Jurchen

The Jurchen script (also called Jurchen, Jin, or Jinwen) was the writing system used for the now-extinct Jurchen language, the language of the Jurchen people who created the Jin Empire in northeastern China. It was derived from the Khitan large script, which in turn was derived from Chinese characters. The Jurchen script was created in 1119 by Wanyan Xiyin, the first emperor of the Jin Empire. It was used for official documents and inscriptions. The script was also used for a few other languages spoken in the Jin Empire, including the Mandarin dialect of Chinese and the Mongolian language. The Jurchen script is written from left to right, and each character represents a syllable. The script includes about 1,500 characters, of which about 700 are derived from Chinese characters. The Jurchen script is not currently used for any language, but it has been studied by linguists interested in reconstructing the Jurchen language.