Romanized Popular Alphabet

The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), 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.[1]

History

In Xiangkhoang Province, Protestant missionary G. Linwood Barney began working on 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 a version of the script.[2]

Orthography

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 Hmong Der or Green Mong are color-coded respectively.[3] Some writers make use of variant spellings. Much as with Tosk for Albanian, Hmong Der was arbitrarily chosen to be the "standard" variant.

Consonants and vowels
OcclusivesNasalsStops
l		Affricates
nynmmlppltddlrckqtxts
Unmodified/ɲ//n//m//mˡ//p//pˡ//t//d//tˡ//ʈ//c//k//q//l//ts//ʈʂ/
Preceding ⟨n⟩    np
/ᵐb/		npl
/ᵐbˡ/		nt
/ⁿd/		 ndl
/ⁿdˡ/		nr
/ᶯɖ/		nc
/ᶮɟ/		nk
/ᵑɡ/		nq
/ᶰɢ/		 ntx
/ⁿdz/		nts
/ᶯɖʐ/
Preceding/Following ⟨h⟩hny
/ɲ̥/		hn
/n̥/		hm
/m̥/		hml
/m̥ɬ/		ph
/pʰ/		plh
/pɬ/		th
/tʰ/		dh
/dʱ/		dlh
/tɬ/		rh
/ʈʰ/		ch
/cʰ/		kh
/kʰ/		qh
/qʰ/		hl
/ɬ/		txh
/tsʰ/		tsh
/ʈʂʰ/
⟨n⟩ and ⟨h⟩    nph
/ᵐbʱ/		nplh
/ᵐbɮ/		nth
/ⁿdʱ/		 ndlh
/ⁿdɮ/		nrh
/ᶯɖʱ/		nch
/ᶮɟʱ/		nkh
/ᵑɡʱ/		nqh
/ᶰɢʱ/		 ntxh
/ⁿdzʱ/		ntsh
/ᶯɖʐʱ/
FricativesLabialCoronalDorsalGlottal
fvxszyxyh
/f//v//s//ʂ//ʐ//ʝ//ç//h/
VowelsMonophthongsNasalizedDiphthongs
ieaouweeaaooaiawauiaua
/i//e//a//ɔ//u//ɨ//ẽ//ã//ɔ̃//ai//aɨ//au//iə//uə/

Tones

RPA indicates tone by letters written at the end of a syllable,[4] like Gwoyeu Romatzyh rather than with diacritics like those used in the Vietnamese alphabet or Pinyin. Unlike Vietnamese and Chinese, all Hmong syllables end in a vowel, which means that using consonant letters to indicate tone will be neither confusing nor ambiguous.

Tone Example[5] Orthographic Spelling
High /pɔ́/ 'ball' pob
Mid /pɔ/ 'spleen' po
Low /pɔ̀/ 'thorn' pos
High falling /pɔ̂/ 'female' poj
Mid rising /pɔ̌/ 'to throw' pov
Creaky /pɔ̰/ 'to see' pom1
Low falling breathy /pɔ̤/ 'grandmother' pog
  1. ⟨d⟩ represents a phrase-final low-rising variant of the creaky tone

See also

Notes
  1. Smalley, Vang & Yang (1990:151–154)
  2. Smalley, Vang & Yang (1990:151–154)
  3. Phonology adapted from: Golston & Yang (2001) and Smalley, Vang & Yang (1990:48–51). See also: Mortensen, David. “Preliminaries to Mong Leng (Hmong Njua) Phonology” (Archive) Unpublished, UC Berkeley. 2004.
  4. Clark (2000:47)
  5. Examples taken from: Heimbach, Ernest H. White Hmong-English Dictionary [White Meo-English Dictionary]. 2003 ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 1969. Note that many of these words have multiple meanings.

Bibliography
  • Clark, Marybeth (2000), "Diexis and anaphora and prelinguistic universals", Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications, 29 (Grammatical analysis: Morphology, Syntax, and Semantics): 46–61
  • Golston, Chris; Yang, Phong (2001), "Hmong loanword phonology", in Féry, Caroline; Green, Antony Dubach; van de Vijver, Ruben (eds.), Proceedings of HILP 5 (PDF), Potsdam: University of Potsdam, pp. 40–57
  • Smalley, William A.; Vang, Chia Koua; Yang, Gnia Yee (1990). Mother of Writing: The Origin and Development of a Hmong Messianic Script. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226762876.
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