Manjurisch

I tried unsuccessfully to place this review some years ago in one of our more important journals, so, it is not quite up-to-date anymore

Hauer, Erich, Handwörterbuch der Mandschusprache. 2., durchgesehene und erweiterte Auflage herausgegeben von Oliver Corff. XV/536 pp. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2007. ISBN 978-3-447-05528-4. € 98,00

It is an extremely meritorious work to republish the largest Manchu-to-any-western-language dictionary, which has been out of print for decennia and had to be Xerox copied again and again by generations of students, who tried to take their Manchu studies seriously and needed a trustworthy help. This does not minimize the worth of Jerry Norman’s dictionary, which, though, normally only gives Hauer’s main entry and not the lot of idiomatic and special expressions necessary to know of, if one wants to understand a Manchu text properly. Perhaps one or another could get hold of and knew how to use the almost as bulky very rare Manchu – Russian dictionary by Zacharov or the more slender but well organized Manchu – Japanese one by Haneda Torû (fortunately reprinted at least once in Taibei), and some, like me, had hoped that an earlier attempt by Harrassowitz to publish a corrected version of Hauer’s dictionary, reworked and enlarged by Martin Gimm, sometime during the early eighties of the twentieth century might have come true.

With the revival of Manchu studies in China the situation has become less strained. It started as far as I know with the Jianming Man Han cidian/Šolokon Manju Nikan gisun kamcibuha bithe. Kaifeng 1988. In 1993 followed the Man Han dacidian/Manju Nikan yongkiyangga buleku bithe, compiled by An Shuangcheng and others. Shenyang, and in 1994 the Xin Man Han dacidian/IceManju Nikan gisun kamcibuha buleku bithe, edited by Hu Zengyi. Ürümqi. With these, and with quite a few other monolingual dictionaries either for Sibe or for historical Manchu language layers, with reprints mostly by the Renmin chubanshe in Ürümqi, and with facsimile editions both from Taiwan and mainland China things have changed much to the better. The availability of many Manchu language sources either in printed form or by easier access to the First Historical Archives have triggered off a wealth of research on Qing history done with the help of these sources both in China and the U.S.A. and, I am sorry to say, to a lesser degree in Europe.

Still, Hauer’s dictionary remains an indispensable tool, even in its only slightly – or just respectfully – corrected form. Because of its new layout it has become more comfortable to use. Instead of the original three fascicles it has become a one-volume dictionary of practicable dimensions. I think, Dr. Corff has done good work. The list of corrections made (c. f. pp. v – vi) seem to make sense and improve the usefulness of the dictionary, especially as far as astronomical terminology is concerned. That, since the whole dictionary was typed anew, new misprints tend to crop up, is only natural, as f. e. in notes 1 and i on p. viii, but, all in all the editing has been done extremely carefully.

Every addition to a dictionary should be welcomed, especially since a great variety of original or translated Manchu texts have become available during the last half century. But, while a systematic addition of Buddhist terminology makes much sense, I think those few titbits of Christian vocabulary do not necessarily so.

Hauer has, quite naturally, if we think of his job at the German legation as an interpreter during the last years of the Qing, a lot of official and administrative terminology already, but a more systematic search, f. e. making use of the Yashu mingmu/Jurgan yamun-i gebu, the Guanxian mingmu/Hafan hergen-i gebu, Gongwen chengyu/Siden-i bithe icihiyara de baitalara toktoho gisun and the Zhezou chengyu/Wesimbure bithe icihiyara de baitalara toktoho gisun, all printed in 1891, would have revealed some additional terms at least. Connected with this are the many Manchu transliterations of Chinese terms, which are not always easy to understand. Hauer has a lot of them, but he is far from complete (c. f. additional terms f. e. in Tong Yonggong and Guan Jialu, “Lun Manwen zhong de Hanyu jieci” in: Manxue yanjiu/Manju tacin sibkin 1.1991, pp. 270-280). Just to show how haphazard Hauer’s entries may be, there is no entry for sibkin – research, only for sibkimbi – to do research, though usually Hauer tends to give as many derivatives as possible. Šolokon I have only found in the Han Si[be] jianming duizhao cidian/Nikan Sibe gisun kamciha šolokon buleku bithe. Ürümqi 1989, pp. 570-1, but, of course, it is the diminutive of šolo – leisure, which we find in the conventional Manchu dictionaries, thus also in Hauer. How poor – or rather only normative – all available dictionaries are, is experienced when one tries to read more or less informal texts like the letters of the Kangxi Emperor translated and worked on by Jaqa Čimeddorji (Die Briefe des K‘ang-hsi-Kaisers aus den Jahren 1696-97 an den Kronprinzen Yin-ch‘eng aus mandschurischen Geheimdokumenten: Ein Beitrag zum ersten Dsungarenkrieg der Ch‘ing 1690-1697. Wiesbaden 1991). Another field still is the growing interest in Manchu religious beliefs and shamanic practices. Not the only, but, one help would have been the integration of the Manchu pantheon into the dictionary, and, for this we have at least the preliminary attempt by Giovanni Stary (“Versuch eines Indexes des mandschurischen Pantheon”, in: Studia et Documenta Manchu-Shamanica. Wiesbaden 1998 (Shamanica Manchurica Collecta 5), pp. 115-139).

It is always easy to complain, but this should not distract from the fact that Hauer’s is an extremely useful, even if rather conventional, dictionary and still perhaps the best possibility to come to grips with any Manchu text. So thanks to the editor and the publishers for a just reasonably priced new edition of this dictionary. It may be a good advice also to recommend the compiler’s data base www.pentaglot.net to dip into the largest conventional Manchu language dictionary.

And if you are lucky, you may find the word you look for in http://books.google.de/books?id=NESwGW_5uLoC&pg=PR1&lpg=PR1&dq=erich+hauer,+handwörterbuch&source (consulted September 17, 2012)