Hmong for Hmong only--Hmong I: a supplementary reading readiness course packet for beginning college Hmong students

The Hmong language was identified as an oral tradition in which the older generations orally taught values, morals, and ritual rites to the younger generations for thousands of years dated back to 2,500 B.C. in China. About 6 decades ago, a group of French-American missionaries and a linguist developed a writing system for the Hmong in Laos in 1950. It was identified as the Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA script). The RPA script became the literacy for the Hmong. For the Hmong language, the RPA script is divided into three groups: consonants, vowels, and tone markers. The consonants are further categorized into four groups such as 18 single consonants, 22 double consonants, 14 triple consonants, and 3 quadruple consonants. There are a total of 57 Hmong consonants, 13 vowels, 6 mono-vowels, and 7 bi-vowels. There are eight tone markers that indicated the high, middle, and low pitch in each word that is spoken. These are the important elements of the Hmong literacy. Once a student has mastered the pronunciation of these individual letters she or he would be able to paste the letters to make words. The words could be formed into sentences. This researcher noticed the alphabet to be a problem for the Hmong American students because English and Hmong rely on the same alphabets, but different a phonetic guide. It is frustrating for many beginning Hmong American students when they first attempt to learn the language.