Editing Manchu language (section)

===Teaching===
Mongols learned their script as a [[syllabary]], dividing the syllables into twelve different classes,<ref>{{cite book|title=Translation of the Ts'ing wan k'e mung, a Chinese Grammar of the Manchu Tartar Language; with introductory notes on Manchu Literature: (translated by A. Wylie.)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v6k-AAAAcAAJ&pg=PR28|year=1855|publisher=Mission Press|pages=xxvii–}}</ref><ref name="Ko1855">{{cite book|author=Shou-p'ing Wu Ko|title=Translation (by A. Wylie) of the Ts'ing wan k'e mung, a Chinese grammar of the Manchu Tartar language (by Woo Kĭh Show-ping, revised and ed. by Ching Ming-yuen Pei-ho) with intr. notes on Manchu literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fdAOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PR28|year=1855|pages=xxvii–}}</ref> based on the final phonemes of the syllables, all of which ended in vowels.<ref>Chinggeltei. (1963) ''A Grammar of the Mongol Language''. New York, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. p. 15.</ref><ref>{{cite ECCP|title=Dahai}}</ref> The Manchus followed the same syllabic method when learning Manchu script, also with syllables divided into twelve different classes based on the final phonemes of the syllables. Today, the opinion on whether it is alphabet or syllabic in nature is still split between different experts. In China, it is considered syllabic and Manchu is still taught in this manner. The alphabetic approach is used mainly by foreigners who want to learn the language. Studying Manchu script as a syllabary takes a longer time.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6fqJL619dlgC|title=Manchu: a textbook for reading documents|year=2000|author=Gertraude Roth Li|publisher=University of Hawaii Press|isbn=0824822064|quote=Alphabet: Some scholars consider the Manchu script to be a syllabic one.|page=16|access-date=25 March 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Gertraude Roth Li |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1bArr1-E5mQC |title=Manchu: A Textbook for Reading Documents (Second Edition) |publisher=Natl Foreign Lg Resource Ctr |year=2010 |isbn=978-0980045956 |edition=2 |page=16 |quote=Alphabet: Some scholars consider the Manchu script to be a syllabic one. Others see it as having an alphabet with individual letters, some of which differ according to their position within a word. Thus, whereas Denis Sinor argued in favor of a syllabic theory,30 Louis Ligeti preferred to consider the Manchu script an alphabetical one.31 |access-date=1 March 2012}}()</ref>

Despite the alphabetic nature of its script, Manchu was not taught phoneme per letter like western languages are; Manchu children were taught to memorize all the syllables in the Manchu language separately as they learned to write, like Chinese characters. To paraphrase Meadows 1849,<ref name="Meadows1849">{{cite book|author=Thomas Taylor Meadows|title=Translations from the Manchu: with the original texts, prefaced by an essay on the language|url=https://archive.org/details/translationsfrom00meadrich|year=1849|publisher=Press of S.W. Williams|pages=[https://archive.org/details/translationsfrom00meadrich/page/3 3]–}}</ref><blockquote>Manchus when learning, instead of saying l, a—la; l, o—lo; &c., were taught at once to say la, lo, &c. Many more syllables than are contained in their syllabary might have been formed with their letters, but they were not accustomed to arrange them otherwise. They made, for instance, no such use of the consonants l, m, n, and r, as westerners do; hence if the Manchu letters s, m, a, r, t, are joined in that order a Manchu would not able to pronounce them as English speaking people pronounce the word 'smart'.</blockquote>However this was in 1849, and more research should be done on the current teaching methods used in the PRC.