**A Dictionary on the Study of the Naxi Script**
This article introduces the "Na-khi–English Encyclopedic Dictionary" (2 vols., 1963/1972, Rome), a landmark Western reference work on the pictographic script of China's Naxi people. This script, used by Dongba priests of the indigenous Dongba religion to record scriptures ("Dongba texts"), preserves both religious material and valuable literary/historical works such as the "Genesis" epic. The dictionary's compiler, Austrian-American scholar Joseph Francis Charles Rock (1884–1962), spent 27 years (from 1922) in Yunnan's Lijiang region collecting Naxi manuscripts and artifacts, later publishing influential but historically biased studies, notably "The Ancient Na-khi Kingdom of Southwest China" (1947). His final work, the two-volume dictionary (3,414 entries in vol. 1, ~4,600 terms on deities, rituals, and place names in vol. 2), was completed with Giuseppe Tucci's assistance and published posthumously, remaining a key resource for Naxi script studies.
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