No. 16, July 14, 2009
Keyboard in Dongba hieroglyphs
The Naxi are an ethnic minority people, about 300,000 strong, who live mainly in China’s Yunnan and Szechuan provinces. Their language, of the Tibeto-Burman family, is partially written in a script called Dongba, which is pictographic or hieroglyphic – it uses stylized pictures of objects to represent them and related concepts. A Wikipedia contributor states that it is “without doubt the only mainly pictographic script used today.”
Now Zmnsoft has released Edongba v6.00, a Windows application that enables users to create documents and messages using Dongba hieroglyphs, using them in text editors, word processors, and graphics programs.
According to a Zmnsoft press release, “While Egyptian hieroglyphics tell us about a fascinating culture, they talk only of an unreachable, vanished past. By contrast, Dongba is still evolving and adapting. It tells us who we were, in human stories and wisdom that is centuries old. It also tells us who we are, in a smooth, unbroken line from the earliest writing to today's unprecedented transformations.
“The Naxi language is expressed in a combination of Dongba hieroglyphs and Geba symbols. Edongba makes it easy to select the proper symbols, and build messages in the program's unique Dongba font. The font includes 1,561 Dongba hieroglyphs, 661 Geba scripts, and a 50-character international phonetic alphabet for the Naxi language.
“It's fun to use Edongba's character selection tools to select hieroglyphs and symbols. The program pronounces each character aloud, enabling you to become familiar with the spoken version of Dongba.”
Actually learning the language may seem daunting, but there are other uses:
“Students can enjoy creating artwork and symbols for their clothing using Edongba's engaging characters. The specially-crafted font that comes with Edongba is in True Type format, allowing computer users to enlarge each character with no loss of quality.”
Edongba v6.00 runs under Windows NT4/2000/2003/XP/Vista/7, costs $30(US) for a single-user license, and is available for secure online purchase on the Edongba website, http://www.zmnsoft.com/edongba/En/. You can download a trial version from the same web site.
The site also includes information about the history of the Naxi people and their language.
