A Comparative Study of Indicative (Zhishi) Characters in Oracle-Bone Script and Dongba Script
Comparing indicative (zhishi) characters in oracle-bone script and Dongba script, this article classifies both into "pure" (symbol-only) and "compound" (symbol-added-to-pictograph) types, covering numerals, spatial terms like "up/down," body-part locatives, and sound-representing compounds. It then compares the indicative markers each script employs — dots, lines (including Dongba's zigzag, dotted, and "trembling" line variants), circles, and, uniquely in Dongba script, a black color element indicating qualities like poison or bitterness. The comparison shows Dongba indicative characters retain far more pictorial detail and a richer variety of indicative-symbol types than their oracle-bone counterparts, but paradoxically a lower overall degree of abstraction, since Dongba script relies heavily on symbol-added compound indicative characters rather than purely abstract symbols, indicating that its indicative-character system remains considerably less developed than that of oracle-bone script.
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