>   > He states that the VMS is a "shaman's manual" and was written
>   > between 13th c. BC and 3rd c. AD - most probably in the 4th c. BC.
>   > It is in Old Manchurian and Bansik says he has reconstructed the
>   > alphabet of 45 letters and over 50 words which are Old Manchurian.

AFIACT, the key spoken language in that region was Jurchen: the (1599) 
written language (which a little later came to be known as Manchu or manju) 
was a written form of that language, using many elements appropriated from 
the Mongolian alphabet (but adding extra marks later to disambiguate words 
etc). Earlier written Jurchen looked nothing like that:-
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurchen

4th c. BC? The Mongolian language dates only to the 12th Century CE:-
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_language

This Mongolian alphabet...
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_alphabet

...was based on the [Old] Uighur alphabet...
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uighur_alphabet

...but even that doesn't appear to date back much further. No, sorry - I 
don't see how this claim even begins to match the historical record... 
please tell me if I'm missing something!

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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