Just like in mandarin, one of the first things most people learn to say in Naxi is ‘eat a meal’, and again just like in mandarin, the ‘meal’ is represented by the word for rice, which in Naxi is 
ha33. The Dongba script here depicts a bowl of rice.
Unlike mandarin however, the verb in Naxi generally comes at the end, so ‘eat a meal’ is ha33 dzɪ33 
.
Yu Sui Sheng 喻遂生 writes in his Collected Research Essays on the Naxi Dongba Script (纳西东巴文研究丛稿) about the recording of dates on historical land contracts.
For pre-Republican Chinese dates, the Naxi use the word 
kha21 ga33, meaning ‘monarch’ or ‘dynasty’ as the imperial-reign prefix . Yu notes that the kha21, depicted as phonetic loan character ‘bitter’ can sometimes be replaced with the character 
a33 (this seems to be a non standard variant, the pronunciation remains kha21).
In the 30th year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu, Chinese 光绪三十年, would be:
kha21 ga33 / kua33 sy55 / si33 / tsher21 / khv55
Word for word that’s :
emperor / Guangxu / three / ten / year.
(Here the Chinese Guangxu 光绪 is transcribed phonetically in Naxi as kua33 sy55).
Interesting that in Yu’s examples, year (khv55) is depicted with the character for reap or harvest, 
whereas in the scriptures year is more traditionally written as 
.
The Republican Period, Chinese minguo 民国, is phonetically transcribed in Naxi as 
mi21 kue24.
In a quick homage to the eruption of Mount Eyjafjallajökull (ayvah lowgh-k), and the subsequent travel disruption which has forced me to remain in Lijiang for the time being, when I had originally planned an all-too-rare visist home, I present the new character for the week:
ɣɰ55 bɣ33 hər33 nɰ33 k’æ55, ‘ashes in the wind’ or ‘swirling ash’, composed of the characters for ash (ɣɰ55), and for wind (hər33).
The Naxi Dongba priests use dance as an integral part of their rituals. When they are called upon to help send a recently deceased soul on its long, arduous path to the afterlife, or exorcise a ghost, or indeed perform sacrifices to the Gods; ritual dance is invariably involved, alongside recitation of the relevant scriptures.
The dances are well recorded in the extant literature, and although regional variations exist in and around Lijiang and its environs, the dances are fairly standardised. The 100-volume collection of Naxi scriptures includes a number of instructional dance charts, but they are by no means comprehensive, and within a few generations many traditional dances will be lost – especially because Continue reading
I’ve written about the character for ‘tiger’ before, but seeing as I’ve just uploaded the Origin of the Tiger scripture along with a translation and commentary from Bai Gengsheng, I think it’s time to say a little more about tigers in Naxi culture.
The tiger is very important in Naxi mythology, and also plays a large role in the Naxi language – 
la33 la21′, ‘healthy’, literally means ‘tiger tiger’, although it is generally written as ‘tiger hand’ to reflect the tonal difference in the second la.
Many places around Lijiang also use tiger in their name, such as Lashi county, 
la33 sɪ55, and Lugu Lake, 
la33 t’a33 hɰ55 .
Some Naxi believe that the tiger was the forefather of all humans; and the Naxi character 
dzɪ33 la21 a31 p’v33, the Naxi god and father of ts’e55 ho21 bu33 be21 mi55, the legendary ancestor of the Naxi people, bears this out. The character depicts a god in heaven, with a tiger’s head and human legs. That many Naxi historically took the surname ‘la’ (tiger) attests to this close relationship between man and tiger. In fact, Naxi legends of the mythical Jade Dragon kingdom recount that red tigers serve as mounts there, instead of horses.
There’s an interesting panel at the Lijiang Museum (formerly Dongba Culture Museum) that shows various Naxi characters in comparison with their oracle bone / Egyptian hieroglyph counterparts. Excuse the rubbish blurry cameraphone photo, which was also taken behind a pane of glass:
You get the IPA for the Naxi, but that’s it.
Below is the first page of the the scripture, Quest for the sacred sacrificial and divinatory scriptures, as recorded in 纳西东巴古籍译注 Vol 3 (Yunnan, 1989).
Notice that there are two panels, each covering one and a half rows. I have used official Naxi pinyin to transliterate proper names.
‘Tiger’, la33 in Naxi, is represented in the pictographic script by the striped head (or indeed full body) of the tiger:
or 
Li Lincan 李霖灿 has the following to say about the character:
“The Naxi divide walking animals into three categories – horned, clawed, and striped. The character for tiger is one of the most frequently appearing characters in the Dongba scriptures, and is often used at the beginning of the scripture. When used to start the story, the character is read ‘ə33 la33 mə33 ʂər55 ɳi33‘, which means ‘in ages past’, or something akin to the English ‘once upon a time’. In scriptures from the Lijiang region, the character is often coloured.”
Continue reading
All the main city buses in Lijiang recently got a new makeover, which included the following Naxi and Chinese characters sprayed onto the fronts and backs of each bus:
The Chinese here is Lijiang Gongjiao 丽江公交; simply Lijiang (丽江) public transport (gongjiao 公交 – short for gonggong jiaotong 公共交通). The Naxi Dongba script utilised here however is particularly interesting as it involves the coining of a new pictographic character for the word ‘public transportation’.
Lijiang has done a good job in trying to preserve and indeed promote the Naxi pictographic script, a writing system that was previously controlled and used exclusively by the Dongba priests and passed down from generation to generation. Now, of course, primary school students can opt for extra curricular lessons in the script, and there is a course at the local teacher’s college that teaches it to foreigners. The script is used on all shop fronts in the old town and some in the new town, and on road signs throughout the city. However, it’s ultimately debatable Continue reading
