The Comparative Research On Ancient Yi Characters Of Guizhou And Ancient Chinese Characters

With the gradual development of history, Yi characters in different prefectures have diverged from each other. Therefore, the special research on each province’s Yi characters is the key to the comparison of four provinces, to the study of Yi characters’s development history, and to the probe into early appearance of Yi characters.The scope of Yi characters in this dissertation is the character patterns used in Guizhou province.The dissertation is largely based on previous research results Concise Yi Chinese Dictionary(《简明彝汉字典》),Yi Metal and Stone Inscriptions(《彝文金石图录》)and a large number of academic papers, treatises, monographs.In the concrete, this dissertation discussed from General Written Languages angle, to compare Ancient Yi characters of Guizhou and Ancient Chinese characters from Written Linguistic Comparison standpoint in the respects of creation methods, structure modes, symbolic form, character types and so on.The conclusions of comparative investigation are detailed as follows:First, radicals in Ancient Chinese characters have strong features in which one single radical will relate different characters based on whether glyphs or meanings, forming the mature system of raidicals. There are few radicals like those of Chinese characters in Ancient Yi characters of Girzhou. Some symbols with representative or distinctive features serve as the radicals of their groups of characters based only on glyphs. Additionally, apart from its own special features, the building patterns of Yi characters components are similar to that of Chinese characters from the scope of constitutive theory of modern Chinese characters.Second, in case of creation methods, there are methods of pictograph, self explanatory in both Ancient Chinese and Yi characters. But Chinese phonograms never appear in Ancient Yi characters of Guizhou. Furthermore, Yi characters also create words in special ways like meaning borrow, different meaning in directions and subtle distinction in shape.Third, when discussing the issue of whether Ancient Yi character references toChinese, the time of occurrence and creation of Ancient Yi characters should be combined with communications in history between these two peoples. We believe the references happened based on conclusions from academic community and our research in this dissertation. However, these results cannot deny the fact that Yi characters of Guizhou are self-derived characters which develop independently.Fourth, in the case of writing system, Ancient Chinese and Yi characters both have abundant carries of writing. Both characters experienced evolution of various styles, during which Ancient Chinese characters underwent much more evident variations than Yi did.Fifth, as for postures of character symbols, Ancient Chinese characters have changed greater. Both of them have their own characteristics, while present a standardization in postures gradually, with an increase in symbolization.Sixth, in terms of the ways of recording language with characters, pictographs and associative compounds are outstanding representatives in meaning-memorizing and share large numbers of both Ancient Chinese characters and Yi characters.The former had many typical characters capable of memorizing meaning and sound, which developed into phonograms, the main type in Chinese characters. In contrast, Yi chracters of Guizhou is lack of typical phonograms.Seventh, in terms of the corresponding relation between character symbol and language, both Ancient Chinese characters and Yi characters have the ability to record their languages perfectly in a certain order. While the relation between characters and words are both complex to some extent.Eighth, in conclusion, we consider further that from ways of recording language with characters, Ancient Yi characters of Guizhou may be in transition from meaning-phonetic characters to sound-recording characters. And considering the corresponding relation between character symbol and language unit, it may be in the stage transmiting from table word words to syllables words.