A Diachronic Comparative Study of Phonetic Loan Characters in Dongba Scriptures
This article, published in the Journal of Chuxiong Normal University (2005), presents a diachronic comparative study of phonetic loan characters (jiajiezi) in Dongba scriptures, the pictographic religious texts of the Naxi people of southwestern China. Since Dongba texts were composed across many historical periods yet rarely bear reliable dates, dating them is notoriously difficult; the author addresses this by comparing an early scripture, "A Brief Account of Human Migration" (often equated with the Genesis-type creation narrative), with a late scripture, "Sending Off Those Who Died for Love," created in the 1920s. By analyzing sample passages from each, the author examines the quantity and usage patterns of loan characters. The study finds a clear correlation between textual age and loan-character frequency: earlier scriptures contain fewer loan characters, while later scriptures contain more, suggesting an evolving trend in Dongba script's phonetic borrowing over time and offering a methodological basis for periodizing Dongba texts and tracing Naxi writing's historical development.
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