 The topic of my speech is the e-writing system and its position among the scripts of East Asia. The e-writing system in my speech refers to the traditional scripts of e-writing, rather than to the Yangtze standard syllabary developed on the basis of the Northern script variety used by Noso e, which was put into official use in the 80s of the last century. The traditionally writing system is represented by a group of closely related scripts that were, to a limited extent, are still used to write down several languages spoken by people belonging to e-minority. It constitutes an example of writing that developed over several hundred years in communities, speaking different although related languages, and where its usage was mostly confined to religious purposes during the ceremonies conducted by the bimo or the priests. The scripts are not standardized and vary from place to place. In accordance with the classification, which takes the formal features of the e-writing as the basis, it can be subdivided into five main varieties corresponding to the varieties of e-language. They include a script variety used by speakers of the Northern e-dialect, or NOSU, a script variety, the NISO script variety used by the Southern e-dialect users, the Sunny script variety used by the Southeastern e-dialect users, and also the other script varieties used by the Southeastern e-dialect users. And the fifth e-script variety is NOSU script used by the users of the Eastern e-dialects. These scripts demonstrate features that confirm the common origin and unity of these scripts on the one hand, and features that point to the diversity on the other hand. The common features include sign structure and principles of sign formation in general, correspondence in the form of a number of graphs that can be found in all representations. Besides, all the scripts represent the same system of writing. The diversity of the regional varieties of traditional e-writing relates to diversity in the general appearance of graphs in particular varieties due to the stroke shapes typical for these varieties. Different signaries with distinct characteristics. So many graphs can be found only in particular varieties or are used only by particular users. Diversified orthographies resulting from individual rules concerning the choice of graphs to represent a given word, direction of reading the script including the aspect of graphs orientation in a text, and special symbols used in the scripts. So first I would like to refer to the common features. Sign structure and principles of sign formation goes first. Each e-graph is composed of a certain number of strokes. According to Chinese scholar Chen Shilin, who was a specialist and made some research on the writing system, there are 20 most common strokes that can be found in all varieties of the script that, however, may display some features typical for a given script variety. Those strokes also have some variant forms and in the dictionaries containing the graphs from a certain script variety, the number of strokes under which the graphs are classified might be different, usually is higher. In these scripts the basic structure of graph is based on a basic stroke which can be called a stem, to which some additional symbols can be attached. So there are some series of graphs containing a certain stem with different additional symbols. The illustration here shows four examples of stems and several graphs in which they occur. The graphs are from the north of the script used to write down north and e-direct. The next illustration shows five stems which are used in four e-script varieties. So the rules of calling new signs were generally similar in all the varieties of the script. Generally speaking, there is no systematic relationship between the shape of a stem or position of those additional symbols and the sound or meaning of a graph. Although it should be noted that some graphs demonstrating such a relation do exist and I will refer to that issue later in my speech. Another common feature of the traditional e-writing system is correspondence in the form of a number of graphs that can be found in all e-script varieties. So among thousands of graphs which make up this scenery of different varieties of the e-writing, there are a number of graphs common to all varieties. Those graphs are I call corresponding or common signs. The forms of graphs considered as corresponding or near-homographic might differ slightly in their shape with respect to the features typical of a given script. The similarities include the type and position of strokes which sometimes could vary, the general appearance of a graph, possibly the most important factor and also the number of strokes which sometimes could vary. The illustration shows five groups of corresponding signs which I identified for five varieties of e-writing, the Nosu, the Sani, Aja, Nisu and Nasu on the basis of 20 texts representing those varieties. As the graphs are mostly used as the labograms, the meaning indicated in the table is only one of their possible meanings. The common or corresponding signs, often but not always, have similar sounds. They could also but not necessarily be used to write the same words. Among the signs that are included in the illustration are the graphs of Aja and Nisu scripts under the word black, so those two are exceptions in this respect as the sound of them is very different from the other signs. It is evident that the forms of corresponding signs differ to some extent but they retain similarities of the general appearance, so possibly they can be regarded as kind of variants of one graph in the e-writing system in general. The common graphs as they appear in all the original representations might be considered the oldest ones and constitute the core part of the writing system. They prove its unity but also partly reveal its diversity for the forms are not always homographic even in the texts representing one variety. Then all the scripts represent the same system of writing in which a syllable is a basic linguistic unit represented by a single graph. The graphs tend to represent syllables rather than morphems or words as the sound value of the syllable seems to be a main criterion underlying the choice of a certain sign to write a given morphem. So two homophones morphems might be written with the same sign irrespectively of the meaning of the morphems. However, it is important to notice that the writing system obviously is not a pure syllabic system because in some cases the graphs are used according to the meaning represented by a morphem. For singular script varieties the number of graphs exceeds the number of possible syllables so one syllable may have several graphic representations. A common feature is an interchangeable use of graphs so not only is one graph used to write down several homophones but also several homophones could be represented interchangeably by several graphs even within one text. This feature is illustrated with three groups of graphs that were found in a text from Shimpin County representing NISU variety. The interchangeable use of signs seems to be a typical convention of using the graphs and the scripts. I attested it in the twenty texts representing all varieties of the traditionally writing. It seems to confirm that the phonetic principle was the dominant factor which determined the convention of using graphs and the scripts. The interchangeable use of several signs to represent several meanings indicates that the sound value of a given morphem determines the relatively free choice of a proper sign to represent the morphem. Now I would like to focus on the diversity feature of the traditionally writing. First, the diversity and the general appearance of graphs in particular re-scripts is due to the stroke shapes typical for particular varieties and it is visible in the illustration that shows the examples of corresponding graphs in the scripts. The main feature which distinguishes the graphs of the NOSU variety in terms of the formal appearance of the graphs is the straight stroke and circular or oval shapes of certain graphs whereas the corresponding signs of NOSU and SANI and sometimes also of other script varieties are often triangular and NOSU ones are fairly irregular in shape besides the strokes of the NOSU graphs are often crooked and wavy. So despite the fact that the scripts comprise a certain number of corresponding signs those signs as well as other graphs used within a certain variety have some distinctive features which allow recognizing the scripts on the basis of those features. Another feature that indicates the diversity of the traditional re-writing are different signaries with distinct characteristics. Many graphs can be found only in particular varieties or are used by particular users. The number of graphs in particular varieties of re-writing is very big and reaches several thousands. For example, there are about 21,000 distinct signs collected from the NOSU scripts over 17,000 distinct signs collected from Guajou scriptures representing NOSU variety 2,500 signs collected from SANI scripts and about 16,000 distinct signs collected from NISU scripts. Nevertheless, a single user of this script made use of a limited number of graphs although its precise number is not clear and needs further research. I am not sure what was the usual number of signs which was used by a single BIMO, for example. Presumably, there are many graphs that appear just in a limited number of places or even only in the scriptures that belong to one BIMO. I have examined the graphs representing the NOSU variety listed in a collection of 8,000 distinct graphs used in the scriptures coming from the different places in the Liangxuan area. This collection is called Iwan Danzehui's Ji and it was published in 1983. The material gives an indication of the area in which a particular graph was used and from my research it follows that only relatively few strictly homographic signs were commonly used in the scriptures from all of these ten places. I have found exactly 109 such graphs. The illustration presents signs that were homographic in at least nine out of ten regions. Most of these signs appear to be quite simple and firm and they can also be found in other scripts of the NOSU, NISU, SANI and AJRA. They can be corresponding signs. The percentage of these graphs in relation to the total number of graphs listed in the investigated material is low, less than 10%. Many signs presented in this material Iwan Danzehui Ji were also found in two to eight places and some of them can also be found in other script varieties as corresponding signs. Nevertheless, within the data presented in this material the number of graphs that have been found only in the text from one area is remarkably high. Graphs of this kind are the most frequent, in fact, among the total number of over 8000 distinct signs listed in this collection. Of course, as the editors of this material point out, the data presented in Iwan Danzehui Ji cannot be treated as definitive for these ten areas because for some of the places only a limited number of texts were available. Nevertheless, such a limited number of strictly homographic graphs shared by the user of these scripts in all investigated areas as well as the dominant number of signs that were found only in one of those ten places hints at the discrepancies and sign inventories of particular users within one variety. The graphs particular for a certain area resulted from the process of individual script development because the scripts evolved separately in particular regions together with the languages spoken by the users who seldom came into mutual contact. A certain number of graphs were thus individually created in different places to comply with the needs of the changing languages and with different needs of the users of the scripts. Besides, the specific function of traditionally writing influenced the process of diversification of regional scripts. The traditional writing was used in communication only to a limited extent by people who wrote or copied the scripts rather for themselves as the ritual texts used by PIMO were mainly written for recitation as a kind of memory add rather than for reading by the other people. So the lack of any need for explicitness in writing resulted in the extensive creation of local graphical variants. PIMO would create his own versions of graphs and incorporated them into the signaries. As many researchers point out PIMO often did it so this is partly a result of the diversified signaries as a result of this practice. Another feature which shows the diversity of the production of the e-writings system are diversified orthographies resulting from individual rules concerning the choice of graph to represent a given word. As the e-scripts of traditionally writing were not standardized and also because of the specific function mentioned above the typical feature were diversified orthographies The graphs used to represent four words in this illustration prove this feature. The illustration shows some examples of alternative graphs used in particular varieties to represent a given word but it is also a characteristic feature of the writing system that even in one text a given word or a morphem could be written alternatively with several graphs. Now I would like to refer to the direction of reading the script including the aspect of sign orientation Expect of the Nosso e-scripts the graphs in e-texts are written in vertical columns arranged from left to right but there are also places where the arrangement from right to left is more common. The texts are read in the same way in the same direction as they are written however in the case of the Nosso variety the convention is quite different as the graphs in Nosso texts are written in vertical columns from left to right but when read the texts are rotated 90 degrees clockwise and the direction of reading is then from right to left in horizontal lines Also another way of writing is practiced in which the graphs are written in vertical columns from right to left in a Chinese manner and then are read after rotating the text 90-degree counterclockwise so they are read in horizontal lines from left to right The differences between e-scripts also comprise some special symbols such as stops or symbols expressing read application The symbol of read application enables the writer of a text to avoid writing a given sign again and to replace it with a read application symbol that is usually simpler in form It is especially useful when the form of a graph to be repeated is quite elaborated The form of the read application symbol is conventional However, though in frequent, other forms also appear The usual form is the first example and the others are the less frequent ones that can be found in some e-scripts Some special symbols indicating the end of a verse or a sentence were used in some areas They could help a bit more to recite the text properly These symbols are also helpful in understanding texts written in an archaic language that was very different from the spoken variety and which was often used in the scriptures possessed by Bhima The form of these symbols varies Here are some examples of those symbols for a stop Nevertheless, some certain regional regularities of the usage of them can be observed Nevertheless, the symbols of stop or of the end of a verse was not used in these scriptures representing no-script variety The time when traditionally writing was invented is not clear and is a matter of debate Nevertheless, at least in the 15th century which is the time of the Chinese Ming dynasty it was already in use more or less in its present form which is attested by an inscription from that period The inscription which is dated at the end of the 15th century 1485 is made on a copper bell and is known as the bell inscription from the Changhua period in Chinese it's Changhua to Ming when It seems to be the oldest known e-inscription at least one with an attested date of origin The inscription is written both in Yi and Chinese characters as it was often practiced by non-Chinese people who wrote inscriptions in their own language and with scripts other than Chinese Other oldest inscriptions written in Yi as well as that one were found in northeastern Yunnan and western Guizhou provinces So that was presumably the area where Yi writing came into being although it's not going to the area and the problem of the time when Yi writing was created it's not going to be a topic of this speech I would like to mention this It is not known what shape had Yi writing at the very beginning of its development but noteworthy is the fact that the graphs that we can see on the earliest known artifacts are quite similar to those which appear in the more recent examples of these scripts The first column here the Tuaji Tablet and Lan Long Chao Bei Ji So the first column presents signs from some problematic cases of two inscriptions the Tablet of Records of Tuaji Merits and the Lan Long Tablet Inscription Lan Long Chao Bei Ji whose date of origin is not certain although some scholars argue that they might be older than the Bell Inscription from the Changhua period So I included the signs from those two inscriptions simply for the purpose of showing that even if the claims about the early origin could be proved they would not lead to any groundbreaking conclusions concerning the early form of the graphs as all those graphs from different centuries are generally similar in form Some scholars argue that the writing must have had its origins in pictography because of the number of signs which can be interpreted as pictographic signs However, there is no evidence like evidence similar to Chinese Jia Guwen, the script on Oracle Bones from the Shang Dynasty to conclude that the signs have their roots in pictographic writing like Chinese characters do Besides, it is hard to believe that in such close proximity with Chinese culture the people who developed the earliest form of e-writing didn't have any contact with Chinese characters Because of the geographical vicinity of the Chinese Empire and the fact that many characters in the surrounding area based their scripts on Chinese characters the question of the possible influence of Chinese script on e-writing arises quite naturally It seems reasonable to assume that connection between e- and Chinese scripts does exist and it at least refers to the general idea of writing which presumably was learned by the ancestors of the e- from the Chinese neighbors along with the increasing contacts which started after unification of China by Qing dynasty in the third century before the common era the Chinese Empire started to invade southern regions of China I generally agree with John de Francis who argues that the influence of Chinese script could be implied by the fact that the e preferred to develop a script a syllabic script rather than one based on an alphabetic principle the scripts that were based on an alphabetic principle were widely used by their neighbors for example the Tibetans and the Thai people but on the other hand there were the Vietnamese and the Zhuang who adopted Chinese script to write their languages plus also some other ethnic groups in the surrounding area that also developed their system of writing on Chinese characters for example this way from Guizhou province this kind of influence of Chinese script can be traced even in Vietnamese alphabetic script which can be seen in the illustration in which the syllables of a polysyllabic words are always written separately also in Korean script which is also an alphabetic writing the letters are grouped into syllables shaped like blocks that resemble Chinese that resemble Chinese characters so three three syllabic blocks are used for three syllabic words and two syllabic blocks are used for two syllabic words here it is widely known that the influence of Chinese culture and civilization in East Asia resulted in creation of scenographic writing systems related in different degrees to Chinese system of writing and Chinese characters although the level of resemblance between the signs of those systems and Chinese characters vary and sometimes it's very poor the common feature of most of them is the fact that they are mostly based on syllabic principle of written sign indeed traditionally writing is usually regarded as a scenographic script which developed under the influence of Chinese characters it is regarded as a cinephore type of script in contrast to those like Japanese Vietnamese Joanne or Korean written with Chinese characters a scenitic type of script in which Chinese characters remain intact or unchanged at least in the majority so unlike a scenic type of scripts the cinephore scripts are not direct derivatives from Chinese characters their graphs or units resemble Chinese characters in different ways as they were developed through various techniques of borrowings, modifications and transformations of Chinese characters for example we have the Tanghut script developed in the 11th century and used in western Xia or Tanghut empire characters of this script only in a roughly manner resemble Chinese characters but in its linguistic structure the Tanghut script is quite similar to Chinese one as its single graph is always matched with a single syllab of the language and usually also corresponds to a single morphem then we have two Kitan script Kitan large script and Kitan small script here is an example of the Kitan small script the graph the Kitan scripts were used by the Liao dynasty which was was used in the Liao dynasty and created in the 10th century by Kitan the graphs of the large script which can be seen here resemble distorted Chinese characters sometimes they look like Chinese characters written by a person who doesn't understand structure and arrangement of graphical elements of Chinese characters nevertheless the Kitan large script is a mixture of syllabograms and morphemograms and then the Kitan small script it is a syllabary with some possible exceptions of signs which correspond rather to morphems which possibly might be polysyllabic Cineform script is also a Jordan script which was inspired by both Chinese and Kitan scripts and used for several centuries by the dynasty of Georgians Jordan script is a mixture of syllabograms and morphemograms with some polysyllabic graphs and its graphs look like modified and distorted Chinese characters the system of writing graphically still very different from the Cineform types of script just mentioned as it is made up by graphs whose shape doesn't their direct resemblance to Chinese characters the text written with the script doesn't resemble very much a Chinese text at least not in a straightforward way first of all the graphs doesn't consist of the same types of strokes as well as of more complex elements that would resemble elements typical for Chinese characters however as some scholars argue there are some graphs in these scripts that are similar to Chinese characters but mostly not to those of regular style that is in use in official writings since Han dynasty up to today but rather to those that appear on ancient coins pottery, weapons and imperial seals stuff like that the copper coins in particular were a very good source for the new graphs because of the simplicity of the characters found of them this illustration shows 10 5V graphs which can be which could be borrowed from Chinese script they were they were only they are only examples of other signs which were identified by the Chinese language and presented in the article published in 1993 usually the connection between the graphs and the Chinese counterpart it seems it was only the shape of Chinese characters but in some cases there is not only connection between shape of Chinese of e-graphs and Chinese characters which I agree might be accidental especially because of the simplicity of the form of those signs but also there is a connection between the meaning of them or between sound they represent it means that they made use of two basic principles of borrowing Chinese characters to represent their native language that is semantic and phonetic principles which were also intensively exploited in other scenographic scripts including syniform type of scripts such as Kitan and Jordan scripts when borrowed phonetically a character was used by virtue of the sound it represented in Chinese irrespective of its meaning for writing a homophonus of phonetically similar word the character does got a new meaning or was meaningless as a syllabic sign but the reading didn't change radically an example found in the notion script by Chen Shilin is presented here as you can see the form of the graph is not exactly the same as the form of its Chinese counterpart but the sounds of those two graphs are similar so possibly this graph was borrowed from a Chinese script when borrowed semantically a character was used according to the meaning of the word it represented in Chinese the character was given a new reading but its meaning didn't change and was the same as the meaning of the source character in Chinese here you can see two examples of such characters which could serve as source characters for these scripts in case of that one this is a cursive form of the character for water for Shui in Chinese the graphs derived from Chinese characters once adapted to the writing system were not only used to represent a given syllable but also some of them also served as a stem for the creation of new graphs the principles for the creation of new graphs were typical of rewriting so the additional elements were added to this broad graph in this case serving as a stem in purpose to create a new sign there are also differences in the structural composition between Yi, graphs and Chinese characters as it was demonstrated earlier the structure of a sign is basically based on a meaningless stem to which some supplementary symbols are added however there are some exceptions some scholars have found examples of graphs which contain a kind of semantic classifier which supplementary elements were added in purpose of modifying the meaning it might does suggest that scribes originally made wanted to use some stems as a semantic classifier perhaps using the principle which was exploited in creation of Chinese characters on an early stage of their development that is the simply indicative principle in Chinese it is a connection between a stem and a sound is also visible as there are series of graphs containing a certain stem and the sounds of those graphs are similar for example they might differ only in tone nevertheless it must be said that such connection between the meaning of the stem and the meaning of the characters created on the base of those stems as well as the connection between the sound of a stem the sound of new characters created on the base of such a stem is not a rule and there are many other graphs containing those stems which don't display these features there are also a few examples of signs which were created by the means of the most productive principle information of Chinese characters that is a semantic phonetic or Xinjiang principle by making up a graph from two elements one referring to the sound of a written word one referring to the sound of a word written with the graph and one referring to its meaning the three graphs presented here seem to be based on this semantic phonetic principle they all consist of one element which hints at the sound of this graph and an element which hints on the meaning of the graph some of those elements can also some of the elements which which are semantic elements also can can be used in those graphs as phonetic elements like here the wells this graph consists of a semantic phonetic element the two which means money and the semantic element which means grain so those two elements have meanings which has something to do with wells and only one of them is used as a phonetic element in this graph nevertheless the number of this kind of graphs is limited and is restricted mainly to one variety of the writing system that is the naso variety I think I should finish yes so I will finish here and maybe you have some questions which may lead to some conclusions