The Rediscovery of Phonetic-Splicing Characters in Dongba Script and Their Characteristics
This article by He Jiquan investigates the "phonetic-splicing characters" (qieyin zi) of Dongba script, a writing system used by the Naxi people. First identified by Li Lin-ts'an in the 1940s—recorded in his "Moso Pictographic Dictionary" under the "Gozong phonetic category"—these characters combined the initial consonant of one Dongba glyph with the final rhyme of another, following the traditional Chinese fanqie method, to transcribe Tibetan and Chinese sounds. Until now, no formal corpus had been published. The author newly discovers additional examples in the Tibetan Buddhist Dongba scripture "Guiyi Wen" and in Li's "Nine Translated Annotated Moso Classics." Through character-by-character analysis of 32 characters in the "Gozong phonetic category," the study finds they actually fall into three types—true fanqie splicing, consecutive reading, and tonal/sound variation—rather than being uniformly strict phonetic compounds, clarifying their creation motives, principles, and circulation scope.
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