A Review of Research on Semantic Loan Characters
This article reviews scholarship on "borrowing characters" (义借字), a common phenomenon in early logographic writing systems, exemplified by the Dongba script used by the Naxi people of Lijiang, Yunnan. The term "义借" (semantic borrowing) was first coined by Wang Yuanlu, referring to the practice of using an existing character's form to record another word whose meaning is related to it. Wang noted that early logo-syllabic scripts generally pass through such a borrowing stage, citing parallel phenomena in Ersu Shaba script, Sumerian, and Assyro-Babylonian writing systems. The author traces this issue back to ancient Chinese scholars—citing commentaries by Zheng Xuan, Jia Gongyan, Duan Yucai, Zhu Junsheng, and Wang Yun on classical texts like the Rites of Zhou—who already noticed related character-substitution phenomena, though using varying terminology and interpretations (e.g., ancient character identity, phonetic rhyme, or scribal error). The article summarizes modern scholars' research achievements on Dongba borrowing characters, identifies gaps and shortcomings in current studies, and proposes directions for future research on this complex and flexible phenomenon.
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