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Construction of Multilingual Parallel Term Base for Naxi Dongba Hieroglyphic Characters

Author(s)

Min He, Hao Xing

Affiliation(s)

Nanhang Jincheng College, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

Abstract

The Naxi people, an ethnic minority in China, have fostered a distinctive Dongba culture, with Dongba hieroglyphs standing as the only living hieroglyphic system worldwide. In 2003, ancient 9Dongba manuscripts were inscribed on UNESCOs "Memory of the World" Register, underscoring their significance as an "encyclopedia" documenting ancient Naxi society. Research on Dongba hieroglyphs constitutes a vital branch of Chinese ethnic minority historical and cultural studies, and the development of a multilingual parallel term base serves as an effective means to advance this field. Amid the digital age, integrating modern information technology into the processing of Dongba characters and the research, organization, and preservation of ancient Dongba literature can substantially enhance the efficiency of ethnic minority literature research and promote interdisciplinary development between ethnic minority studies and information technology in China, thereby holding considerable academic value and practical prospects. This study focuses on original Dongba hieroglyphic texts and their corresponding Chinese and English translations, establishing parallel correlations among multilingual terms. It elaborates on the background, significance, and specific construction process of the Dongba hieroglyphic multilingual parallel term base, encompassing term collection and selection, definition and annotation, and multilingual alignment. Furthermore, the study equips the term base platform with translation functionalities, expands the construction model of deeply processed term bases, and provides essential terminological resources for literary and linguistic research on Dongba culture. This work aims to facilitate the vigorous development of digitalization for ethnic minority historical documents in the information era.

Keywords

Dongba Hieroglyphs; Multilingual Parallel Term Base; Term Base Construction; Naxi Culture; Digital Preservation

References

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