Pollard Script
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The Pollard script, also known as Pollard Miao (Chinese: 柏格理苗文 Bó Gélǐ Miao-wen) or Miao, is an
abugida An abugida (, from Ge'ez language, Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental Writing systems#Segmental writing system, writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; ...
loosely based on the Latin alphabet and invented by
Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...
missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...
Sam Pollard Sam Pollard may refer to: * Sam Pollard (missionary) (1864-1915) British missionary to China * Sam Pollard (filmmaker) Samuel D. Pollard is an American film director, editor, producer, and screenwriter. His films have garnered numerous awards su ...
. Pollard invented the script for use with
A-Hmao A-Hmao (''Big Flowery Miao'') are an Hmongic ethnic group in China. They are from Yunnan and Sichuan and also live in Guizhou. The number of persons within this group likely exceeds 400,000. They are speakers of the A-Hmao language The A-Hmao la ...
, one of several
Miao languages Miao may refer to: * Miao people, linguistically and culturally related group of people, recognized as such by the government of the People's Republic of China * Miao script or Pollard script, writing system used for Miao languages * Miao (Unicode ...
spoken in
southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
. The script underwent a series of revisions until 1936, when a translation of the
New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
was published using it. The introduction of Christian materials in the script that Pollard invented caused a great impact among the
Miao Miao may refer to: * Miao people, linguistically and culturally related group of people, recognized as such by the government of the People's Republic of China * Miao script or Pollard script, writing system used for Miao languages * Miao (Unicode ...
. Part of the reason was that they had a legend about how their ancestors had possessed a script but lost it. According to the legend, the script would be brought back some day. When the script was introduced, many Miao came from far away to see and learn it.Enwall 1994 Pollard credited the basic idea of the script to the
Cree syllabics Cree syllabics are the versions of Canadian Aboriginal syllabics used to write Cree dialects, including the original syllabics system created for Cree and Ojibwe. There are two main varieties of syllabics for Cree: Western Cree syllabics and E ...
designed by James Evans in 1838–1841, “While working out the problem, we remembered the case of the syllabics used by a Methodist missionary among the Indians of North America, and resolved to do as he had done”. He also gave credit to a Chinese pastor, “Stephen Lee assisted me very ably in this matter, and at last we arrived at a system”. Changing politics in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
led to the use of several competing scripts, most of which were
romanization Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
s. The Pollard script remains popular among
Hmong Hmong may refer to: * Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand * Hmong cuisine * Hmong customs and culture ** Hmong music ** Hmong textile art * Hmong language, a continuum of closely related to ...
in China, although Hmong outside China tend to use one of the alternative scripts. A revision of the script was completed in 1988, which remains in use. As with most other abugidas, the Pollard letters represent
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
s, whereas
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s are indicated by
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s. Uniquely, however, the position of this diacritic is varied to represent tone. For example, in Western Hmong, placing the vowel diacritic above the consonant letter indicates that the syllable has a high tone, whereas placing it at the bottom right indicates a low tone.


Alphabets

The script was originally developed for A-Hmao, and adopted early for
Lipo A lithium polymer battery, or more correctly lithium-ion polymer battery (abbreviated as LiPo, LIP, Li-poly, lithium-poly and others), is a rechargeable battery of lithium-ion technology using a polymer electrolyte instead of a liquid electrolyt ...
. In 1949 Pollard (Pollard died in 1915. How could he adapted the writing system in 1949?) adapted it for a group of Miao in Szechuan, creating a distinct alphabet. There is also a Nasu alphabet using Pollard script.


Consonants


Vowels and finals


Positioning tone marks


Baseline tone marks


Archaic baseline tone marks


Unicode

The Pollard script was first proposed for inclusion in
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
by John Jenkins in 1997. It took many years to reach a final proposal in 2010. It was added to the Unicode Standard in January, 2012 with the release of version 6.1. The Unicode block for Pollard script, called Miao, is U+16F00–U+16F9F:


Published sources

* * * * Reprinted in


References


External links

* * Dingle describes how Sam Pollard used positioning of vowel marks relative to consonants to indicate tones. * {{list of writing systems Writing systems introduced in 1936 Abugida writing systems