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Lisa Cam

Stepping into the Old Town of Lijiang, a city in China’s Yunnan province, feels like entering the set of a Chinese period drama. Passing timber homes dotted with red lanterns, you walk on slick, rain-polished cobblestones worn down by centuries of Himalayan traders’ footsteps.
The 800-year-old network of timber-framed architecture – often associated with Naxi ethnic minority culture – and the town’s alpine canal system earned Unesco World Heritage status in 1997 for exceptional preservation of multi-ethnic urban design harmonised with a dramatic natural backdrop.
Today the Old Town is a thriving shopping district. And if you pay attention to the signage, you will see drawings underneath almost all of them.
This is not graffiti – it is Dongba script, the only hieroglyphic script still in use today.

Dongba is the traditional religion, culture and priestly class of the Naxi ethnic group, most of whom live in Lijiang, with others spread across parts of Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet.
The Dongba script traces its roots back over 1,000 years, with scholars estimating its origins between the seventh and 10th centuries during the Tang and Song dynasties. Created by Naxi shamans for sacred rituals, these pictographs survived for centuries in Yunnan’s isolated canyons, drawn on countless religious manuscripts over the generations.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, explorers arrived and traded goods for manuscripts. The first Western overview of Dongba script was published in France by Jacques Bacot in 1913. Today, tens of thousands of original manuscript volumes are kept at overseas institutions, including Harvard University.
After political upheavals in the mid-20th century threatened the survival of the Dongba script, China launched concerted preservation efforts. In 2003, Unesco inscribed the Naxi Dongba manuscripts into the Memory of the World Register.

Chinese authorities are also funding research institutes, collaborating internationally to digitise overseas records, and integrating the script into local school curricula. This ensures the living hieroglyphs endure as a proud symbol of modern Naxi identity.
“A professor from our research institute went to Taiwan to translate these materials,” says He Yaowei, who teaches Dongba script to guests at Amandayan, a luxury resort nestled in the hills on the fringe of the Old Town. “This professor happens to be my teacher, Mr Li Linyi … he discovered that many ancient books from our village were registered under the Memory of the World heritage.”
Marvel Wu, Amandayan’s general manager, says that by offering classes in Dongba script writing at the resort, they help guests touch the very fabric of Naxi culture.
“Aman’s founding philosophy has always been to respect and embrace the soul of each destination,” she says. “By choosing to be rooted here, we choose to be steadfast guardians of Naxi heritage.”

According to He, the survival of the Naxi language hinges on its written form, because minority groups who rely solely on oral traditions lose their languages the fastest.
Fortunately, the Naxi have managed to preserve both their spoken language and their distinct script, which evolved deep within northwestern Yunnan’s isolated canyons much like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. While many minority languages historically shared similar pictorial traits, none have survived into the modern era like this one, He says.
“Pictographs must look like the object they represent. Whatever it looks like, that’s what the character means … it relies entirely on pictorial lines.”
For example, the symbol for a man is a simple stick figure, while a child is a smaller stick figure with its arms raised up.
“The character for child or son shows its arms raised up in joy,” He says. “It looks like a little child wanting a hug, right? This is a child, with hands raised high.”

The interesting thing about studying living hieroglyphs is that apart from the meaning they convey, they reveal the history of their people. For example, He points to a more complex hieroglyph representing a woman. Many modern eyes fail to recognise it for what it is due to shifting lifestyle habits over the centuries.
While the uninitiated often mistake the prominent shape on the head of the pictograph for long hair, this is a common misconception. Because both men and women traditionally wore their hair long, the defining feature of the female character is not hair, but rather an intricate head ornament that became a cultural marker etched into the script to distinguish women from men.
The historical roots of the script become evident when tracing the structural evolution of its characters. In its original form found in the earliest ancestral records, the hieroglyph for a house lacked the complex details seen today; it was rendered as a rudimentary, minimalist architectural outline. However, as the community expanded and social interactions grew more intricate, the symbol transformed.
“Over the centuries, writers gradually integrated additional internal components into the frame, creating a far more detailed character for house or building,” He says. “This fluid evolution highlights how the physical forms of the script shifted in tandem with the changing domestic habits and living conditions of the Naxi people.”

Dongba script is being taught in local schools within the Lijiang region. Because it is the world’s last living hieroglyphic script, local authorities and researchers have integrated it into the public education system to keep the endangered language alive.
“We have introduced Dongba character learning in local primary and secondary schools,” He says. “Our main goal is to teach students the creative logic behind how these characters were formed. We do not require students to memorise these symbols by rote to avoid increasing their academic burden.”
As a living writing system, the Dongba script struggles with modernisation. Asked how the language deals with new vocabulary such as planes and trains that did not exist centuries ago, He insists on working with the existing symbols rather than adding new ones.
“Some people suggested adding a modern backpack symbol to the script, but I said no,” He says. “This script belongs to ancient classical records; it shouldn’t include things that didn’t exist back then.”

Wu also believes in the historical value of the Dongba script.
“When guests pick up a brush and learn to write characters for mountain or water, they are not merely practising pictographs – they are engaging in a dialogue with the Naxi ancestors from thousands of years ago,” she says.
“It is more than just a recording tool. It is a living carrier of the Naxi people’s cosmology, philosophy and history. Every character tells a story.”


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What is Dongba script? The only hieroglyphic system still used today is found in China

Dongba script, the world’s only hieroglyphic script still in use today, was created by Naxi shamans for sacred rituals. Photo: Amandayan

A wall of Dongba script in Lijiang’s Old Town. Photo: Lisa Cam

A Dongba religious manuscript is seen on a ceremonial altar. Photo: Lisa Cam

Marvel Wu, general manager of luxury resort Amandayan, which offers Dongba script writing classes. Photo: Amandayan

He Yaowei, who teaches Dongba script to guests at Amandayan, shows examples of the script. Photo: Lisa Cam. Photo: Lisa Cam

A traditional calligraphy scroll for good luck written in Dongba script is displayed on a wall in Lijiang Old Town. Photo: Lisa Cam

A view of Lijiang’s Old Town. Photo: Getty Images

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Over 1,000 years old, Dongba script is associated with the Naxi ethnic minority and is a common sight in Yunnan province’s Lijiang city


Over 1,000 years old, Dongba script is associated with the Naxi ethnic minority and is a common sight in Yunnan province’s Lijiang city.


China travel

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)

What is Dongba script? The only hieroglyphic system still used today is found in China

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Over 1,000 years old, Dongba script is associated with the Naxi ethnic minority and is a common sight in Yunnan province’s Lijiang city

Over 1,000 years old, Dongba script is associated with the Naxi ethnic minority and is a common sight in Yunnan province’s Lijiang city