PEOPLE · PLACES · METHODS
A guide to the research.
The background you need to begin reading.
01
People, places
and neighboring traditions.
Zhuang · Guangxi, southern China
Zhuang communities speak Tai languages and live primarily in Guangxi, with communities in other southern Chinese regions. Their handwritten traditions include songs, narrative verse and ritual texts. A manuscript must be located within its particular community and use. Source · 5
Tày and Nùng · northern Vietnam
Tày and Nùng speak languages closely related to Zhuang. Holm’s comparative study examines their distinct vernacular character traditions alongside Zhuang texts. Related languages and neighboring locations make comparison productive; each tradition retains its own history. Source · 2
Guangxi connects the comparison across writing traditions.
Pulse sizes express visual emphasis; dotted links mark comparisons.
02
One character shape.
More than one way of reading.
Traditional Zhuang character writing
Often called sawndip or the Old Zhuang script, this writing draws on Chinese characters, vernacular variants and locally formed graphs. A graph may be read for its sound or meaning. Holm emphasizes variation between localities and the importance of studying readings within complete texts. Source · 1
Nôm and Nôm Tày
Nôm names character-based vernacular writing traditions in Vietnam. Vietnamese Nôm and Nôm Tày write different languages. In this project, the dictionary excerpt used in the SfAA “děng” comparison is from Tự điển chữ Nôm Tày. Naming the tradition matters to the reading. Source · 2 Source · 6
Variant characters
A word can be written with different character forms across time, place and purpose. Standardization selects preferred forms, but local manuscripts may preserve other choices. A simplified modern form and a historical variant need to be distinguished in each witness. Source · 3
03
Read the mark.
Then read its life on the page.
Palaeography examines written forms in historical sources. Philology compares texts and readings; historical linguistics asks how sounds, words and grammatical uses change. In my work, these questions meet at the manuscript.
- Locate and date the witness
Record the volume, page, provenance and dating evidence. Separate the date of a source text from the date of the surviving copy or later reproduction.
- Compare the photographed forms
Work from manuscript images and dated textual examples alongside dictionaries. Galambos shows that dictionary variants do not necessarily reflect everyday writing: textual witnesses must be checked. Source · 4
- Test sound, meaning and function
Ask which language is being written, how the graph is read and what it does in the sentence or ritual. Holm’s Zhuang–Tày comparison uses readings and distribution to investigate relationships between writing traditions. Source · 2
- Return to readers and use
In my continuing study, annotations, ownership and document forms make the act of reading part of the evidence. This is where the character comparison becomes an anthropological question.
READ FURTHER
The scholarship behind this guide.
Background statements link to scholarly books and journal research. Descriptions of my own method and examples are marked as such. Publisher previews and abstracts offer an entry point; full access varies.
- Holm, David. 2013. Mapping the Old Zhuang Character Script. Brill. Introduction, pp. 1–2.
- Holm, David. 2020. “The Tày and Zhuang vernacular scripts: Preliminary comparisons.” Journal of Chinese Writing Systems 4(3): 197–213.
- Chen, Ping. 1999. Modern Chinese: History and Sociolinguistics. Chapter 9, pp. 148–163. Cambridge University Press.
- Galambos, Imre. 2021. “Chinese Character Variants in Medieval Dictionaries and Manuscripts.” Exploring Written Artefacts, pp. 491–512. De Gruyter.
- Holm, David. “A Layer of Old Chinese Readings in the Traditional Zhuang Script.” Author-uploaded scholarly text.
- Holm, David, ed. 2024. Vernacular Chinese-Character Manuscripts from East and Southeast Asia. De Gruyter. Introduction.