Pahawh Hmong

Infobox Writing system
name=Pahawh Hmong
type=Onset-rime
typedesc=(vowel-centered equivalent of an abugida)
time=1959–present
languages=Hmong Daw, Hmong Njua
fam1=artificial
creator=Shong Lue Yang

Pahawh Hmong (RPA: "Phajhauj Hmoob" IPAlink|pʰâ hâu m̥ɔ́ŋ, known also as "Ntawv Pahawh, Ntawv Keeb, Ntawv Caub Fab, Ntawv Soob Lwj)" is an indigenous semi-syllabic script used to write two Hmong languages, Hmong Daw "(Hmoob Dawb" White Miao) and Hmong Njua AKA Hmong Leng "(Moob Leeg" Green Miao).

Form

Pahawh is written left to right. Each syllable is written with two letters, an onset "(la," an initial consonant or consonant cluster) and a rime "(yu," a vowel, diphthong, or vowel plus final consonant). [The only final consonant is IPA| [ŋ] . However, this is sometimes analyzed as vowel nasalization: "oo, ee, aa" IPA|/ɔŋ, ɛŋ, aŋ/ or IPA|/ɔ̃, ɛ̃, ã/. Thus Pahawh can be considered an alphabet where both consonants and vowels may be complex, much like "x" IPA| [ks] and "i" IPA| [aɪ] in English.] However, the order of these elements is rime-initial, the opposite of their spoken order. (That is, each syllable would seem to be written right to left, if it were transcribed literally into the Roman alphabet.) This is an indication that Shong conceived of the rimes as primary; Pahawh Hmong might therefore be thought of as a vowel-centered abugida. Tones and many onsets are distinguished by diacritics.

The onset "k" are not written, so that a rime letter (V) written by itself is read as "kV." Nor is the rime "au" (on mid tone) written, so that a onset letter (C) written by itself is read "Cau," except following a bare rime, as otherwise these could be read as a single syllable. The "absence" of an onset, however, is indicated with a null-onset letter. Again, this is similar to an abugida, but with the roles of consonant and vowel reversed. [Coincidentally, RPA also has an inherent consonant which is not written, glottal stop, along with a null-consonant diacritic, the apostrophe: "ai" IPA|/ʔāi/, "’ai" IPA|/āi/. Few Hmong words are vowel initial, so writing the absence of a consonant with an apostrophe is more economical than writing glottal stop with an apostrophe.]

For an example of the positional variation, consider the phrase (in RPA orthography) "kuv rau tshais rau koj noj" "I serve you breakfast". Since the first word, "kuv," starts with a "k," it is written as the bare rime "uv" in Pahawh. The word "rau," with mid-tone "au" as the rime, is normally written as a bare onset "r," and indeed this is the case for the second instance in this sentence. However, since the first "rau" follows a bare rime, it cannot be written as a bare onset "r," or the combination might be read as "ruv" rather than "kuv rau." Therefore the combination "kuv rau" is written "uv rau" rather than "uv r," with the rime "au" made explicit (Smalley "et al." 1990:58).

Pahawh is not as widespread as RPA romanization for writing Hmong, partially because of the difficulties in typesetting it (as of 2008 it is not supported by Unicode), but it is a source of great pride for many Hmong who do not use it, as in Southeast Asia every respectable language has a script of its own, which RPA does not provide. However, for some educated Hmong, Pahawh is considered an embarrassing remnant of a superstitious past (Smalley "et al." 1990:165).

Origin

Because Shong was illiterate, it is sometimes assumed that he invented Pahawh "ex nihilo." However, Shong was acutely aware of writing and of the advantages that it provided; indeed, that was the basis of his messianic movement. It would appear that existing scripts provided his inspiration, even if he did not fully understand them, much as the Roman alphabet inspired the illiterate Sequoyah when he invented the Cherokee script, in a process called trans-cultural diffusion. Not only do the forms of the majority of the letters in the oldest stage of Pahawh closely resemble the letters of the local Lao alphabet and missionary scripts such as Pollard and Fraser, though they are independent in sound value (much like the relationship between Roman and Cherokee), but the appearance of vowel and tone diacritics in those scripts, which would appear nearly random to the illiterate, may explain the idiosyncratic use of diacritics in early Pahawh. Nevertheless, even if the graphic forms of Pahawh letters derive from other scripts, much of the typology of the script, with its primary rimes and secondary onsets, would appear to be Shong's invention.

The later stages of Pahawh became typologically more like Lao and the Roman alphabet, suggesting that perhaps they influenced its evolution. However, even from the start, Pahawh is "fascinatingly similar […] and fascinatingly different" from the Lao alphabet (Smalley "et al." 1990:90). For example, it resembles an abugida such as Lao where the order of writing does not reflect the order of speech, but with the roles of consonant and vowel reversed. There is an inherent vowel, as in Lao, though only on one tone, but also an inherent consonant. In Lao, tone depends on the consonant; it is modified with diacritics, but the patters of modification are complex. In early Pahawh, tone depends on the rime and is modified with irregular diacritics. Starting with stage 2, there are two tone-classes of rime, just as in Lao there are two tone-classes of consonant.

Nearly all other scripts invented by illiterates are syllabaries like Cherokee. However, to represent Hmong as a syllabary, Pahawh would have needed 60×91 = 5460 letters. By breaking each syllable in two in the fashion of Chinese phonetics, Shong was able to write Hmong, in his original version, with a mere 60+91 = 151 letters.

Notes

References

*Everson, Michael. 1999. "Preliminary proposal for encoding Pahawh Hmong" (in Unicode) [http://www.evertype.com/standards/tai/hmong.pdf]
*Ratliff, Martha. 1996. "The Pahawh Hmong Script," in "The World's Writing Systems", edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright. University of Oxford Press: New York, NY, pp. 619-624.
*Rogers, Henry. 2005. "Writing Systems: A Linguistic Approach". Blackwell Publishing. Pp. 260-262.
*Smalley, William A.; Chia Koua Vang; and Gnia Yee Yang. 1990. "Mother of Writing: The Origin and Development of a Hmong Messianic Script". University of Chicago Press: Chicago.

External links

* [http://www.geocities.com/hmongscriptsoftware/ Free font] (a couple essential letters are missing)
* [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/hmong.htm Omniglot]
* [http://www.evertype.com/standards/tai/hmong.pdf A proposal to add Pahawh Hmong to Unicode]