**Minzu Yuwen (Minority Languages of China), 2001, Issue 5**
This article examines the relationship between Naxi Dongba script and Tibetan script. It argues that several Tibetan consonant letters, vowel diacritics, and section-marking symbols (such as the cloud-head, snake-tail, and single/double/quadruple pendant marks) were borrowed into Dongba writing, undergoing formal variation and giving rise to a phonetic transcription method as well as a series of derived characters related to Tibetan letters. This borrowing enriched the Dongba writing system. Focusing on early borrowed letters ka and na, the author shows how they combine with pictographic semantic elements to form phono-semantic compounds, and discusses the special "black dot/black grapheme" device used in some characters (following Wang Yuanlu) as a mark reflecting the script's pictographic origins rather than a strict meaning-distinguishing feature. The study also provides evidence bearing on the debated chronological priority between pictographic (xingzi) and phonetic (yinzi) characters in Dongba script, situating this cross-cultural borrowing within the Tang-era multi-ethnic contact zone of the Naxi region.
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