Sawndip

Zhuang characters or sawndip ( pronunciation : [ θaːu˨˦ɗip ]) are made of Chinese characters composite logo's and are used by the Zhuang in China's autonomous region of Guangxi used. In Chinese they are called Gǔ Zhuàngzì ( 古 壮 字 ) or Fāngkuài Zhuàngzì ( 方块 壮 字 ).

history

Even if it is unclear when the writing was created, the oldest known inscription was found on a stele from 689 ( Tang Dynasty ). These ideograms are older than the Vietnamese Chữ nôm .

They were used by Zhuang singers and shamans to write their poems for over 1,300 years . Although a Romanized script was introduced as the official script in 1975 , Sawndip is still used by an intellectual minority.

After a preparation period of five years, the Sawndip Sawdenj (Sawndip Dictionary, Chinese: 古 壮 字 字典 , Gǔ Zhuàngzì Zìdiàn  - "Lexicon of old Zhuang characters") was published. It contains over 10,000 characters and is the first and only dictionary of Zhuang characters to date. In 2008, work on a second dictionary called The Large Chinese Ancient Zhuang Dictionary 《中华 古 壮 字 大 字典》 was announced.

Characteristic

According to Zhāng Yuánshēng, 张元生 , Sawndip texts usually have around 20% non-Han characters, although some texts also consist almost entirely of Han characters . Some of these ideograms are also used in the Chinese names for places in Guangxi, such as 岜 bya "mountain" or 崬 ndoeng "forest" and can therefore also be found in Chinese dictionaries and character fonts.

To date, however, only those Zhuang characters are contained in Unicode that also appear in Chinese dictionaries because they appear in place names.

Example text

Universal Declaration of Human Rights , Article 1:

• Representation of your browser (requires that suitable fonts are installed):

俌 俌 ? ? 忑 ? 就 ? 自由 ， 尊嚴 凑 權利 俌 俌 平等。
衆 伝 ? 理性 凑 良心 ， ， 應當 待 衆 ? 㑣 彼 侬 一樣。

• Latin transcription:

Boux boux ma daengz lajmbwn couh miz cwyouz, cinhyenz caeuq genzli bouxboux bingzdaengj.
Gyoengq vunz miz lijsing caeuq liengzsim, wngdang daih gyoengq de lumj beixnuengx ityiengh.