Research On Ruka Dongba Writing Of Naxi Nationality

Naxi people have long lived in the southwest part of our country; its writing and character are extremely valuable to us in research fields relating general linguistics, philology, ethnology and anthropology. Ruka is a sub-branch of Naxi people, thus possessing certain distinctive feature in writing, there Dongba writing hasn't been published in science world, lack of information consequently has become an obstacle to more comprehensive research targeting Dongba writing. The find of Ruka's Dongba writing since discovery has been limited to just over 100 characters gathered by Mr. Cansen Li and Mr. Zhiwu He. Those characters display only in shapes and explanations regarding to individual characters. Science reviews about Ruka are seldom seen along with Ruka Dongba Classics and articles. Besides that, those available are almost completely based on limited characters we possess. In another word, the research on Dongba writing based upon past document hasn't actually started. It is reasonable to state that the research on Ruka's origin inhabitation customs and economy is rare.Based on 5 field investigation targeting Ruka sub-branch therefore gathered more in-depth information about Ruka people's geographical inhabitation,population,economy,customs,writing and association with other people. During the investigation, the author gathered and categorized Dongba Literature,labeled pronunciation with international phonetic symbol; he also translated《Scripture of soul exile route》and 8 other Ruka Dongba classics as well as《Account book of Shuzhishibo family》and some other practical literature. The materials used in the thesis are all obtained from the investigation.Firstly, this paper is a comprehensive report on Ruka sub-branch's social life and Ruka Dongba literature. Secondly, it investigated Ruka Dongba writing in many aspects including structure,word origin,formation and ties of word and character. In the end, it did a comparison research between Ruka Dongba writing other Dongba writing used by Naxi people.Investigation about Ruka Dongba writing shows it has similar structure as that of regular Dongba writing (pictograms,ideograms,ideogrammic compounds,radical-phonetic characters,(phonetic loan characters,derivative cognates). Besides that, two writings exhibit similar overall features. Structure is essence of characters; structure of Ruka Dongba writing is almost identical to that of regular Dongba writing which proves that these two writings are rooted homogeneously. Specific classifications under each structure of Ruka Dongba writing are not as abundant as that of regular Dongba, and some lack in quantity. Certain Dongba writing features are never discovered in Ruka Dongba writing, such as, using animal eyes to symbolize charactery vacancy,charactery flexibility,charactery defection; using ideograms to display smell,severance,swing and fall; a radical-phonetic character can be seen as pictographic part and phonological part; Yisheng radical-phonetic characters,mixed radical-phonetic characters and multi layer radical-phonetic characters; derivative cognates using action to represent results etc. Number of radical-phonetic characters used in Ruka Dongba writing is only 1/8 that of regular Dongba writing.Radical-phonetic characters in Ruka Dongba writing have features as below:●Few in quantity;●Exist along with originally used pictograms,ideogrammic compounds,phonetic loan characters;●Character shape displays transformation process from dispersion to formation;●Pictograms rarely used as phonetic loan characters.Such features could show that Ruka Dongba writing may in origin period, it can attemper the conflict occurred in writing using either phonetic symbols or ideogrammic compounds in writing pattern. In addition to that, effects made by making up defects such as non-phonetic symbolizing pictograms and non- ideogram consisting phonetic loan characters drove Ruka Dongba writing to its status of logogram.All the observations made have proved that Ruka Dongba writing may have homogeneity with regular Dongba writing. But they have variation in terms of character evolution, Ruka Dongba writing is earlier than regular Dongba writing.Ruka Dongba writing has similar symbol patterns as regular Dongba writing. In Dongba writing, length/width ratio of character symbol and spacing between character symbols vary, which is influenced by actual objects,writing traditions and layout of writing. These two writings differ in complication level, the reason behind lay in character origin,simplification of character,symbolization of character and transformation of character system. Consistency has shown in two writings in aspects like:lines used to construct characters, overall image of character, components used to construct characters. Variations existed may be caused by the spread of characters.Ties of word and character in Ruka Dongba writing, like that of regular Dongba writing can be put into 3 categories:word without character, word character in correspondence, character without word. The existence of these 3 ties simultaneously is possibly resulted from a combination of cause such as history,learning process,life conditions,unique characteristics,use of classics,beliefs,overlapping of transformation process etc. From character system point of view, appearance of phonetic loan characters made complete writing documentation possible for Ruka Dongba writing. In practice, the step-by-step recording method of a portion of Dongba Classics,divination,incantation,practical literature are used in both Ruka Dongba writing and Dongba writing. At this stage, writing can be fully documented, even classic like《Scripture of Receiving souls by ancestor》which has only 33.1% of syllable recordance. Ruka Dongba writing can be described as a mature writing in terms of ties of word and character.To sum up, Ruka Dongba writing is inferior to regular Dongba writing in character structure; practical level of symbolization in writing is low and the simplification of writing is not thorough. Ruka Dongba writing is an immature logogram as seen from character itself. Never the less, Ruka Dongba characters have the capability of fully recording writing, character corresponds to morpheme and records syllable, so it falls into "morpheme-syllable writing".