Geolinguistic Analysis of the Yi Script written in Hua-Yi Yiyu

In this study, the geolinguistic approach is applied to an analysis of the Yi script in Hua-Yi Yiyu (華夷譯語, literally ‘Chinese-Foreign Glossaries’). The Yi script was used to express the Yi language (Tibeto-Burman), spoken by the Yi ethnic group living in southwestern China and northern parts of Vietnam and Laos. The Yi characters show great diversity in shape and phonetic values across regions, and researchers have turned their attention to elucidating the possible routes of their spread and the patterns of change in their forms. To do this, it is necessary to analyse the Yi characters in much narrower areas than before; doing so enables us to trace minute differences in more detail between the research points. To this end, the Lolo version of Hua-Yi Yiyu is an ideal source of data, as it contains five distinctive sites that seem to be located in a relatively narrow area. However, two of the sites are unknown, although several studies have been conducted on them. In this study, the author attempts to locate these two sites by focusing on the shapes in the Yi characters rather than their phonetic information.