The Present Status of Using Written Hmong Language in the Hmong Community in the Northwest Region of Vietnam - Case Study in Sơn La and Lai Châu Provinces

Writing system is an important part of a certain language. When a language has its own writing system and is widely used, it is apparent that the language will have a strong position and vitality. Hmong language is a mother tongue of Hmong people, an ethnic minority that are now residing in many parts all over the world and mainly in the northwest region (Tây Bắc) of Vietnam. Unlike many other languages which have only one writing system, Hmong has many different scripts that are being used at a time. Therefore, understanding how Hmong people use their written language is an intriguing topic to help demystify their language usage and furthermore, understand their spiritual life. From our practical fieldwork, in this paper we focus on the discussion of the current status of using written Hmong in its community in the northwest region of Vietnam.

Another Hmong Messianic Script and Its Texts

Among several writing systems devised by native speakers of Hmong, the Sayaboury script is of interest because it is the only one in which a body of apparently original mythic religio-political text material has been recorded. It also has an unusually ingenious, elegant, and economical set of vowel symbols, and a convention of doubling all initial consonant symbols in formal writing. Of secondary interest is the fact that this system was produced (and revealed to one of the authors) west of the Mekong River — not in the more focal Hmong areas which funneled refugees through Ban Vinai, Thailand, into the United States. The authors present here their limited joint knowledge about these texts and the system with which they are written, describing how they became known, their messianic nature, the structure of the writing system, its possible origins, and the fit between the writing and the Hmong language.