Chinese linguist of Manchu ethnicity (born 1958)
Aisin-Gioro Ulhicun (born 1958) is a Chinese linguist of Manchu ethnicity who is known for her studies of the Manchu, Jurchen and Khitan languages and scripts. She is also known as a historian of the Liao and Jin dynasties. Her works include a grammar of Manchu (1983), a dictionary of Jurchen (2003), and a study of Khitan memorial inscriptions (2005), as well as various studies on the phonology and grammar of the Khitan language.
Biography
Aisin-Gioro Ulhicun was born in Beijing, the second daughter of Jin Qizong (1918–2004), and the granddaughter of Jin Guangping (1899–1966), both of whom were also renowned scholars of Manchu and Jurchen. She is a direct descendant of the Qianlong Emperor as Jin Guangping was a sixth generation descendant of Qianlong's fifth son, Prince Rongchun (Aisin-Gioro Yongqi).[1] Other ancestors include the poet Gu Taiqing, who was the wife of Prince Rongchun's grandson, Aisin-Gioro Yihui (1799–1838).[2]
She studied at the Minzu University of China in Beijing, before obtaining a doctorate at Kyoto University in Japan. She worked as a research scholar at the Center for Eurasian Cultural Studies at Kyoto University, and is currently a professor at the Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Beppu.[3]
She now lives in Japan, and is married to Yoshimoto Michimasa (吉本道雅) (born 1959), a Japanese historian of China. Since her marriage she has adopted the Japanese name Yoshimoto Chieko (吉本智慧子).[4][better source needed] The Japanese given name Chieko means "wisdom", which corresponds to her Manchu given name, Ulhicun, which means "knowledge".[5]
Jurchen studies
One of Aisin-Gioro Ulhicun's contributions to the study of Jurchen has been the identification of the Jurchen small script. According to the History of the Jin Dynasty there were two different Jurchen scripts: a "large script" that was devised in 1120 by command of Wanyan Aguda, the first emperor of the Jin Dynasty; and a "small script" that was created in 1138 by the Emperor Xizong (r. 1135–1150), but which was first officially used in 1145.[6] It is presumed that the Jurchen large script was modelled on the Khitan large script, and the Jurchen small script was modelled on the Khitan small script,[7] but all the extant examples of Jurchen writing, including the Sino-Jurchen Vocabulary of the Bureau of Interpreters (Nǚzhēn Yìyǔ 女真譯語) and monumental inscriptions, are written in basically the same script, which is similar in form to the Khitan large script. During the 1970s a number of gold and silver paiza were unearthed in China; these all had the same inscription which was assumed to be written in the Khitan small script.[8] She has analysed the inscription on these paiza, and although the structure of the characters is identical to the Khitan small script she concludes that the script is not actually the Khitan small script but is in fact the otherwise unattested Jurchen small script. She argues that this small script was only used briefly during the last five years of the reign of its creator, Emperor Xizong, and when he was murdered in a coup d'état the small script fell out of use as it was less convenient to use than the earlier large script.[9]
