Writing Media and Tools
The Naxi name of the script, 'wood and stone records', testifies that Dongba was once carved on stone and wood. Nowadays it is written on handmade paper, typically from the trees Daphne tangutica and D. retusa. The sheets are typically 28 by 14 cm, and are sewn together at the left edge, forming a book. The pages are ruled into four horizontal lines. Glyphs are written from left to right and top to bottom. Vertical lines are used to section off elements of the text (see image above), equivalent to sentences or paragraphs. Writing utensils include bamboo pens and black ink made from ash.
Read more about this topic: Dongba Symbols
Famous quotes containing the words writing, media and/or tools:
“Scott took LITERATURE so solemnly. He never understood that it was just writing as well as you can and finishing what you start.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)
“Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screwdriver, a rule, a glue-pot, nails and screws.—The function of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)