An anthropological study on the succession of character culture among the Zhuang people in China

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26370969
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Cultural anthropology
• Research Institution: Kyoto Gakuen University
• Principal Investigator: TEZUKA KEIKO 京都学園大学, 人文学部, 教授 (60263183)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 中国 / 少数民族 / 壮族 / 民族文字 / 漢字 / 言語政策 / 現代壮文 / 方塊字(古壮字）

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study examines whether the fact that the new Zhuang writing system (Zhuangwen) is unpopular is because of its inclusion in the national language policy in China or because of its inclusion in other factors.This research clarified the thoughts of the Zhuang people regarding the use of characters through field work. The findings of the study are as follows.
In the rural social community, Chinese characters describing administrative documents and genealogies (house notations) and Zhuang characters (ideograms derived from Chinese characters) describing the song’s songs have been used together, but the scope of their use has been clearly delineated. The Zhuang people could not accept the new Zhuang writing system (Zhuangwen), which can be used in both situations, and adopted alphabets in their writing system.

Free Research Field

文化人類学