This is a draft 1.2 release of CL.A.U.D.I.A., acronym for Computational and Updatable Dongba Iconographic Archives.

CL.A.U.D.I.A. is an interdisciplinary project of Human Technology application focused about Dongba pictographic writing system of Naxi people of South-West China, implemented and uploaded on Web for an on-fly demo (1.0) during Kunming’s 16th International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (29 – 31 July).

This is just a short introduction page to CL.A.U.D.I.A.; for more details and starting browsing iconographic index plates please visit dedicated page.

I wish to underline importance of Updatable features of CL.A.U.D.I.A. system – which I feel is needed – because of continuous evolution of academic scores in studying Dongba and Geba writing systems and Naxi culture…and myself.

On Your left side, You can see the two main resources of Claudia: Index Plates of Dongba Pictographs and dictionary.

Index plates consist in a tree of family and sub-family of pictographs stored and gathered by ICONOGRAPHIC features. Please visit dedicated page for correct usage. Each plates of pictographs are implemented as index archives of pictograph, labelled by capital key-letter for Family and minus keyletter for sub-Family of pictographs, then each elements has its own identification number.

CL.A.U.D.I.A.’s dictionary is then implemented with 3 main resources:

1. At first, from top, a fast free-keywords search-engine is realized, to lunch specific and fast interrogation query on pictograph database. Please, note that EACH QUERY WILL GENERATE 2 MAIN FILEDS OF DATA RETRIEVING: on the top a DIRECT MATCHING SCORE, with the output of the whole pictograph directly matched in its translation to the keyword of research; down an INDIRECT MATCHING SCORE, constituted by the group of pictographs retrieved because of their indirect matching – but existing relation – with the keywords of the query lounched. Such Information Retrieval System is yet implementing.
2. English – Dongba dictionary by keywords. Keyword queries will generate direct and indirect matching pictograph retrieving.
3. Naxi pinyin sillables search form: by clicking of Naxi syllable CL.A.U.D.I.A.s. will retrieve pictographs which latinization contains searched syllable as initial or inside thw whole pinyin transcription. Syllable ortography specify IPA phonetic equivalences.

Dictionary page is better introduced here in English <–> Dongba cidian page.

I am implementing such resource under PHP <–> MySql couple, that’s because I feel MySql as the best database instrument I know for building digitals archives and structured databases as Dongba pictographs corpus, and PHP as the dearest and the most flexible instrument to me for managing and generating intelligent and dynamic queries targeting Dongba pictographic writing system significants corpus stored in MySql database; some hidden fields of database should work as Ontology for hierarchy relationship between family, subfamily and single pictographs.

Xiulong

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In this website I’m also going to gather all the preliminary resumes written for New Horizons for Naxi Studies panel; complete index of papers is available from this link.

About me: I was invited to partecipate to “New Horizons in Naxi Study” panel, presenting my research works and projects focused on Naxi people culture and Dongba tradition: many thanks to prof. Mu Shi Hua and special thanks to Cherry, alias Lou Lien Chu, director of GNCCS – Global Naxi Culture Conservation Society of Lijiang, Dayan Gu Cheng.

My work for Kunming 2009 is focused on 2 closely interrelated projects, both dedicated to the study of Naxi culture and Dongba tradition study: CL.A.U.D.I.A. (hence CLAUDIA), acronym for Computational and Updatable Dongbas Iconographic Archive, and DO.M.EN.I. (hence DOMENI) acronym for Dongba Manuscript Encoding Initiative.

CLAUDIA and DOMENI both well-insert into panel study main-theme, NEW HORIZONS, because both  are innovative systems for methodology of work, for resources used and for web implementation.

The CLAUDIA project aims at compiling an innovative dictionary of Dongba pictographs based on a new kind of classification following iconographic criteria, then at building a system of iconographic index plates directly linked to  the pictograph dictionary complete of contexts and manuscripts references. The CLAUDIA system builds upon previous Dongba dictionaries. It is an interdisciplinary system implemented with an eye to the study literature of other pictographic/hieroglyphic writing  as Egyptology and Mayan, thought and aiming for the dissemination and diffusion knowledge of the Naxi-Dongba pictographic tradition, to make it easier understand and enjoyed by novices.

The necessity of contexts available into Dongba pictographs study gave birth to DOMENI projects, closely interlaced and related to CLAUDIA: DOMENI project is focused on making of collections of Dongba manuscripts available for scholars and researchers as corpora of sources and as contexts for CLAUDIA:  DOMENI as CLAUDIA is thought to be realized both as printed edition and online web resources according to TEI standards recommendations for digital texts and corpora editions.

DOMENI aims first at making a complete census of already available collections of Dongba manuscripts, with a focal attention to Western collections, by making a single catalog as a converged index of sources. In the meantime the DOMENI project will look for unknown and/or hidden resources which can be updated  online into the general index.

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Me and Zhao Qinglian in Kunming, during New Horizons for Naxi Studies, summer of 2009. Xiexie Qinglian...

This web resource is dedicated to conferences and congress focused on Naxi people and Dongba tradition.

My aim is to publish here all material I gathered during such important moments of exchanging experiences and cultural contributes, to avoid dispersion of such importants data and to let this material to be available for other scholars and researchers.

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