Writing Systems
The Zhuang languages have been written in the Old Zhuang script, Sawndip, for over a thousand years, and possibly Sawgoek previous to that, which had become lost. The Old Zhuang script, Sawndip, is a Chinese character–based system of writing, similar to Vietnamese chữ nôm: some sawndip logograms were borrowed directly from Han characters, while others were original characters made up from the components of Chinese characters. Sawndip has been used for over one thousand years for various Zhuang languages. It is used for writing songs about every aspect of life, including in more recent times encouraging people to follow official family planning policy.
There has also been the occasional use of pictographic proto-writing, such as in the example at right.
In addition, Standard Zhuang and Bouyei are written in Latin script.
Read more about this topic: Zhuang Languages
Famous quotes containing the words writing and/or systems:
“The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.”
—James Fenton (b. 1949)
“What avails it that you are a Christian, if you are not purer than the heathen, if you deny yourself no more, if you are not more religious? I know of many systems of religion esteemed heathenish whose precepts fill the reader with shame, and provoke him to new endeavors, though it be to the performance of rites merely.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)