ᠨᡳᡴᠠᠨ

Manchu

Etymology

The etymology is "conventionally dismiss[ed] as indecipherable on the basis of available documentation". It was not used in fifteenth-century Jurchen. Speculative suggestions include:

• Related to Classical Mongolian ᠬᠢᠲᠠᠳ (kitad, “China”).
• Corrupted from Classical Mongolian [script needed] (nanggiyad, “Chinese, Ming Chinese”), from Chinese 南家 (“southern households”).
• Corrupted from unknown element ni- + Chinese 漢／汉 (hàn, “Han Chinese”), perhaps 明漢 (“Ming Han, Han of the Ming dynasty”), as Manchu transcriptions of foreign words sometimes conflate the initial nasals.
• Related to native Manchu verbs such as ᠨᡳᡴᡝᠮᠪᡳ (nikembi, “to lean on, to rely on”) and ᠨᡳᡴᡝᠪᡠᠮᠪᡳ (nikebumbi, “to prop up, to support”) with the original meaning of "servant", the meaning of which transferred to "Han Chinese" upon Jurchen/Manchu expansion, during which the conquered Han became subservient to the Manchus. Alexander Vovin considers this sort of semantic shift from a derogatory Proto-Tungusic root most likely, citing Negidal [script needed] (nikan, “Chinese, bandit, robber”), Udihe [script needed] (ningka, “Chinese, laborer, worker”), Oroch [script needed] (n'ingka, “slave, servant”), and other Tungusic forms, and says:

  "Regardless of the phonetic details, the semantic fit seems to be almost perfect: 'robber, slave, servant'—what could be more offensive to an enemy?"

Pronunciation

• (standard) IPA^(key): [ni.qʰan]

Noun

ᠨᡳᡴᠠᠨ • (nikan)

1. Chinese, Han (person, people)

Declension

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Derived terms

• ᠨᡳᡴᠠᠨ
  ᡤᡳᠰᡠᠨ (nikan gisun, “Chinese language”)
• ᠨᡳᡴᠠᠨ
  ᡥᡝᡵᡤᡝᠨ (nikan hergen, “Chinese character”)
• ᠨᡳᡴᠠᡵᠠᠮᠪᡳ (nikarambi)

 

Proper noun

ᠨᡳᡴᠠᠨ • (nikan)

1. a unisex given name meaning “Chinese”

Declension

This proper noun needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants

• → Chinese: → 尼堪 (Níkān) (transliteration)

References

• Pamela Kyle Crossley (2015) “Questions about Ni- and Nikan”, in Central Asiatic Journal‎^[1], volume 58, Harrassowitz Verlag, pages 49—57
• Vovin, Alexander V. (2018) “Four Tungusic Etymologies”, in Ákos Bertalan Apatóczky, Christopher P. Atwood, editors, Philology of the Grasslands. Essays in Mongolic, Turkic, and Tungusic Studies (Languages of Asia; 17)‎^[2], Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, pages 366–368