Everybody agrees it's Hmong.
Dec. 4th, 2021 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyApparently, some letters in the most widespread Hmong romanization scheme do double duty as tone markers. An interesting choice. Better than numbers, and easier for English speakers to type than accent markers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanized_Popular_Alphabet
Coincidentally, I just read a book with a Hmong-American protagonist yesterday, Pahua and the Soul Stealer. Solid book for middle grade. One weird writing choice - early in the book we're told from a fairly reliable source that she shouldn't trust all her friends. This produces exactly no angst, because she doesn't think about it at all and appears to forget that advice entirely. She only has two friends. Two friends, and her kid brother, who is in a coma for nearly all of the book and is the entire reason she's having this adventure. She's got one friend she just met who is brusque and occasionally rude and very suspicious of the random cat spirit who attached himself to her when she was a small child, and she's got that random cat spirit. It's not a big mystery which of the two can't be trusted.
(Happily, she's consistently written as wanting to take the peaceful route, or at least try to understand the person trying to kill her, so she gives her friend a chance to explain after the deception is revealed, and also they both get some personal growth. Still, if you're not going to do anything interesting with your forshadowing, you can leave it out, that's what I always say. Girl's on a mystical quest, she's probably gonna get betrayed. Even babies know it. You don't need to drop hints.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanized_Popular_Alphabet
Coincidentally, I just read a book with a Hmong-American protagonist yesterday, Pahua and the Soul Stealer. Solid book for middle grade. One weird writing choice - early in the book we're told from a fairly reliable source that she shouldn't trust all her friends. This produces exactly no angst, because she doesn't think about it at all and appears to forget that advice entirely. She only has two friends. Two friends, and her kid brother, who is in a coma for nearly all of the book and is the entire reason she's having this adventure. She's got one friend she just met who is brusque and occasionally rude and very suspicious of the random cat spirit who attached himself to her when she was a small child, and she's got that random cat spirit. It's not a big mystery which of the two can't be trusted.
(Happily, she's consistently written as wanting to take the peaceful route, or at least try to understand the person trying to kill her, so she gives her friend a chance to explain after the deception is revealed, and also they both get some personal growth. Still, if you're not going to do anything interesting with your forshadowing, you can leave it out, that's what I always say. Girl's on a mystical quest, she's probably gonna get betrayed. Even babies know it. You don't need to drop hints.)
no subject
Date: 2021-12-05 04:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-05 08:07 am (UTC)It's really not a solution I would have hit upon myself, but there is a certain elegance to it. It only strikes me as strange because of course, that's not at all like the writing systems with which I'm familiar.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-05 06:36 pm (UTC)