Lars Marius Garshol wrote:

>
> I've been looking at Pahawh Hmong today, but am struggling to classify
> the script correctly. I've worked through some of the sample on page
> 623 of WWS. As far as I can make out there are three kinds of symbols:
>
> - C symbols, which represent anything from one to three consonant
> sounds,
>
> - VC symbols, which represent one or two vowels followed by a
> consonant, and
>
> - diacritics indicating tones,
>
> and that a CVC word is written VCC.
>
> So far, so good, but what type of script is this really? I guess if
> this were all there was to the script we would call it a syllabary.
> However, if we look closer at the VC symbols, it seems that the final
> consonant is systematically indicated with a diacritic on the wovel,
> and that there are two versions of each VC symbol (one on each side of
> table 57.1).
>
> This means that it's not a syllabary, since it is systematic, and it's
> definitely not an abugida. It is like an alphabet, but doesn't seem to
> be one. (I'm also having trouble working out what the sound values of
> the characters actually are.) Can anyone help?

Certainly you'll get more out of Smalley et al.'s book than from
Martha's 5-page summary of it!

Do you realize that there are three distinct stages in the script, and
she has to discuss them all in that very small space?

It certainly is an abugida, but of a unique type -- the only model I can
find to account for it is Burmese, and Smalley doesn't explicitly say
that he wasn't exposed to Burmese writing, only Lao, Thai, or
Vietnamese!
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...