Ancient Zhuang characters is a logographic writing system that has evolved in Zhuang ethnic areas through long-term script contact and writing practice, in which associative compound characters play an important role in expressing the semantic meanings of the Zhuang language. Taking the Dictionary of Ancient Zhuang Characters (2012) as the corpus source, this study identifies 71 associative compound characters, and analyzes their character-formation types and meaning-generation mechanisms with a focus on the semantic relationships between the constituent components and the overall lexical meanings of the characters. The study classifies these characters into two major categories: coordinate type and non-coordinate type, with several subtypes further divided under each category. The results show that the meaning generation of associative compound characters in Old Zhuang characters involves a variety of structural semantic relationships, reflecting a relatively systematic character-formation mechanism.
On the one hand, the development of printing technologies has greatly facilitated the dissemination of text written with Chinese characters. This is to be compared with ancient manuscript scrolls of text. On the other hand, printing has forced Chinese characters to be enclosed into a fixed 1:1 shape. This is the case for computer systems as well: although modern systems might tolerate aspect ratio flexibility to a certain extent, document processing by means of computers has pushed for Chinese character font design to, even approximately, retain the fixed 1:1 aspect ratio. When comparing the documents produced by our modern systems and ancient ones, it is clear that a significant part of the art of calligraphy has been lost, or is at least at a great risk of extinction. In this article, we aim to address this cultural heritage issue by conducting an ontological discussion focused on the aspect and balance of Chinese characters, whence we then derive solution hints for our modern computer systems to tentatively support greater flexibility with respect to the aspect ratio of characters.
Lexical research is a fundamental part of studying the Khitan scripts and their underlying language. This article examines selected lexical items from the Epitaph of Yel & uuml; Yugulin Taishi through comparative philology and textual analysis. Building on established decipherments, it clarifies the meanings of targeted terms and explores their etymological origins. The study aims to interpret obscure expressions in the epitaph, provide lexical references for its in-depth comprehension, and contribute to research on the genetic affiliation between Khitan and related languages.
This study combines historical comparative linguistics with the analysis of Khitan Small Script textual materials to examine the semantic functions of the word m-er and its plural form m-ci , which correspond to the Chinese concept of Dao ( dao 道 ). Through a systematic collation and contextual analysis of examples from Khitan Small Script epitaphs and related literary sources, this article argues that m-er and m-ci exhibit layered semantic features in the Khitan Small Script corpus, characterized by the coexistence of abstract and concrete meanings. Furthermore, through a comparison of interchangeable usages of sh-al-s and m-er in Khitan Small Script texts, this study examines their semantic layers, investigating both their shared core meanings and semantic distinctions.
