Créatures mythiques animales dans les manuscrits naxis
Complete study made for Arras Congress: “Les signes d’animaux et de créatures mythiques en Orient et en Occident“
This is the complete work I’ve made and written for Arras 2010 congress, focused on the signs dedicated to mythical animals in Naxi – Dongba tradition.
According to the “recommandation aux auteurs” edited for “Arras Publication du Colloque” the paper I wrote in English, from which I derived the slides of the presentation of the the congress presented by Mademoiselle Laura Benedikter was too much longer: 1650.00 characters against the edge of 35.000 permitted by the recommandation. Moreover a French traduction is required for the final pubblication of the acts of the congress, thus for the latter – thanks to Nathalie Beaux – a complete revision and edition of the written studies of the topics is required.
I truly believe that all the material I’ve written should be helpful to be published here, avoiding dipsersion of data, expecially for the concordances and attestations I’ve realized about the animal-deities signs into Naxi Dongba manuscripts, and the cross references among Naxi – Dongba cultural elements and Tibetan/Indian/Chinese ones.
My study of texts of manuscripts, iconographies, detailed analisys of signs of animals associated to supernatural entities evinced:
·Ssù – serpent cult. Based of the veneration of the serpent-tailed and human-body spirits, a life-god entity. Propitiated for granting prosperity and fertility, closely associated to rain and water, able to provoke terrible misfortunes if got hungry with humans. In this study it’s directly related to the traditions of kLu in Tibet,Nāga
in India and Long in China
·Bird-god cult. Bird deities are powerful, strong, able to suppress the serpents-spirits and devour them. Able to spell charms, allied to Shilo the founder of Dongba tradition. In this study the bird-gods of Naxi – Dongba pantheon are associated to mythologies of Khyung–chen of Tibet and Garuda of India.
·Serpent vs. Eagle fight myth, here directly related to the mythologies of kLu versus Khyung-chen of Tibet and Naga versus Garuda of India
As emerged from manuscripts and according to Naxi tradition, I mean the central figure of DongbaShilo not just as the founder of Dongba religion, but as directly related to the Enlightened Buddha sTompa gShen-rab ofBön tradition.
Methodology of research
According to the theme of the colloque, the methodology of study I adopted mostly consisted in the research of signs from documents, as the signs are pictographs which were made of an animal-based graphic unit, directly relate to deities. Once they’ve been found the study of the functions of signs ad of the context was the way followed:identification of readings and meanings associated to pertinent signs, alias the research of the signs’ phonetic and semantic values, the identification and the interpretation of iconographic motifs associated to the pertinent sign.
Then I studied the context, which here is meant as the study of the signs surrounding the pertinent one in an adjacent part of text (mostly the rubric containing the pertinent pictograph), as the research of eventual relationship with surrounding signs in adjacent parts of text for the identification of eventual association patterns among signs,.
Once sign was identified as pertinent, alias study of the sign and its contexts evinced that by this significant a deity was meant, then a deeper analysis I started, focused on the detailed study of the iconography represented by the sign and its variants, the reconstruction of iconologies, also with the help of cross-studies focused on related (but non necessary Naxi) cultural, iconographic and iconologic elements; this methodology permitted to the author some integrations with non Naxi – Dongba directly related documentation, as Indian, Tibetan and Chinese.
First stage of my study, which consisted in the identification of pertinent signs, was performed bythe analysis of available sources which contains attestations of pictographs with an animal-based graphic unit. Nature of available sources evinced the possibility of making use of two kind of attestations: direct and indirect attestations.
·Direct attestations: are those performed directly from documents belonging to Naxi – Dongba pictographic tradition: manuscripts, scrolls, wall-paintings, handcrafts and sculptures. Some hundreds of documents are available online thanks to Harvard Yenching web resources, which consist in a selection from their collection of 598 manuscripts. By this web resource is possible to perform direct analysis over Dongba manuscripts, avoiding the difficulties in retrieving of documents.[1]
·Indirect attestations: are those made and evinced from documents which not belong to Naxi – Dongba tradition, but directly or indirectly dedicated or related to Naxi culture and Dongba, in particular dictionaries, Naxi mythology and Dongba culture dedicated studies.[2]
By this two ways of attestation, the signs I identified as pertinent, alias signs associated and identified as a deity, I then recorded in a concordances’ system, with manuscripts’ page, rubric, reading and meaning.
As introduced upper, further analysis of surrounding contexts I performed for identification of possible association of signs: sources evinced a number of not casual association, here meant as recurring pattern, with peculiar reading and meaning, pertinent inside the context of animal-deities belonging to Naxi – Dongba Pantheon.
Such group of pertinent signs evinced by sources from direct and indirect attestations, on a corpus of78 manuscripts,[3] according to contexts and to dedicated bibliography, scored 1242 attestations of signs of animals associated to 2 main groups of iconographies of deities:
◦reptile – gods iconography,
with 513 attestations
◦bird – gods iconography,
with 729 attestations
Analysis of context which the pertinent signs belong to, evinced to me a very complex pantheon of gods with many subgroups of deities, both in reptile and bird forms: reptile and bird iconographies thus here I meant as two main classes of gods, as from contexts they appear to be antagonist, while inside bird and reptile group of deities the different form of spirits are often in close interaction, share a common origin, and acts in strong influence and interaction with/against humans.
The reptile – deities iconographies was thus characterized of different and distinguished kind of supernatural entities:
·serpent-tailed, human headed with trilobate crown, associated to many readings: Ssù, Llü–mun, Ssaw–ndaw and/or mute sign
·dragon iconography, associated to the reading Lu
·serpent iconography, associated to the reading Shi-zi
The bird – deities iconographies also contains at least 3 different gods:
·iconography, associated to the reading Khyu–t’khyu
·iconography, associated to the reading Dter–gko
·iconography, associated to the reading Yu–ma
For full work please, browse the table of contents below, or the menu on the nav-abr of the header, or again on the right frame: data, concordances and statistics here quoted are completely available.[4]
This paper and all linked material here available in English language is recorded under a Creative Commons license, here published and freely shared for academic purpouse, available to every scholar dedited to Naxi People and Culture and Dongba tradition.
For an exemple of Harvard Yenching manuscripts pertinent to the theme studied (the Ssù cult) and for crossing references with Joseph Rock manuscripts’ collection please, cfr:
[2]Particular attention was focused on Dongba pictographs dictionaries and monograph studies dedicated to Dongba religious tradition, with an eye especially focused on Joseph Rock and Chas McKhann works . In particular cfr.: Rock J., 1952, 1963, 1972; McKhann C., 1989, 2003c, 2003d
[3]Here manuscripts are grouped in 3 clusters, just for a more comfortable layout. Data are available online:
After Arras 2010 colloques have been done, and the work is now focused on the writing of the acts of congress, I’m publishing the bibliography which I consulted to prepare my contribution and relative paper.
A selected bibliography focused on Naxi – Dongba and Lijiang is however available online on author’s website:
This resource contains all data relative to attestations I’ve made preparing my study focused on Naxi – Dongba pictographs with animals’ based iconography and directly associated to deities, which is the theme I’ve to develop for Arras 2010 Congress.
Among such attestations I’ve also included a which resume and gathers all manuscripts dedicated or related to “Serpent-cult”: such sheet also contains a cross-reference plates among Joseph Rock and Harvard-Yenching numeration system, with available url of Harvard-Yenching online collection.
All item here listed are available as an htm page to be browsed, and as .xls ( Excell ) and .ods ( Openoffice ) editable files.
ANIMAL BASED ICONOGRAPHIES PICTOGRAPHS ASSOCIATED TO DEITIES
Study of iconographies and contexts directly form Naxi Dongba Manuscripts evinced many common aspects and features with Tibetan, Indian and Chinese tradition, thus I also implemented such cross-iconographics plates for crossing references among different deities attested.
Finalmente, dopo 4 anni, sono potuto tornare in Cina.
E ci sono tornato insieme a Claudia!
Ed ho portato Claudia a Tian Tan Gongyuan, ed ho rivisto con lei la mia maestra Liu Jinping.
Un sogno, nel sogno, nel sogno, nel sogno, che si realizza(no).
Così come la possibilità di partecipare ad un congresso mondiale di antropologia ed etnologia, esponendo i miei studi e presentando i miei progetti di ricerca sull’etnia Naxi e la tradizione Dongba…
Grazie quindi alla mia ditta, la Pellicceria Cioni, che prima di tutto mi ha dato un posto di lavoro d’oro, senza il quale non avrei potuto nemmeno sognarmi di affrontare questo viaggio! Assieme ad esso (che non è poco, visti i tempi e visto che altri hanno tranquillamente ignorato la mia professionalità, e continuano a sputare nel piatto dove hanno mangiato) mi ha permesso di rispondere positivamente all’invito del prof. Mu Shihua della Yunnan Daxue, potendo lasciare l’Italia davvero in anticipo rispetto al nostro normale calendario di ferie, partecipando così con un successo che nemmeno lontanamente immaginavo alla conferenza di Kunming.
Grazie al professor Roberto Rosselli del Turco, che mi ha aiutato! E continua ad aiutarmi. Nel mio lavoro d’implementazione di risorse d’Informatica Umanistica applicate allo studio ed alla diffusione della tradizione Dongba e della cultura Naxi, e nel mio percorso universitario, davvero difficile mentre si lavora! Grazie di nuovo alla ditta che mi permette di farlo, ed alla mia famiglia che mi sostiene in tutto e per tutto.
Grazie al mi’ fratello Francesco, che mi ha sempre ispirato allo studio, all’approfondimento critico ed intelligente delle cose e dei fenomeni, che ha di nuovo ispirato una parte dei miei studi così come durante la tesi in Egittologia del 2004. Grazie di avermi fatto conoscere e spiegato le teorie di Anna Wierzbicka e di Cliff Gottard, che sono davvero preziose – un core – per quello che mi è venuto in mente di fare.
Shui Shufa zai Beihai
Grazie alla mia famiglia. Esempio di dedizione, di lavoro, di lealtà. Forse anche principale motivo per il quale scrivo questa pagina di ringraziamenti, che non è solo senso di gratitudine cristiana, ma è anche farsi scrittura della mia violenta pulsione di scavare.
Un bel confine netto.
Tra me. E altre persone: uomini e donne con 2 braccia e 2 gambe come me, come “gli altri” perennemente criticati ed additati, altri uomini, altre donne, altri maestri, altre associazioni.
Premettendo che: ” Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish, Of myself forever reproaching myself, for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless? ” dico con decisione: non voglio essere in quei vagoni. In quel treno di dementi. Tra chi riceve e spreca. Tra chi ricevendo sfrutta. Sprecando, e non dice nemmeno grazie a chi, per l’ennesima volta, concede fiducia, progetti, futuro suo e di chi ama, infine soldi.
E gioisce dei dolori altrui.
Identità.
Malgrado i poveri risultati di tutto [the poor results of all ], malgrado gli anni vuoti ed inutili degli altri, con gli altri a me attorcigliati [the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined ]
Tu sei qui–la vita esiste. E l’identità; il potente spettacolo – per alcuni uno show di pagliacci – continua.
Questo è il verso con cui contribuisco.
Walt Whitman - beardedroman.com
Grazie a Jiejie Francesca Freeman, che ha saputo consigliarmi, e continuamente mi aiuta con un supporto morale, motivazionale, culturale, da vera sorella maggiore insomma, in molti dei miei campi: studio, pittura, Wushu, vita insomma! Speriamo che dopo più di un anno di attesa e miliardi di promesse al vento, il suo libro sui Moso possa finalmente uscire dall’incub-atrice dell’editing ed essere pubblicato.
Grazie infine, ma in realtà in cima a tutti, a Claudia.
Che è bellissima, che è la mia compagna.
Che mi sopporta da anni e che se Dio vole ho sempre al mio fianco.
Per la quale spero di essere ciò che vuole e di cui ha bisogno, così come lei per me è, in spontaneità, in natura, in bontà.
Chi può essere così stolto e vigliacco da gioire che 2 persone si lascino?
Non a caso.
Il progetto più importante proposto a Kunming si chiama proprio CL.A.U.D.I.A., ed uno dei suoi sviluppi DO.M.EN.I.…
Aggiornato il giornale digitale con le foto ed alcuni pensieri sul viaggio in Cina di questa estate.
Beijing, Beihai
Finalmente, dopo 4 anni, sono potuto tornare in Cina.
E ci sono tornato insieme a Claudia!
Ed ho portato Claudia a Tian Tan Gongyuan, ed ho rivisto con lei la mia maestra Liu Jinping.
Un sogno, nel sogno, nel sogno, nel sogno, che si realizza(no).
Così come la possibilità di partecipare ad un congresso mondiale di antropologia ed etnologia, esponendo i miei studi e presentando i miei progetti di ricerca sull’etnia Naxi e la tradizione Dongba…
Grazie quindi alla mia ditta, la Pellicceria Cioni, che prima di tutto mi ha dato un posto di lavoro d’oro, senza il quale non avrei potuto nemmeno sognarmi di affrontare questo viaggio! Assieme ad esso (che non è poco, visti i tempi e visto che altri hanno tranquillamente ignorato la mia professionalità, e continuano a sputare nel piatto dove hanno mangiato) mi ha permesso di rispondere positivamente all’invito del prof. Mu Shihua della Yunnan Daxue, potendo lasciare l’Italia davvero in anticipo rispetto al nostro normale calendario di ferie, partecipando così con un successo che nemmeno lontanamente immaginavo alla conferenza di Kunming.
Grazie al professor Roberto Rosselli del Turco, che mi ha aiutato! E continua ad aiutarmi. Nel mio lavoro d’implementazione di risorse d’Informatica Umanistica applicate allo studio ed alla diffusione della tradizione Dongba e della cultura Naxi, e nel mio percorso universitario, davvero difficile mentre si lavora! Grazie di nuovo alla ditta che mi permette di farlo, ed alla mia famiglia che mi sostiene in tutto e per tutto.
Grazie al mi’ fratello Francesco, che mi ha sempre ispirato allo studio, all’approfondimento critico ed intelligente delle cose e dei fenomeni, che ha di nuovo ispirato una parte dei miei studi così come durante la tesi in Egittologia del 2004. Grazie di avermi fatto conoscere e spiegato le teorie di Anna Wierzbicka e di Cliff Gottard, che sono davvero preziose – un core – per quello che mi è venuto in mente di fare.
Shui Shufa zai Beihai
Grazie alla mia famiglia. Esempio di dedizione, di lavoro, di lealtà. Forse anche principale motivo per il quale scrivo questa pagina di ringraziamenti, che non è solo senso di gratitudine cristiana, ma è anche farsi scrittura della mia violenta pulsione di scavare.
Un bel confine netto.
Tra me. E altre persone: uomini e donne con 2 braccia e 2 gambe come me, come “gli altri” perennemente criticati ed additati, altri uomini, altre donne, altri maestri, altre associazioni.
Premettendo che: ” Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish, Of myself forever reproaching myself, for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless? ” dico con decisione: non voglio essere in quei vagoni. In quel treno di dementi. Tra chi riceve e spreca. Tra chi ricevendo sfrutta. Sprecando, e non dice nemmeno grazie a chi, per l’ennesima volta, concede fiducia, progetti, futuro suo e di chi ama, infine soldi.
E gioisce dei dolori altrui.
Identità.
Malgrado i poveri risultati di tutto [the poor results of all ], malgrado gli anni vuoti ed inutili degli altri, con gli altri a me attorcigliati [the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined ]
Tu sei qui–la vita esiste. E l’identità; il potente spettacolo – per alcuni uno show di pagliacci – continua.
Questo è il verso con cui contribuisco.
Walt Whitman – beardedroman.com
Grazie a Jiejie Francesca Freeman, che ha saputo consigliarmi, e continuamente mi aiuta con un supporto morale, motivazionale, culturale, da vera sorella maggiore insomma, in molti dei miei campi: studio, pittura, Wushu, vita insomma! Speriamo che dopo più di un anno di attesa e miliardi di promesse al vento, il suo libro sui Moso possa finalmente uscire dall’incub-atrice dell’editing ed essere pubblicato.
Grazie infine, ma in realtà in cima a tutti, a Claudia.
Che è bellissima, che è la mia compagna.
Che mi sopporta da anni e che se Dio vole ho sempre al mio fianco.
Per la quale spero di essere ciò che vuole e di cui ha bisogno, così come lei per me è, in spontaneità, in natura, in bontà.
Chi può essere così stolto e vigliacco da gioire che 2 persone si lascino?
Non a caso.
Il progetto più importante proposto a Kunming si chiama proprio CL.A.U.D.I.A., ed uno dei suoi sviluppi DO.M.EN.I.…
Ricostruzione di alcune delle pagine del primo volume (gku chung) del manoscritto Lu Bar Lu Za Sa [invitare a discendere i demoni del suicidio] appartenente alla tradizione manoscritta pittografica Dongba, dei Naxi di Lijiang.
Ho realizzato il lavoro di ricostruzione basandomi sullo studio di Joseph Francis Charles Rock, in BEFEO – Bulletin de l’Ecole Francaise d’Extreme-Orient XXIX, 1939.
The 16th World Congress – The International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences – Panel: New Horizons in Naxi Study
I partecipated at the panel `New Horizons in Naxi Study` during the 16th World Congress – The International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in Kunming (official website: https://www.icaes2008.org/defaultDo.jsp) with 2 tributes which I’ll soon post as pdf on Xiulong.it resuming my 2 research projects:
Many new ideas, expecially for improve my study focused on Dongba tradition and Naxi people culture and history grow up from the congress! I’m also very happy to have met Eric D. Mortensen, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies – Departement Chair of Religious Studies – Guilford College: we spoke after the pics taiking at the end of congress and what we said was very very good and usefull for me…hope to see soon!
Many thanks to Qinglian Zhao for the precious helpoing douring the last day of congress translating so smart and perfect from my bad English into perfect Chinese: next time I’ll speak in Chinese! So impressive to see Alexis Michaud speaking perfectly in Chinese and 2 Naxi dialects…wow! A sample to be followed!
Many many thanks to Mu Shi Hua laoshi, but expecially to Cherry to let me be in Kunming and to let me and Claudia visit her splendid home in Wu Yi Jie!
At today still in feichang piaoliang Lijiang gu cheng… when I’ll back in Italy will write about!
This short draft is taken from CL.A.U.D.I.A.’s intro page and it is focused about a peculiar approach to semantic annotation of Dongba manuscripts by NSM primes as mark-up tagger.
The NSM theory known as “Natural Semantic Metalanguage” has been developed by A. Wierzbicka and, later, by C. Goddard and other scholars.
The “basic idea is that we should try to describe complex meanings in terms of simpler ones. For example, to state the meaning of a semantically complex word we should try to give a paraphrase composed of words which are simpler and easier to understand than the original. This method of semantic description is called reductive paraphrase. It prevents us from getting tangled up in circular and obscure definitions, problems which bedevil conventional dictionaries and other approaches to linguistic semantics. No technical terms, neologisms, logical symbols, or abbreviations are allowed in a reductive paraphrase – only plain words from ordinary natural language.” (NSM Semantics in Brief: http://www.une.edu.au/bcss/linguistics/nsm/semantics-in-brief.php → 2009, June 28th )
By reductive paraphrase is thus possible to proceed as method for meaning analysis, which conduces to every language’s “semantic core”, “ a language-like structure, with a lexicon of indefinable expressions (“semantic primes”) and a grammar […] governing how the lexical elements can be combined ”: in other words a “mini-language” as expressive powerful as full natural language.
Semantic complex concepts thus could be explained by reductive paraphrase method, for instance a pair of samples from Wierzbicka 1996: 251-253; Goddard 1988):
Semantic emotion terminology: feeling invidious
X felt invidious =
X felt something bad
because X thought like this about someone else:
something good happened to this person
it didn’t happened to me
this is bad
I want things like this happen to me
Causative verb break, as Person-X broke Y (ex.: Pete broke the window)
X broke Y =
X did something to Y
because of this, something happened to Y at this time
because of this, after this Y wasn’t one thing any more
Anna Wierzbicka aiming always to reduce the terms of the explications to the smallest and most versatile set by experimentation: she thus identified a core of 60 semantic primes (Goddard & Wierzbicka, “Meaning and Universal Grammar”, Eds 2002)
Semantic primes like I, YOU, SOMEONE, SOMETHING, THIS, HAPPEN, MOVE, etc.., identifying simples and intuitively intelligible meanings, are essential for numerous other words meaning explicating and non-circular grammatical constructions.
According to Wierzbicka, English core at today consists in:
Substantives: I, YOU, SOMEONE, PEOPLE, SOMETHING/THING, BODY
Relational substantives: KIND, PART
Determiners: THIS, THE SAME, OTHER/ELSE
Quantifiers: ONE, TWO, SOME, ALL, MUCH/MANY
Evaluators: GOOD, BAD
Descriptors: BIG, SMALL
Mental predicates: THINK, KNOW, WANT, FEEL, SEE, HEAR
Such primes are could well been implemented as Xml well-formed tree, constructing a NSM ontology skeleton, as exemplified below:
Implementation of NSM Semantic Mark-up for Dongba pictographs thus consists in:
annotations of English translation of CL.A.U.D.I.A. stored Dongba pictographs by NSM English semantic core marking-upFor instance: pictograph Ea1 will be semantically marked-up as
Such sample represents a very basic approach to Dongba pictographs NSM mark-up I am working over.
NSM studies have been carried out in a wide range of a languages, including English, Russian, French, Spanish, Polish, Italian, Ewe, Malay, Japanese, East Cree, Chinese, Mbula, Yankunytjatjara, Arrernte, and Maori, among others.
Considering Naxi language and Dongba pictograph writing system as close and strictly linked – but independent phenomena, my aim is to study by NSM approach Naxi and Dongba for:
identification of Naxi metalanguage semantic core
identification of Dongba meta-pictographs semantic core
confronts and among Naxi and Dongba cores for patterns and relationship identification and analysis
Do.M.En.I. means Dongba Manuscript Encoding Initiative. It’s a CL.A.U.D.I.A. parallel project, originating and taking form by Dongba pictograph manuscript tradition and digital humanities study.
Do.M.En.I. is focused about implementing an on-line encoded corpus of Dongba manuscripts as a World Wide enjoyable resource for Dongba manuscript and Naxi pictograph literature, according to W3C standards for text and corpora encoding.
World Wide web technology at today should be seen as the wider library to be consulted for information retrieval and documents browsing, especially in Academic world for exchanging of material and up-to-date information which run faster then every paper-publication or review.
Many digital humanities application is dedicated to texts browsing and documents retrieving, and cover large range of kind of information: from daily newspapers to linguistic annotated corpora or more specialized archives. Plenty of digital texts and their extreme heterogeneity pushed W3C consortium (among other world wide question) to define some base guidelines for digital encoding of text and corpora digital encoding. at today W3C recommends TEI guidelines for digital texts encoding and CES for corpora encoding.
Do.M.En.I., project of diffusion and acculturation about Dongba pictograph manuscript tradition and Naxi people culture, follows and accords to W3C standards recommendations because it’s the best way to open such cultural and artistic treasures to academic world and all members of human kind. Do.M.En.I. thus operates in retrieving of just-available on-line resources re-organizing them in a CES according corpus, proceeding to single manuscripts encoding according to TEI recommendations.
At today two are the only available on-line resources for Naxi pictograph manuscripts tradition, both displaying some tens of digital reproduction of manuscripts pages:
they have heterogeneous standards for digital reproduction of manuscripts, moreover both corpora is just stops to “0 level” of text encoding. (Lenci et al., 2005: 57) , for Dongba pictograph text reproduction of manuscripts pages, sequences of images without any deeper structural, meta-structural, linguistic, syntactic and semantic annotation.
Do.M.En.I. projects if focused in building a complete (and open for up-to-dating initiatives) resources as annotated corpus of Dongba manuscripts, and this plays for:
safeguard and conservation of Dongba manuscripts and Naxi pictograph literature
diffusing and enjoying Dongba tradition and Naxi pictograph literature
convergence and unification of just-existing online resources
implementation of new resources according to W3C standards
study of Dongba pictograph writing system
study of Naxi language
Do.M.En.I. targets are finally summarizable in 2 main scores:
defining and building a codify schema for encoding Dongba pictograph manuscripts according to TEI standard
implementing a World Wide Corpus of encoded Dongba manuscripts according to CES standard
This is a draft 1.0 release of CL.A.U.D.I.A., achronim for ComputationaLAnd Updatable Dongbas Interactive Archives, as Human Techonolgies application focused about Dongba pictographic writing system of Naxi people of Southwest China, implemented and uploaded on Web for an onfly demo douring Kunming’s 16th International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (29 – 31 July).
I wish to underline importance of Updatable features of such system – which I feel is needed – because of continous evolution of myself and academic scores in studying Dongba nad Geba writing systems and Naxi culture.
I am implementing such resource under PHP <–> MySql couple, that’s because I feel MySql as the best database instrument for building digitals archives and structured databases as Dongba pictographs corpus, and PHP as the dearest and the flexiblest instrument available at today to generate intelligent and dynamic queries targeting Dongba pictographic writing system significants corpus stored in MySql database; some hidden fields of database should work as Ontology for hierarchy relationship between family, subfamily and single pictographs.
Index plates consist in a tree of family and sub-family of pictographs stored and gathered by ICONOGRAPHIC features. Please visit previously dedicated page for correct usage. Each plates of pictographs are implemented as index archives of pictograph, labelled by capital keyletter for Family and minus keyletter for sub-Family of pictographs, then each elements has its own identification number, as in Gardiner appendix Hyeroglyphiv dictionary in it’s landmark work “Egyptian Grammar”. Such indexing realize a precious resource for future complete pictograph dictionary, and CL.A.U.D.I.A. is just its computational implementation.
CL.A.U.D.I.A.’s Dongba dictionary is implemented with 3 main resources. At first a fast free-keywords search-engine realized to lounch interrogation query on pictograph databse. Please, note that EACH QUERY WILL GENERATE 2 MAIN FILEDS OF DATA RETRIEVING: on the top a DIRECT MATCHING SCORE, with the output of the whole pictograph directly matched in its traduction to the keyword of research; down an INDIRECT MATCHING SCORE, constituted by the group of pictographs retrieved because of theyr indirect matching – but existing relation – with the keywords of the query lounched. Such Information Retrival System is yet implementing.
Claudia’s Dongba dictio also presents initials syllables system as tags. Please visit English <–> Donga cidian dedicated intro page to better understand power and limitation of CL.A.U.D.I.A. 1.0.
Stefano Zamblera – Xiulong
serpent-tailed, human headed with trilobate crown, associated to many readings: Ssù, Llü–mun, Ssaw–ndaw and/or mute sign
dragon iconography, associated to the reading Lu
serpent iconography, associated to the reading Shi-zi
iconography, associated to the reading Khyu–t’khyu
iconography, associated to the reading Dter–gko
iconography, associated to the reading Yu–ma
Ea1 will be semantically marked-up as
This is a draft 1.0 release of 