Abstract: Linguistic anthropology holds that characters can help humans overcome time and space limitation and help cultural exchange, as well as use written symbol such as metaphor and combination to un-derstand deep cultural significance. From the perspective of linguistic anthropology , this paper combinesClaude Levi - Strauss's view of transverse combination and vertical combination as the research approach.and embraces written from and interpretation way to explore the cultural meaning of Dongba characters inthe Dongba manuscripts.

Key words:  linguistic anthropology, Dongba character, Dongbamanuscript, cultural meaning