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60-551: The term Phaj hauj means "to unite," "to resist division," or "to have peace" in Hmong . Pahawh is written from 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 ). 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

120-708: A cluster analysis tend to argue on the basis of general phonetic principles (other examples of labial phonemes with lateral release appear extremely rare or nonexistent ). ^** Some linguists prefer to analyze the prenasalized consonants as clusters whose first element is /n/ . However, this cluster analysis is not as common as the above one involving /l/ . ^*** Only used in Hmong RPA and not in Pahawh Hmong , since Hmong RPA uses Latin script and Pahawh Hmong does not. For example, in Hmong RPA, to write keeb ,

180-592: A dagger or double dagger respectively.) i ⟨i⟩ 𖬂, 𖬃 ɨ ⟨w⟩ 𖬘, 𖬙 u ⟨u⟩ 𖬆, 𖬇 e ⟨e⟩ 𖬈, 𖬉 ẽ ~ eŋ ⟨ee⟩ 𖬀, 𖬁 ɔ ⟨o⟩ 𖬒, 𖬓 ɔ̃ ~ ɔŋ ⟨oo⟩ 𖬌, 𖬍 a ⟨a⟩ 𖬖, 𖬗 ã ~ aŋ ⟨aa⟩ 𖬚, 𖬛 ‡ ai ⟨ai⟩ 𞄤𞄦, 𞄣 ‎ 𖬊, 𖬋 iə ⟨ia⟩ 𞄦𞄤, 𞄞 ‎ 𖬔, 𖬕 † aɨ ⟨aw⟩ 𞄤𞄬, 𞄢 ‎ 𖬎, 𖬏 au ⟨au⟩ 𞄤𞄨, 𞄠 ‎ 𖬄, 𖬅 uə ⟨ua⟩ 𞄧𞄤, 𞄜 ‎ 𖬐, 𖬑 The Dananshan standard of China

240-404: A dialect not their own, for the most part, Mong Leng seem to do better when understanding both dialects." The three dialects described here are Hmong Daw (also called White Miao or Hmong Der), Mong Leeg (also called Blue/Green Miao or Mong Leng), and Dananshan (Standard Chinese Miao). Hmong Daw and Mong Leeg are the two major dialects spoken by Hmong Americans . Although mutually intelligible,

300-490: A number of phonemic contrasts unfamiliar to English speakers. All non-glottal stops and affricates distinguish aspirated and unaspirated forms, most also prenasalization independently of this. The consonant inventory of Hmong is shown in the chart below. (Consonants particular to Hmong Daw and Mong Njua are color-coded respectively.) The Pahawh Hmong diacritics were devised by Shong Lue Yang in isolation, and have no genetic relation to similar-looking punctuation in

360-437: A number of phonemic contrasts unfamiliar to English speakers. All non-glottal stops and affricates distinguish aspirated and unaspirated forms, and most also distinguish prenasalization independently of this. The consonant inventory of Hmong is shown in the chart below. (Consonants particular to Hmong Daw † and Mong Leeg ‡ are color-coded and indicated by a dagger or double dagger respectively.) The Dananshan standard of China

420-427: A result of these conversations this colleague believes that many of these lects are likely to have high inherent mutual intelligibility within the cluster. Culturally, while each sub-group prides itself on its own distinctives, they also recognize that other sub-groups within this category are culturally similar to themselves and accept the others as members of the same general ethnic group. However, this category of lects

480-454: A short [ʔ] may accompany the low-falling creaky tone. Dananshan has a syllabic /l̩/ (written ⟨l⟩ ) in Chinese loans, such as lf 'two' and lx 'child'. Hmong is a tonal language and makes use of seven (Hmong Daw and Mong Leeg) or eight (Dananshan) distinct tones . The Dananshan tones are transcribed as pure tone. However, given how similar several of them are, it

540-426: A sign introduced by one of Shong's disciples that replaced Shong's ⟨!⟩ , but also includes a native sign for reduplication and a native cantillation mark. There are two orthographic systems in use for Pahawh Hmong, the second reduced stage from 1965 and the third reduced stage from 1970 (see history, below). Some Hmong communities consider the second stage to be more authentic, while others prefer

600-528: 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. The Pahawh Hmong alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0. The Unicode block for Pahawh Hmong is U+16B00–U+16B8F: For now, Pahawh Hmong Unicode

660-567: A version of the script. The alphabet was developed to write both the Hmong Der (White Hmong, RPA: Hmoob Dawb ) and Mong Leng (Green/Blue Mong, RPA: Moob Leeg ) dialects. While these dialects have much in common, each has unique sounds. Consonants and vowels found only in White Hmong (denoted with †) or Green Mong (denoted with ⁂) are color-coded respectively. Some writers make use of variant spellings. Much as with Tosk for Albanian , White Hmong

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720-683: Is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language . Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has gone on to become the most widespread system for writing the Hmong language in the West. It is also used in Southeast Asia and China alongside other writing systems, most notably Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong and Pahawh Hmong . In Xiangkhoang Province , Protestant missionary G. Linwood Barney began working on

780-638: Is internally varied and geographically scattered and mixed over a broad land area, and comprehensive intelligibility testing would be required to confirm reports of mutual intelligibility throughout the cluster. According to the CDC, "although there is no official preference for one dialect over the other, White Hmong seems to be favored in many ways": the Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) most closely reflects that of White Hmong ( Hmong Daw ); most educated Hmong speak White Hmong because White Hmong people lack

840-562: Is likely that there are also phonational differences as in Hmong Daw and Mong Leeg. Tones 4 and 6, for example, are said to make tenuis plosives breathy voiced ( 浊送气 ), suggesting they may be breathy/murmured like the Hmong g -tone. Tones 7 and 8 are used in early Chinese loans with entering tone , suggesting they may once have marked checked syllables. Because voiceless consonants apart from tenuis plosives are restricted to appearing before certain tones (1, 3, 5, 7), those are placed first in

900-455: Is not recommended (because decomposition would break the one-to-four character convention for representing Hmong syllables) and no canonical decomposition is given in the character properties. The Hmong pronominal system distinguishes between three grammatical persons and three numbers – singular, dual, and plural. They are not marked for case, that is, the same word is used to translate both "I" and "me", "she" and "her", and so forth. These are

960-430: Is not written; it is not distinct from a zero initial. There is also a /w/ , which occurs only in foreign words. ^* The status of the consonants described here as single phonemes with lateral release is controversial. A number of scholars instead analyze them as biphonemic clusters with /l/ as the second element. The difference in analysis (e.g., between /pˡ/ and /pl/ ) is not based on any disagreement in

1020-719: Is only supported by: Pahawh Hmong Keyboard (Unicode) for Keyman Hmong language Hmong or Mong ( / ˈ m ʌ ŋ / MUNG ; RPA : Hmoob , Nyiakeng Puachue : 𞄀𞄩𞄰 , Pahawh : 𖬌𖬣𖬵 , [m̥ɔ̃́] ) is a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmongic languages spoken by the Hmong people of Southwestern China , northern Vietnam , Thailand , and Laos . There are an estimated 4.5 million speakers of varieties that are largely mutually intelligible, including over 280,000 Hmong Americans as of 2013. Over half of all Hmong speakers speak

1080-555: Is ordered alphabetically by the RPA, apart from prenasalized stops and voiceless sonorants, which come after their oral and voiced homologues. There are three overriding patterns to the correspondences: RPA doubles a vowel for nasalization, whereas pinyin uses ⟨ng⟩ ; RPA uses ⟨h⟩ for aspiration, whereas pinyin uses the voicing distinction of the Latin script; pinyin uses ⟨h⟩ (and ⟨r⟩ ) to derive

1140-413: 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. For an example of the positional variation, consider the phrase (in RPA orthography) kuv rau tshais rau koj noj "I serve you breakfast". Since

1200-439: Is similar. (Phonemic differences from Hmong Daw and Mong Leeg are color-coded and marked as absent or added. Minor differences, such as the voicing of prenasalized stops, or whether /c/ is an affricate or /h/ is velar, may be a matter of transcription.) Aspirates, voiceless fricatives, voiceless nasals, and glottal stop only occur with yin tones (1, 3, 5, 7). Standard orthography is added in angled brackets . The glottal stop

1260-442: Is similar. Phonemic differences from Hmong Daw and Mong Leeg are color-coded and marked as absent or added. Dananshan [ɨ] occurs only after non-palatal affricates, and is written ⟨i⟩ , much like Mandarin Chinese. /u/ is pronounced [y] after palatal consonants. There is also a triphthong /jeβ/ ⟨ieu⟩ , as well as other i- and u-initial sequences in Chinese borrowings, such as /waj/ . Hmong makes

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1320-517: 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

1380-524: The Vietnamese alphabet . In addition, in 1959 Shong Lue Yang , a Hmong spiritual leader from Laos, created an 81 symbol writing system called Pahawh . Yang was not previously literate in any language. Chao Fa, an anti-Laotian government Hmong group, uses this writing system. In the 1980s, Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong script was created by a Hmong Minister, Reverend Chervang Kong Vang, to be able to capture Hmong vocabulary clearly and also to remedy redundancies in

1440-493: The personal pronouns of Hmong Daw and Mong Njua (in Pahawh Hmong and Hmong RPA ): Pahawh Hmong has a distinct numeral system with values for 0–9, along with a set of symbols for positional notation . The positional notation system is still taught, and reflects the spoken language, but is not used for arithmetic calculation. Larger numbers can thus be written two ways, using just 0–9 with place value being understood or by using

1500-568: The "Chuanqiandian cluster " in English (or "Miao cluster" in other languages) since West Hmongic is also called Chuanqiandian Miao . The variety spoken from Sichuan in China to Thailand and Laos is referred to in China as the "First Local Variety" ( 第一土语 ) of the cluster. Mong Leng and Hmong Daw are just those varieties of the cluster that migrated to Laos. The names Mong Leng , Hmong Dleu/Der , and Hmong Daw are also used in China for various dialects of

1560-562: The "Heavenly Lord", is a Hmong group whose anti-Laotian government uses this writing system. Since 1975 until today, the Hmong Chao Fa , isolated from the rest of the world, has been heavily persecuted by the Lao People's Democratic Republic , nonstop and without resolution. The vowel systems of Hmong Daw and Mong Njua are as shown in the following charts. Phonemes particular to each dialect are color-coded respectively: Hmong makes

1620-589: The "first local dialect" ( 第一土语 ) of the Chuanqiandian cluster in Chinese, the proposer made the following statement on mutual intelligibility: A colleague has talked with speakers of a number of these closely-related lects in the US, in Thailand and in China, and has had many discussions with Chinese linguists and foreign researchers or community development workers who have had extensive contact with speakers of these lects. As

1680-669: The Chaldeans and Hmong of Detroit (Michigan)", wrote that the Qing Dynasty had caused a previous Hmong writing system to die out when it stated that the death penalty would be imposed on those who wrote it down. Since the end of the 19th century, linguists created over two dozen Hmong writing systems, including systems using Chinese characters , the Lao alphabet , the Russian alphabet , the Thai alphabet , and

1740-587: The European tradition (DOT ABOVE, DIAERESIS, MACRON). Since it can also typically take shapes that are different from the typical shapes that European punctuation has, it would be inappropriate to attempt to unify Pahawh Hmong diacritics with characters in the General Punctuation mark. Combining diacritics are found at 16B30..16B36 and function in the usual way. Note that 16B34 and 16B35 could be composed (16B32 + 16B30 and 16B32 + 16B31 respectively). Such an encoding

1800-640: The Hebrew alphabets, although the characters themselves are different. Other experiments by Hmong and non-Hmong orthographers have been undertaken using invented letters. The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA), the most widely used script for Hmong Daw and Mong Leeg, was developed in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by three Western missionaries. In the United States Hmong do not use RPA for spelling of proper nouns, because they want their names to be easily pronounced by people unfamiliar with RPA. For instance Hmong in

1860-408: The Hmong script, producing four increasingly sophisticated versions, until he was assassinated by Laotian soldiers in 1971 to stop his growing influence as part of the opposition resistance. Knowledge of the later stages of Pahawh come to us through his disciple Chia Koua Vang, who corresponded with Shong in prison. Pahawh is not as widespread as RPA romanization for writing Hmong, partially because of

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1920-450: 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 is 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 an onset letter (C) written by itself

1980-503: The Son of God, messiah of the Hmong and Khmu people , and that God had revealed Pahawh to him in 1959, in northern Vietnam near the border with Laos, to restore writing to the Hmong and Khmu people. Over the next twelve years he and his disciples taught it as part of a Hmong cultural revival movement, mostly in Laos after Shong had fled Communist Vietnam. The Khmuic version of the script never caught on, and has disappeared. Shong continually modified

2040-453: The U.S. spell Hmoob as "Hmong," and Liab Lis is spelled as Lia Lee . The Dananshan standard in China is written in a pinyin-based alphabet, with tone letters similar to those used in RPA. The following is a list of pairs of RPA and Dananshan segments having the same sound (or very similar sounds). Note however that RPA and the standard in China not only differ in orthographic rules, but are also used to write different languages. The list

2100-448: The White and Leng dialects "are said to be mutually intelligible to a well-trained ear, with pronunciation and vocabulary differences analogous to the differences between British and American English ." Several Chinese varieties may overlap with or be more distinct than the varieties listed above: In the 2007 request to establish an ISO code for the Chuanqiandian cluster, corresponding to

2160-628: The ability to understand Mong Leng; and most Hmong dictionaries only include the White Hmong dialect. Furthermore, younger generations of Hmong are more likely to speak White Hmong, and speakers of Mong Leng are more likely to understand White Hmong than speakers of White Hmong are. Most Hmong in the United States speak White Hmong (Hmoob Dawb) and Mong Leng (Moob Leeg), with around 60% speaking White Hmong and 40% Mong Leng. The CDC states that "though some Hmong report difficulty understanding speakers of

2220-423: The book, so, in the words of Anne Fadiman , author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down , "no text was equal to the task of representing a culture as rich as that of the Hmong." Therefore, the folktale states that the Hmong language was exclusively oral from that point onwards. Natalie Jill Smith, author of "Ethnicity, Reciprocity, Reputation and Punishment: An Ethnoexperimental Study of Cooperation among

2280-635: The cluster. Ethnologue once distinguished only the Laotian varieties (Hmong Daw, Mong Leng), Sinicized Miao (Hmong Shua), and the Vietnamese varieties (Hmong Dô, Hmong Don). The Vietnamese varieties are very poorly known; population estimates are not even available. In 2007, Horned Miao, Small Flowery Miao , and the Chuanqiandian cluster of China were split off from Mong Leng [blu]. These varieties are as follows, along with some alternative names. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that

2340-458: The combination kuv rau is written uv rau rather than uv r, with the rime au made explicit (Smalley et al. 1990:58). Here is the aforementioned sentence in Pahawh, written using the third stage: 𖬇 𖬅𖬰𖬡 𖬋𖬲𖬪𖬰 𖬡 𖬒𖬲 𖬒𖬲𖬬 Pahawh has twenty onset letters to transcribe sixty phonemic onsets. This is accomplished with two diacritics, a dot and a tack, written above

2400-453: The consonant; it is modified with diacritics, but the patterns 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

2460-492: The dialects differ in both lexicon and certain aspects of phonology. For instance, Mong Leeg lacks the voiceless/aspirated /m̥/ of Hmong Daw (as exemplified by their names) and has a third nasalized vowel, /ã/ ; Dananshan has a couple of extra diphthongs in native words, numerous Chinese loans, and an eighth tone. The vowel systems of Hmong Daw and Mong Leeg are as shown in the following charts. (Phonemes particular to Hmong Daw † and Mong Leeg ‡ are color-coded and indicated by

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2520-511: The difficulties in typesetting it, 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). Chao Fa (means "Lord of the Sky" in Lao , Hmong: Cob Fab 𖬒𖬯 𖬖𖬜𖬵 [REDACTED] ), which literally translates to

2580-415: The eight tones , while the other takes the other four tones. Diacritics (none, dot, macron, and trema) distinguish the tones that each rime letter may carry. One of the tones, written -d in RPA, is not phonemic but is a prosodic unit -final allophone of the creaky register -m. It may be written in Pahawh by changing the dot diacritic to a short stroke, but it is not used by many people. Shong used

2640-417: 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,

2700-446: 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

2760-422: The language as well as address semantic confusions that was lacking in other scripts. Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong script was mainly used by United Christians Liberty Evangelical Church, a church also founded by Vang, although the script have been found to be in use in Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, France, and Australia. The script bears strong resemblance to the Lao alphabet in structure and form and characters inspired from

2820-813: The onset. However, although there is some scattered similarity between the sounds of the resulting forms, there is no overall pattern to the system. For example, the letter for h with a dot is pronounced th, and with a tack is pronounced pl. The null consonant does not take diacritics in Hmong Daw, but does in Hmong Njua, for two onsets, ndl and ndlh, which only occur in Hmong Njua. (Similarly, Daw d and dh, which do not occur in Njua, are used for Njua dl and dlh, which do not occur in Daw.) The rimes, in contrast, are over-specified. There are thirteen rime sounds, but twenty-six letters to represent them. One of each pair takes four of

2880-530: The order Consonant + Vowel + Tone (CVT) must be followed, so it is k + ee + b = keeb , but in Pahawh Hmong, it is just Keeb " 𖬀 " (3rd-Stage Version). Hmong syllables have simple structure: all syllables have an onset consonant (except in a few particles ), nuclei may consist of a monophthong or diphthong, and the only coda consonants that occur are nasals. In Hmong Daw and Mong Leeg, nasal codas have become nasalized vowels, though they may be accompanied by weakly articulated [ŋ] . Similarly,

2940-476: The positional notation characters. For example, the number 57023 would be commonly be written as 𖭕𖭗𖭐𖭒𖭓 (five-seven-zero-two-three), but it can also be written 𖭕𖭗𖭜𖭐𖭒𖭛𖭓 (fifty-seven thousand-twenty-three). Non-script-specific punctuation marks are also used including the question mark (?), left parentheses, right parentheses, period (.), comma (,), semicolon (;), colon (:), less than sign (<), greater than sign (>), and dash (–). Because Shong

3000-698: The retroflex and uvular series from the dental and velar, whereas RPA uses sequences based on ⟨t, x, k⟩ vs. ⟨r, s, q⟩ for the same. There is no simple correspondence between the tone letters. The historical connection between the tones is as follows. The Chinese names reflect the tones given to early Chinese loan words with those tones in Chinese. Tones 4 and 7 merged in Hmoob Dawb, whereas tones 4 and 6 merged in Mong Leeg. Romanized Popular Alphabet The Romanized Popular Alphabet ( RPA ) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet ),

3060-444: The rimes with the values kiab and kab in Hmong Daw for kab and kaab ( /káŋ/ ) in Hmong Njua. However, Cwjmem retains the Daw values for Njua and adds a pipe (|) to the left of kab kam kad kaj etc. to write kaab kaam kaad kaaj etc. In addition to phonetic elements, Pahawh Hmong has a minor logographic component, with characters for Punctuation is derived from the Roman alphabet, presumably through French or Lao, except for

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3120-443: The sound or pronunciation of the consonants in question, but on differing theoretical grounds. Those in favor of a unit-phoneme analysis generally argue for this based on distributional evidence (i.e., if clusters, these would be the only clusters in the language, although see below) and dialect evidence (the laterally released dentals in Mong Leeg, e.g. /tˡʰ/ , correspond to the voiced dentals of White Hmong), whereas those in favor of

3180-416: 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

3240-460: The table: So much information is conveyed by the tones that it is possible to speak intelligibly using musical tunes only; there is a tradition of young lovers communicating covertly playing a Jew's harp to convey vowel sounds. Robert Cooper, an anthropologist, collected a Hmong folktale saying that the Hmong used to have a written language, and important information was written down in a treasured book. The folktale explains that cows and rats ate

3300-410: The third stage as being more regular. It would appear that stage two is more widespread. The differences are primarily in tone assignment. Bare rimes—that is, rime letters without a tone diacritic—have various values in stage two, but are regularly high tone (-b) or rising tone (-v) in stage three. Likewise, although the pedagogic charts are organized so that each column corresponds to a single tone,

3360-400: The tonic diacritics are scattered about the columns in stage two, but correspond to them in stage three. (Stage 4, which today is only used for shorthand, dispenses with the -v rime letters, replacing them with additional diacritics on the -b rime letters, so that each rime and tone has a single dedicated glyph.) Tone transcription is that of the Romanized Popular Alphabet . Pahawh Hmong

3420-518: The various dialects in China, where the Dananshan dialect forms the basis of the standard language. However, Hmong Daw and Mong Leng are widely known only in Laos and the United States; Dananshan is more widely known in the native region of Hmong. Mong Leng ( Moob Leeg ) and Hmong Daw ( Hmoob Dawb ) are part of a dialect cluster known in China as Chuanqiandian Miao ( Chinese : 川黔滇苗 ; lit. 'Sichuan–Guizhou–Yunnan Miao'), called

3480-629: The writing system with speakers of Green Mong (Mong Leng), Geu Yang and Tua Xiong, among others. He consulted with William A. Smalley , a missionary studying the Khmu language in Luang Prabang Province at the time. Concurrently, Yves Bertrais, a Roman Catholic missionary in Kiu Katiam, Luang Prabang, was undertaking a similar project with Chong Yeng Yang and Chue Her Thao. The two working groups met in 1952 and reconciled any differences by 1953 to produce

3540-399: 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

3600-425: Was the product of a native messianic movement, based on the idea that, throughout history, God had given the Hmong power through the gift of writing, and revoked it as divine retribution. In 1959 Shong Lue Yang ( RPA : Soob Lwj Yaj ; Pahawh Hmong: 𖬌𖬤𖬵 𖬘𖬲𖬞 𖬖𖬲𖬤 ), a Hmong spiritual leader from Laos, created Pahawh. Yang was not previously literate in any language. An illiterate peasant, Shong claimed to be

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