Launch of the MOOC for an introduction to Dongba, "the world's last living pictographic script".

Naxi manuscript during ceremony © Zhang Xu Tayulam 1990 (Photo courtesy of the Association for the Promotion of Dongba Culture of Beijing-ADCA)

First MOOC in the "Indigenous Languages and Cultures" series carried out by the AHFLO' at Inalco (Accompagnement de l'Hybridation des Formations en Langues et civilisations Orientales), it is offered in cooperation with UNESCO.

What is the Dongba script? The Dongba script is the script of the Naxi ethnic minority, some 300,000 people, who occupy the northern part of Yunnan province, in southwest China and at the foot of Tibet. With around 1,400 characters, this endangered script is said to be the last pictographic script in the world. These Dongba pictograms thus carry a strong cultural charge: they are, on the one hand, the fossilized vestige of primitive pictographic writing; on the other, a form of manifestation of the beliefs of the Naxi people. This shamanism is based on nature worship, associated with folk beliefs, as well as Tibetan influences.

As a counterpoint to the opening of the MOOC, the colloquium "Languages online. Regards sur nos dispositifs de formation", organized by the Pluralité des Langues et des Identités : Didactique - Acquisition - Médiations research team (PLIDAM), on March 22, 2023 at Inalco, will shed light on the project's conception and the multiple issues it raises. (Colloquium accessible in person and remotely via Zoom).

An international partnership

The fruit of an international collaboration between Inalco (France), the University of Geneva (Switzerland) and the Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Language Resources (ACLR) at BLCU (China), the "MOOC d'initiation à l'écriture dongba" project was initiated by Joël Bellassen, expert in language and culture didactics, designer of Inalco's Chinese MOOC and member of the PLIDAM research team (Inalco) ; joined by Jue Wang Szilas, project executive manager, expert in didactics of languages and cultures with Information and Communication Technologies for Teaching (ICTT) at the University of Geneva and member of the PLIDAM research team (Inalco).

His production phase began in 2021 and lasted two years (cf. A MOOC for an introduction to Dongba writing (China, Yunnan) currently in production). The project brought together a team of experts in language and cultural didactics, educational engineering and graphic design from the three partner institutions, as well as experts in Dongba script, including a Naxi researcher.

A challenge with multiple stakes

In addition to offering an introduction to Dongba writing and culture, due to their strong originality, the project carries multiple stakes, at once, of language didactics, heritage enhancement and conservation, and language policy.

It includes a didactic and plurilingual dimension: like Chinese, the teaching-learning proposed here transmits a distant script and culture. It raises questions about the definition of pedagogical objectives in terms of graphics. It enables the acquisition of a threshold of 300 Dongba characters, selected on the basis of frequency and graphic logic. The MOOC in four languages (French, English, Chinese and German) also prompts reflection on the teaching and learning of such a language for and by learners from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

As Joël Bellassen explains, it also addresses a linguistic and philosophical dimension: "While most scripts in use use graphic signs to analyze and encode sound, and record language in writing, Dongba writing has fallen short of this leap towards phonographic scripts: it is a kind of "missing link" between the figurative mythographies of primitive times and ideographic scripts. Dongba writing is knowledge in its own right. The Dongba MOOC naturally leads us to revisit the relationship between language and writing, durably marked in Western tradition by the pre-eminence of the spoken word since the Bible ("In the beginning was the Word"), Aristotle and Plato".

It is also positioned as an issue of language policy: the aim is to use the "massive dimension" of the MOOC (Massive Open Course online) format, multiplied tenfold here by its multilingual version, to share endangered knowledge with a very large community worldwide, for the purposes of preserving and transmitting a heritage, and promoting linguistic and cultural diversity.

The MOOC will also be promoted in China via the national platform XuetangX.

Description of the MOOC

Facilitated by an international team of researchers, the course offers the learning of 300 basic characters of the Dongba script. The themes of the cultural component cover the major cultural features of Naxi culture: the human being, the natural environment, daily life and religious ceremonies.

It takes place over 9 weeks of classes (7 modules). Estimated working time is 5 hours per week. Participation in the exchange forum is highly recommended.

The first introductory module will provide a first contact with the essential knowledge base of Dongba writing and Naxi culture. Each of the following 6 modules will enable learners to acquire 50 characters and a Naxi cultural trait.

By Module 2, learners will have the reading keys to identify signs, access the comprehension of excerpts from Dongba texts, and relate the signs and general content of the texts learned to the cultural context concerned.

The proposed activities include quizzes, writing exercises enabling mastery of the signs and peer-assessed exercises.
Interaction between learners and experts in the field around cultural themes will be energized by an exchange forum.

The MOOC is enriched with recorded documentaries, course videos and interviews.

The teaching team:
Joël BELLASSEN, project initiator, expert in didactics of languages and cultures, member of the PLIDAM team, Inalco
LI Yuming, expert in language policy, director of the ACLR Center, Beijing University of Languages and Cultures
WANG SZILAS Jue, project executive manager, expert in didactics of languages and cultures with ICTE, University of Geneva and member of the PLIDAM team, Inalco
YANG Yihua, Naxi researcher in dongba writing, lecturer South West University, Chongqing, China
ZHOU Yin, researcher in Naxi culture and dongba writing, lecturer at Chongqing Jiaotong University, China

Register

Registrations are open from March 16 to June 6, 2023 on the France Université Numérique platform.

MOOC Initiation to Dongba writing - 1st session
Course starts: Monday, April 24, 2023.

A version in English of the Mooc is accessible on the FUN platform
Mooc presentations in Chinese and in German are also available.

View the presentation video

In cooperation with