Panchronic Comparative Linguistics

Manchu words missing from standard dictionaries

by Andreas Hölzl, 19.03.2026

Bilingual sign over the entrance to the Manchu Museum in Fuyuan, Guizhou, 2019 (Manchu text: *manju irgeten i hūwašahiyan faidangga boo*; Chinese text: 满族文化陈列室)

This is an alphabetical list of (written) Manchu words and names that are not found in the standard references like Hauer (2007), Norman (2000, 2013), or Stary (2017). This list will be updated continually:

Alphabetical Word List

hūwaša-hiya-n | word class: noun | meaning: culture | analysis: hūwaša- ‘to develop’ + causative -hiyA + nominalizer -n, cf. written Sibe hūwaša-bu-n ‘education’) | source: fieldwork in Guizhou, China, 2019 (see title picture) | references: Hölzl (2023: 175)
irgeten | word class: noun | meaning: people | analysis: probably a contraction of irgen ‘people’ with another word | source: fieldwork in Guizhou, China, 2019 (see title picture) | references: Hölzl (2023: 175)
kiyakara | word class: proper name | meaning: the Kyakala (Udihe) people | analysis: – | source: Zhigongtu | references: Hölzl (2018: 118)
kiyakara-ta-mbi | word class: verb | meaning: to speak Kyakala | analysis: proper name kiyakara ‘Kyakala’ + verbalizer -tA + citation form -mbi | source: Zhigongtu | references: Hölzl (2018: 118)
wejike | word class: noun, proper name | meaning: forest dweller, the Udihe people | analysis: probably cognate with the name Udihe, weji (< *udi) ‘forest’ + derivational suffix | source: recorded in Chinese as wojike 窝集克 | references: Hölzl (2018: 122, 130)
to be continued

References

Hauer, Erich. 2007. Handwörterbuch der Mandschusprache. 2nd edn. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Hölzl, Andreas. 2023. Diachronic changes in constructional networks: Evidence from Manchuric nominal morphology. Constructions and Frames 15(2). 160–186.
Hölzl, Andreas. 2018. Udi, Udihe, and the language(s) of the Kyakala. International Journal of Diachronic Linguistics and Linguistic Reconstruction 15. 111–146.
Norman, Jerry. 2000. A Sibe-English vocabulary. Saksaha. A Review of Manchu Studies 5. 17–40.
Norman, Jerry. 2013. A comprehensive Manchu-English dictionary. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center.
Stary, Giovanni. 1990. Taschenwörterbuch Sibemandschurisch-Deutsch. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Stary, Giovanni. 2017. Neue Beiträge zum Sibe-Wortschatz. In Michał Németh, Barbara Podolak & Mateusz Urban (eds.), Essays in the history of languages and linguistics. Dedicated to Marek Stachowski on the occasion of his 60th birthday, 703–707. Cracow: Księgarnia Akademicka.