September 2007
This article examines the Naxi Dongba script, a living pictographic writing system used by the Naxi ethnic minority in southwestern China, often regarded as a "living fossil" in the history of writing. Because Dongba script occupies a transitional stage between logosyllabic and word-based writing, its study benefits general grapholinguistics, comparative script studies, and writing history. The author reviews prior classifications of Dongba character-formation methods, from Fang Guoyu's "ten-method theory" to Wang Yuanlu's five-category scheme and Yu Suisheng's six-category framework (pictographs, indicative characters, compound ideographs, phono-semantic characters, phonetic loans, and borrowed forms), noting Yu's system best resolves overlapping classifications. Focusing on pictographs and phonetic loan characters—the two most frequently used types—the study analyzes examples from "Da Ji Feng: Giving the Deceased Additional Years of Life" in the Complete Translated Annotations of Naxi Dongba Ancient Texts, categorizing pictographs into whole-form, partial-form, and variant-form subtypes, and examining phonetic loan character features to characterize their distinctive properties.
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