A Comparison of Phonetic Loan Phenomena in Naxi Dongba Script and Ancient Chinese Script, and Their Cognitive Value in the History of Writing
This article by Wang Yuanlu compares phonetic loan (jiajie) phenomena in Naxi Dongba pictographic writing and ancient Chinese script, arguing the comparison offers valuable insight into the developmental history of logo-phonetic writing systems. It identifies two key shared features: (1) loan characters are typically pictographic, concrete-meaning signs (often nouns) borrowed to represent abstract, hard-to-depict words such as function words, abstract nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs—paralleled in Egyptian hieroglyphs; and (2) at the outset of borrowing, the loan character's original pronunciation need not exactly match the borrowed word's sound, with Dongba examples of near-homophonous loans supporting long-debated claims about ancient Chinese phonology, cautioning against overreliance on phonetic (xiesheng) series for reconstructing Old Chinese sounds. The article also notes structural differences between the two systems, including divergent stability in loan-character-to-word correspondences over time, illuminating distinct stages in writing-system evolution.
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