An Exploratory Analysis of "Truncation-Type" Phonetic Loans in Naxi Dongba Script
Yu Suisheng and Zhou Yin identify and analyze a distinctive phenomenon in Naxi Dongba script's use of phonetic loan characters (jiajie): because Dongba script (unlike Chinese) has monosyllabic, disyllabic, and polysyllabic characters, a disyllabic character is sometimes truncated so that only one of its two syllables is borrowed to record an unrelated monosyllabic word or one syllable of a polysyllabic word -- termed 'truncation-type phonetic loan.' Surveying 22 volumes of the Complete Translated and Annotated Corpus of Naxi Dongba Ancient Texts, the authors catalog 15 such loan characters covering 19 target words/syllables across 85 occurrences (e.g., the disyllabic word for 'chopsticks' truncated to represent 'long' or part of a place-name; 'rabbit' truncated to represent 'again' or part of a personal name). They classify these by truncation position (front- vs. back-truncating, roughly evenly split) and by whether the truncated syllable stands alone or forms part of a longer word, and argue the practice arises from Dongba script's uneven syllable-per-character structure combined with the flexible, individualized way untrained village Dongba priests improvised loan characters. They further find truncation-type usage extends into phono-semantic compound character formation itself, and note (via a colleague's information about cuneiform) that the phenomenon may not be unique to Dongba script.
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