New perspectives of Text Studies in Yunnan, China (jrp000217)
Keywords
Yunnan
text
writing culture
Tay cultural area
Areas
Yunnan
Thailand
Myanmar
Laos
Vietnam
Tibet
Website
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About the Project
Project term: April, 2015–March, 2018
The Yunnan area, the southwestern province of China and its adjacent area, is characterized as multi-ethnic and multicultural. Many local texts from this area are still written in the characters of Thai-Tai, Tibetan, Chinese, Mongolian, Arabic, Latin, and some other language having unique characters such as Tompa or Yi. Researchers have mainly focused their attention on finding local texts, annotating them, and analyzing their contents. The present project will not only continue to accumulate primary data such as texts but also develop a comprehensive study of texts on the basis of new perspectives, as follows: (1) Text as tools: literacy, education, relationship with oral literature etc., (2) Text as records: bibliography, analysis of contents, focus on specificity etc., and (3) Human activities around texts: creation, classification, copy, preservation, tradition, rejection etc.
Atsushi YAMADA, Project Coordinator (Associate Professor, Japan Health Care College)