368 161. CIORCIA
themselves, nor the original form which certainly had an -r- at the end of the first syllable. As a matter of fact, the form « Djurtchen », i. e. Jurgen, adopted by TERRIEN DE LACOUPERIE in his paper The L jurtchen of Mandshuria, was much more satisfactory, BARTHOLD'S «fur-6`en », i. e. Jur-Jen (12 Vorlesungen, 121), being a pseudo-reconstruction from the Chinese, is misleading.
The usual Chinese transcriptions of the name are 4 J. and k A, the normal pronuncia-
tions of which are Nii-chên and Nü-chih, respectively (the (1 Ju-chên of P. CORDIER, Catal.
p. 247, does not exist). Since the days of KLAPROTH and ABEL-RÉMUSAT (Cf. KLAPROTH, Asia Polyglotta, 292; ABEL-RÉMUSAT, Recherches sur les langues tartares, I, Additions et Corrections, after p. 298), it has been customary to assert that in these Chinese transcriptions, fr was not to be read nü as is usual, but ju, « in accordance with the etymology of the name ». Following in their wake, BRETSCHNEIDER (Br, I, 224) said that « the original spelling of the name by the Chinese was Ju chen»; GRUBE spoke of the «Jou-tchen » in TP, 1894, 334-340; and CHAVANNES of the « Jou-tche » in JA, 1895, II, 144, and of the « Joutchen » in JA, 1897, I, 377. But GRUBE'S « Juden » is nothing more than a pseudo-scientific representation of Ju-chên itself (the j- is here used with the value of i-, as in our common transcriptions of the Chinese, but this is contrary to its use in scientific phonetics; GRUBE did not employ the form «Juden» attributed to him by MÜLLER, Zwei Pfahlinschriften, 33). Though he goes astray at the end of the paragraph, GIBERT (Dictionnaire hist. et géogr. de la Mandchourie, 140) has already remarked that, although
1& is sometimes pronounced ju in Chinese (when it has the value of ju, « you »), there is no
indication that it was ever so read in the name of the Nü-chên or Nü-chih. As a matter of fact, the modern Chinese and Japanese always speak of the Nü-chih, not of the *Ju-chih or *Ju-chên. That such was already the case in the middle of the seventeenth century is established by the Manchu version which was then made of the History of the Chin dynasty, where the name is written « Niu-di» (DE HARLEZ, Histoire de l'Empire de Kin, 1). We can even go farther back. Ragidu-'d-Din expressly says that the Chinese knew the Jürdä (or Cürdä) under the name of1> Nadi (cf. Br, I, 224; Bl, II, 446). It is thus clear that the only pronunciation from the thirteenth century down to our day has been Nü-chih, not *Ju-chih or *Ju-chên. The form « Juden », however, is now so well established in linguistic works that, while I speak of the people as Nüchên, I retain the usual « Juden » as the designation of their language.
Although Nü-chên is the only form used in the Chinese version of the Secret History (§§ 247, 248, 255, 274) at the end of the fourteenth century, Nü-chih was prevalent during the Ming and Ch'ing dynasties (but the Coreans have retained Nü-chên, which they pronounce Nyetyin; cf. COURANT, Bibliogr. coréenne, Nos. 1863, 2103, 2316). The reason for the double form is well known. Nii-chên is the older one. But the Liao Emperor Hsing-tsung had ,r Tsungchên for his personal name; so, on his accession to the throne in 1031. the character chên was tabooed, and the name of the Nü-chên changed to Nü-chih (cf. Wên-hsien t'ung-k'ao, 327, 3 a; JRAS, 1889, 439). It was the form Nü-chih which came to the knowledge of Ragidu-'d-Din, although the taboo of the Liao had of course not been binding for the Sung, who went on speaking of the Nü-chên until the end. Because of the old pronunciation *d"iak of A chih, TERRIEN DE LACOUPERIE (JRAS, 1889, 439, 444) read Nü-chih as « Niutchik » (= Niudik) and connected this -k ending with that of the pseudo-*Cürdük of the Ming Sino-Uighur Vocabulary;
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