Abstract: The relation between Chinese characters and Yi characters has long been a focus of linguistics. Some people hold the idea that Yi characters are imitations of Chinese characters, and the former ones belong to the system of the latter, while others insist the thought that Yi and Chinese characters are divisions from a same origin. The study examines the relation between Yi and Chinese characters by analyzing the commonly used characters from morphological and semantic perspectives.

Key words: Yi Characters, Chinese Characters, contrastive study on form and meaning