Zhuang logogram

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Zhuang logograms or sawndip is a logogram created as a derivative characters of Han characters and used by Zhuang in Guangxi, China. In Chinese, it is called 古壮字 gǔ Zhuàngzì or 方块壮字 fāngkuài Zhuàngzì, meaning old Zhuang or square shaped Zhuang.

[edit] History

Sawndip is a Zhuang word, that means immature character. Though it is not clarified when was the time of its creation, but the present oldest record of this logograms is a stela built in 689, Tang dynasty. This logograms are used earlier than Vietnamese Chu Nom.

They have been used for over 1300 years by Zhuang singers and shamans to record poems and scriptures. Though the romanized script for Zhuang language was created in 1957 as the official script, sawndip continue to be used to this day.

Published in 1989 the Sawndip Sawdenj (Sawndip Dictionary),《古壮字字典 Gǔ Zhuàngzì Zìdiàn》(Dictionary of Ancient Zhuang Characters) includes characters written in manuscipts dated before the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912).

Some logograms are used as a part of Han characters for Guangxi place names, such as 岜, bya for mountain or 崬 ndoeng for forest. These characters are coded in Unicode ideograms, too.