Romanized Popular Alphabet

Template:Short description 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.

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.

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 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 was arbitrarily chosen to be the "standard" variant.

Consonants and vowels

Occlusive consonants in the Romanized Popular Alphabet

Occlusives	Nasals				Stops									l	Affricates
	ny	n	m	ml	p	pl	t	d†	dl⁂	r	c	k	q		tx	ts
Unmodified	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink†	Template:IPAslink⁂	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink
Preceding Template:Angbr					np Template:IPAslink	npl Template:IPAslink	nt		ndl Template:IPAslink⁂	nr Template:IPAslink	nc Template:IPAslink	nk Template:IPAslink	nq Template:IPAslink		ntx	nts Template:IPAslink
Preceding/Following Template:Angbr	hny Template:IPAslink†	hn Template:IPAslink†	hm Template:IPAslink†	hml /Template:IPA link†	ph Template:IPAslink	plh /pɬ/	th Template:IPAslink	dh Template:IPAslink†	dlh /tɬ/⁂	rh Template:IPAslink	ch Template:IPAslink	kh Template:IPAslink	qh Template:IPAslink	hl Template:IPAslink	txh Template:IPAslink	tsh Template:IPAslink
Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr					nph Template:IPAslink	nplh /Template:IPA link	nth Template:IPAslink		ndlh /ⁿtɬ/⁂	nrh Template:IPAslink	nch Template:IPAslink	nkh Template:IPAslink	nqh Template:IPAslink		ntxh Template:IPAslink	ntsh Template:IPAslink

• The glottal stop is not indicated in the orthography. The few truly vowel-initial words are indicated by an apostrophe, which thus acts as a zero consonant.

Fricative consonants in the Romanized Popular Alphabet

Fricatives	Labial		Coronal			Dorsal		Glottal
	f	v	x	s	z	xy	y	h
	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink

Vowels in the Romanized Popular Alphabet

Vowels	Monophthongs						Nasalized			Diphthongs
	i	e	a	o	u	w	ee	aa⁂	oo	ai	aw	au	ia†	ua
								⁂					†

Tones

RPA indicates tone by letters written at the end of a syllable, similarly to Gwoyeu Romatzyh or Zhuang, 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 representation in Romanized Popular Alphabet

Tone	Example	Orthographic Spelling
High	Template:IPAslink 'ball'	pob
Mid	'spleen'	po
Low	Template:IPAslink 'thorn'	pos
High falling	Template:IPAslink 'female'	poj
Mid rising	Template:IPAslink 'to throw'	pov
Creaky	Template:IPAslink 'to see'	pom1
Low falling breathy	Template:IPAslink 'grandmother'	pog

1. Template:Angbr represents a phrase-final low-rising variant of the creaky tone

See also

• Standard Zhuang

External links

• Hmong Language FAQ, David Mortensen
• Mong Literacy – includes lessons on writing Mong Leng with RPA
• http://www.hmongrpa.org/
• Father Yves Bertrais papers, 1950-2007