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A sinographic character that pushes the limits of imagination: a phono-semantic compound with "人, human" as its semantic component and "A" as its phonetic component (從人、A 聲). This is not fictional. It is used by the Bouyei people (=Northern Zhuang) of Guizhou Province. pic.twitter.com/aCrpB0WTD4

— 戴忠沛 Tai Chung-pui (@taichungpui) July 23, 2022

For more examples and discussion, please read the Twitter thread (the full conversation) that follows the image above.

Guy Freeman, who called this Tweet to my attention, observes:

It supposedly shows two "Chinese characters" used by the Bouyei people which incorporate Latin letters, respectively A and e, as the phonophores of the characters.

Another tweet from a different account gives the source as Tán Jiādào, Wáng Dìngcái, “Bùyī fāngkuài gǔwénzì” 覃家道、王定才著《布依方块古文字》（2020) , but I can't vouch for this.

Assuming this is real, it's quite the continuation of the infiltration of the Latin alphabet into the "Chinese" writing system.

So as not to prejudice the discussion, I will refrain from giving my opinion concerning the utility of this experiment in combining Sinographic and alphabetic writing.  Instead, I will simply provide background about the Bouyei people, their language, and their writing system.

The Bouyei (also spelled Puyi, Buyei and Buyi; self called: Buxqyaix, [puʔjai] or "Puzhong", "Burao", "Puman"; Chinese: 布依族; pinyin: Bùyīzú; Vietnamese: người Bố Y), otherwise known as the Zhongjia, are an ethnic group living in Southern Mainland China. Numbering 2.5 million, they are the 11th largest of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. Despite the Chinese considering them a separate group, they consider themselves Zhuang (Tai peoples).

The Bouyei mostly live in Qianxinan and Qiannan prefectures of Southern Guizhou Province, as well as in Yunnan and Sichuan Provinces.

Some 3,000 Bouyei also live in Northern Vietnam, where they are one of that nation's 54 officially recognized ethnic groups. In Vietnam, they are known as the Bố Y and mostly live in Mường Khương District of Lào Cai and Quản Bạ District of Hà Giang Province.

The Bouyei speak the Bouyei language, which is very close to Standard Zhuang language. There is a dialect continuum between these two. The Bouyei language has its own written form which was created by linguists in the 1950s based on the Latin alphabet and with spelling conventions similar for the Pinyin system that had been devised to romanise Mandarin Chinese.

(source)

The Bouyei language (autonym: Haausqyaix, also spelled Buyi, Buyei or Puyi; Chinese: 布依语; pinyin: Bùyīyǔ, Vietnamese: tiếng Bố Y or tiếng Giáy) is a language spoken by the Bouyei ethnic group of Southern Guizhou Province, China. Classified as a member of the Northern Tai group in the Tai language branch of the Tai–Kadai language family, the language has over 2.5 million native speakers and is also used by the Giay people (Vietnamese: Giáy) in some parts of Vietnam. There are native speakers living in France or the United States as well, which emigrated from China or Vietnam. About 98% of the native speakers are in China.

Bouyei's characteristics are similar to the other members of its language branch. It is generally monosyllabic and word order and particles are the main forms of grammar. Bouyei's syllable initials match up closely to the other Northern Tai languages, with relatively fast simplification and merging. Bouyei sentences can be shown to contain many different levels of phrasing.

The contemporary Bouyei script was developed after the abandonment of the Bouyei-Zhuang Script Alliance Policy in 1981 and was designed from 1981 to 1985. It is focused and phonologically representative and takes the Wangmo County dialect as its foundation.

(source)

Bouyei is a member of the northern branch of the Tai-Kadai language family. It has about 2.6 million speakers and is spoken mainly in southern Guizhou Province in China. There are also some Bouyei speakers, who are known as Giáy, in northern Vietnam. Bouyei is also known as Buyi, Puyi, 布依语 (bùyī yǔ) in Chinese, and tiếng Bố or tiếng Giáy in Vietnamese. Bouyei has official status in China and Vietnam.

Bouyei [Haasqyaix] used to be written with a script based on Chinese characters similar to the Sawndip script used for Zhuang. In 1956 a way of writing Bouyei using the Latin alphabet was developed, and was based on the Latin alphabet for Zhuang. It was approved by the Chinese government in 1957, but was only used until 1960.

A new Latin-based script for Bouyei was developed in 1981 and experimental use began in 1982. It was officially adopted in 1985 and continues to be used. It is based on the dialect of Wangmo County (望谟县).

(source)

From the above, we see that Bouyei has had long experience both with Sinographic style writing and alphabetic writing, so it is not entirely surprising that someone would come up with the bright idea of combining the two.

 

Selected readings

• "Ask Language Log: The alphabet in China" (11/6/19)
• Mark Hansell, "The Sino-Alphabet: The Assimilation of Roman Letters into the Chinese Writing System," Sino-Platonic Papers, 45 (May, 1994), 1-28 (pdf)
• Helena Riha, "Lettered Words in Chinese:  Roman Letters as Morpheme-syllables" (pdf)
• "Zhao C: a Man Who Lost His Name" (2/27/09)
• "Creeping Romanization in Chinese, part 3" (11/25/18)
• "The actuality of emerging digraphia" (3/10/19)
• "Official digraphia" (9/13/18) — with an extensive bibliography
• "Sememic spelling" (3/27/19)
• "Polyscriptal Taiwanese" (7/24/10)
• "The Roman Alphabet in Cantonese" (3/23/11)
• "Love those letters" (11/3/18)
• "Acronyms in China" (11/2/19)
• "Vehicle registration plates of China" (Wikipedia)
• "Topolectal traffic sign" (3/6/17)
• "The languages on Chinese banknotes" (9/16/13)
• "Gratitude to the Party" (2/25/22)
• "Pinyin in 1961 propaganda poster art" (12/29/17)
• "Words in Mandarin: twin kle twin kle lit tle star" (8/14/12)
• "Justin Bieber OK infix" (2/13/18)
• "Chicken hegemon" (12/2/21)

 

July 25, 2022 @ 6:02 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Alphabets, Writing systems

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