Pahawh Hmong script
Escritura Pahawh Hmong
- Date
- 1959 · confidence high
- Place
- Nong Het, Xiengkhouang, Laos
- Credited to
- Shong Lue Yang (Soob Lwj Yaj)
- People
- 👤 Shong Lue Yang1929–1971
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
A semi-syllabic script created in 1959 by the Hmong prophet Shong Lue Yang, who was illiterate, to write the Hmong language. It was refined in 1961-1970 and is one of the first scripts devised by and for the Hmong.
Shong Lue Yang said he received it by divine revelation; the system went through several phases (1959, 1961, 1970). He was killed in 1971 during the Laotian war. The coordinates for Nong Het are approximate.
What it led to
- literacy and a religious movement around Shong Lue Yang
- use by the Hmong diaspora in the United States
- encoding in Unicode (2012)