Sawndip literature
Sawndip literature consists of folk songs, operas, poems, scriptures, letters, contracts, and court documents written over one thousand years in the Zhuang language in Sawndip script. The Zhuang people produced this literature. The works include both indigenous works and translations from Chinese, fact, fiction, religious, and secular materials. It gives insight into the life of the Zhuang and the people they have had contact with over two millennia. Only a small percentage has been published.
Characteristics
Sawndip literature is traditionally written in verse. Folk songs, or stories, are evolved over time. For example, Fwen Ciengzyeingz, meaning "Song to tell others", gives a philosophy of life, and of which Liáng Tíngwàng observed, the song's origin was in the Sui–Tang dynasties and with its final form was set almost a thousand years later in the latter part of the Ming dynasty.The two main verse types are either five or seven characters per line, and commonly four lines to a stanza. In some texts lines are resung several times in set combinations, although the lines are only written once. Waist rhyming is common. Older manuscripts for antiphonal songs only record the male lyrics, whereas modern versions may include both male and female lyrics.