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.Phonology adapted from: and . See also: Mortensen, David. "Preliminaries to Mong Leng (Hmong Njua) Phonology" (Archive) Unpublished, UC Berkeley. 2004. 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 OcclusivesNasalsStopslAffricatesnyn m ml p pltd†dl⁂ rckq txts Unmodified † ⁂ Preceding         np npl nt   ndl ⁂ nr nc nk nq   ntx nts Preceding/Following hny † hn † hm † hml /† ph plh /p𐞛/ th dh † dlh /t𐞛/⁂ rh ch kh qh hl txh tsh and         nph nplh / nth   ndlh /ⁿt𐞛/⁂ nrh nch nkh nqh   ntxh ntsh 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 AlphabetFricativesLabialCoronalDorsalGlottal f v x s z xy y h

+Vowels in the Romanized Popular AlphabetVowels MonophthongsNasalizedDiphthongs ie a ouw eeaa⁂ooai awauia† 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 ExampleExamples 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. Orthographic Spelling High 'ball' pob Mid 'spleen' po Low 'thorn' pos High falling 'female' poj Mid rising 'to throw' pov Creaky 'to see' pom Low falling breathy 'grandmother' pog

represents a phrase-final low-rising variant of the creaky tone

See also

Standard Zhuang

Notes

Bibliography

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