In February of 1971, in the Laotian village of Nam Chia, a forty-one year old farmer named Shong Lue Yang was assassinated by government soldiers. Shong Lue claimed to have been descended of God and given the mission of delivering the first true Hmong alphabet. Many believed him to be the Hmong people's long-awaited messiah, and his thousands of followers knew him as "Mother (Source) of Writing". An anthropological linguist who has worked among the Hmong, William A. Smalley joins Shong Lue's chief disciple, Chia Koua Vang, and one of his associates, to tell the fascinating story of how the previously unschooled farmer developed his remarkable writing system through four stages of increasing sophistication. The uniqueness of Shong Lue's achievement is highlighted by a comparison of Shong Lue's writing system to other known Hmong systems and to the history of writing as a whole. In addition to a nontechnical linguistic analysis of the script and a survey of its current use, Mother of Writing provides an intriguing cultural account of Shong Lue's life. The book traces the twenty-year-long struggle to disseminate the script after Shong Lue's death, first by handwriting, then by primitive moveable type, an abortive attempt to design a wooden typewriter, and finally by modern wordprocessing. In a moving concluding chapter, Smalley discusses his own complex feelings about his coauthors' story.
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First Sentence
One day, when Shua Yang (Suav Yaj ) was a young Hmong orphan boy living with his grandparents, his grandfather took him out to the cornfield, which had been cleared from the heart of the jungle in typical Hmong fashion. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
One day, when Shua Yang (Suav Yaj ) was a young Hmong orphan boy living with his grandparents, his grandfather took him out to the cornfield, which had been cleared from the heart of the jungle in typical Hmong fashion. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This was a really good book that talks a lot about Shong Lue Vue and his writing. It goes through the history, the problems, and the different stages that he went through to come up with the final one. It includes all the versions and how they are written. Overall a very good book...if you are interested.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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3.0 out of 5 stars
5 reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Informative and human
9 Mar 1999
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This account of the Hmong script created by Shong Lue Yang for his people is a strangely Christ-like tale which reads at times like an adventure novel, but you never forget it is true. Smalley, a Baptist minister, remains fashionably objective in his telling of the story. Useful for linguistics classes and anyone interested in the origin of writing systems.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good book about the original Pahauh Hmong writing
24 July 1998
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This was a really good book that talks a lot about Shong Lue Vue and his writing. It goes through the history, the problems, and the different stages that he went through to come up with the final one. It includes all the versions and how they are written. Overall a very good book...if you are interested.
5.0 out of 5 stars
good
2 Dec 2010
By Meng Thor
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book was excellent. it's been a long time since i bought it and still is in good, strong, and excellent condition. The story is so touching and yes in the end it was known that Vang Pao send out that bombing that killed him. it's been told everywhere in the hmong community. I think they should of made a high budget movie out of this guy. it would of turned out good too.
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