A Brief Introduction to the Dictionary of Naxi Dongba Pictographs
This article traces the century-long history of compiling dictionaries of Naxi Dongba pictographic writing. It identifies French Tibetologist Jacques Bacot's 1913 "Les Mo-so" as the pioneering work—based on 1907-1909 fieldwork in Lijiang—systematically classifying over 30 pictographs and phonetic symbols alongside linguistic and cultural commentary, marking the birth of scientific Naxi script studies. The article then discusses Naxi scholar Yang Zhonghong's 1930s handwritten "Dictionary of Mo-so Dongba and Geba Characters," organized into 18 semantic categories with over 1,800 entries, praised by paleographer Dong Zuobin for its pioneering effort despite never being published. It further recounts Fang Guoyu's efforts, encouraged by Liu Fu, to compile a more rigorous dictionary through fieldwork and training under linguists Zhao Yuanren and Li Fanggui, completing a manuscript in 1936 that was later stolen by an American scholar and rewritten, only to be derailed by the Cultural Revolution. The article situates these works within the broader development of Naxi linguistic scholarship.
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