An Examination of the Ruka Dongba Script's Capacity to Record Language
Using an improved exhaustive-statistics method, Zhong Yaoping and He Shukun examine whether the Ruka (a Naxi sub-group/dialect) Dongba script can fully record spoken language. Analyzing the funerary scripture "Scripture for Receiving the Souls of the Ancestors" from Eya, they find only 37% of syllables recorded in writing, lower than earlier studies' rates for other Dongba scriptures. Rather than concluding the script is simply incapable of recording certain words, they show that every one of the eight apparently unrecorded syllables -- occurring within ancestor names and the very frequent word "place" -- can in fact be recorded elsewhere in the very same text, via homophonous or near-homophonous phonetic-loan characters. Corroborating evidence from ritual-procedure manuals, divination texts, and practical documents (account books, letters, receipts), which are recorded word-for-word, leads the authors to conclude that Ruka Dongba script already possesses full capacity to record language, contrary to conclusions drawn from incomplete-recording rates alone.
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