As a special type of script sign, the huaya (personal cipher or stylized signature) is ubiquitous in Chinese contracts. While ethnic communities in southwest China adopted the well-developed Han contractual format, they also imported these highly individual ciphers. Because most local parties had only a limited command of written Chinese, the original cursive signatures quickly evolved into non-lexical marks that no longer contained the signer’s name. Executed in simpler strokes and highly variable shapes, such marks could differ from one contract to another even for the same person, and one and the same mark might be used by several different individuals. Consequently, the huaya’s capacity to distinguish one signer from another was greatly weakened.

目 錄
1.引言
2.西南民族地區民間文書中的“畫指”與“花押”
    2.1 畫指
    2.2 花押
3.結語

• 萇麗娟(四川外國語大學中國語言文化學院講師) | Lijuan CHANG