What is the Pahawh Hmong?
π¬π¬²π¬§π¬΅ π¬π¬©π¬΅ π¬π¬²π¬π¬΅ π¬π¬²π¬ π¬π¬£π¬΅ π¬π¬Άπ¬€ π¬π¬π¬° π¬π¬°π¬π¬°π¬·
The Pahawh Hmong (π¬π¬²π¬π¬΅ π¬π¬²π¬ π¬π¬£π¬΅ Phajhauj Hmoob) is a phonological writing system for the Hmong language, created by an uneducated and illiterate Hmong man, Shong Lue Yang (π¬π¬€π¬΅ π¬π¬²π¬ π¬π¬²π¬€ Soob Lwj Yaj), in 1959, to write the Hmong language. The script was developed through four stages, with the third stage being promoted as the stardard. The script can write both the Green Hmong (Moob Leeg) and White Hmong (Hmoob Dawb) dialect.
Like many other indigenous languages around the world, Pahawh Hmong faced challenges in typesetting, or in today's worldβsimply a way to use it on a mobile phone. Any writing system that cannot be used on a mobile device today will struggle to thrive, let alone survive.
In 2009, the Pahawh Hmong script was proposed to encode in the UCS (Unicode Standard). As of version 7 in 2014, all the Pahawh Hmong script characters were added to the UCS. In 2022, The Noto Font Project updated their font with released unicode font support for the Pahawh Hmong. And just soon after, Apple added keyboard layout support for Pahawh Hmong in their 2023 macOS Sonoma update.