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Jurchen (in Chinese: 女真, pinyin: nǚzhēn) refers to an ethnic group in Manchuria and northern Korea, their language, and their writing system.
The Jurchen were a Tungunsic people, and they were the ancestors of the Manchus. They established the Jin Dynasty (aisin gurun in Jurchen/Manchu) in 1115.
The Jurchen script was based off of the Khitan script which in turn was inspired by Chinese characters; however, because Chinese is an isolating language and the Jurchen and Khitan languages are agglutinative, the script proved to be cumbersome.
See also: Ethnic groups in Chinese history, Jin Dynasty (1115-1234), Manchu language, Toi invasion, Wanyan Wuyashu