Dongba Variant Study

Dongba characters used till 1950s by Naxi nationality in the Southwest of China is necessary and important part of our Chinese culture.This is the first complete and systemic research on all variants in the book Naxi Pictograph Character Chart written by Fang Guoyu. Not only does it devote slightly to the Naxi Written Linguistics but also provides certain reference to the general written linguistics, comparative written linguistics, the written history and other nations' written linguistics.Chapter I. Introduction. The meaning, history and deficiency about the study on Naxi variants are concerned. The definition of Naxi variants, process and other correlated problems are also mentioned.Chapter II. The statistics on Dongba character variants. First, the number of Dongba variants and total characters are collecting. According to the statistics, there are 505 variant groups in Naxi characters, from 2 to 7 in each group, totally 1208 characters. The number of Naxi characters are 1581 if each group is considered as one character whereas the number are 2283 if each variant is regarded as one character. Moreover, various investigations have been done on Naxi variant distributing according to the Naxi category and part of speech in Naxi Pictograph Character Chart, and the correlative conclusion has been drawn upon consequently.Chapter III. Discussion on Naxi variant structure types. According to the analysis, there are pictographs, associative compounds, self-explanatory characters, meaning loan characters, picot-phonetic characters, phonetic loan characters and compatible class (associative compounds compatible with self-explanatory characters and with picot-phonetic characters). The illuminations have been explained in detail and the foundation for the continuous chapters has been established accordingly.Chapter IV. Doing research on the structure compounding on the basis of some correlative problems in last chapter, especially on the variants of the same character. There are mainly two parts through the research.One is the perfect structure compounding among the variants of the same character; the other is the imperfect structure compounding. There are pictographs structure compounding, associative compounds structure compounding, self-explanatory characters structure compounding, meaning loan characters structure compounding, picot-phonetic characters structure compounding, phonetic loan characters structure compounding and with picot-phonetic characters structure compounding and associative compounds compatible with self-explanatory characters structure compounding in the perfect structure compounding. There are pictograph + associative compound structure, pictograph + self-explanatory structure, pictograph + picto-phonetic character structure, pictograph + associative compound compatible with picot-phonetic structure, pictograph + associative compound compatible with self-explanatory, associative compound + self-explanatory structure, associative compound + meaning loan character structure, associative compound + picto-phonetic character structure, associative compound + associative compound compatible with self-explanatory structure, associative compound + associative compound compatible with picto-phonetic character structure, self-explanatory + picto-phonetic character structure, self-explanatory + associative compound compatible with self-explanatory structure, picot-phonetic character + phonetic loan character structure, picot-phonetic character + associative compound compatible with self-explanatory structure, phonetic loan character + associative compound compatible with picto-phonetic character structure in the imperfect structure compounding.Chapter V. Confirming Naxi variant original form. First, the meaning and the principles about the confirmation on Naxi variant original form have been discussed and the developed relationship among different forms in the same variant group has been illustrated. This is a thorough new attempt in the correlative investigating field and still in the exploring p...