Hmong, Mong, Meo: How to read and write correctly?
(Baonghean.vn) - As an ethnic group that has settled in Vietnam for more than 400 years, with a population of nearly 1.4 million people, the 8th largest among ethnic groups in Vietnam, the ethnic name of the Mong people is still not understood and read and written correctly by the public. In Vietnam, the Mong people are often called "Hơ-Mông" or "Mèo"; and in written documents, people sometimes write "H'mong", HMông, and sometimes Mộng, Mèo. So, what is the most correct name for this ethnic group and why are there such different ways of calling, reading and writing? The following article by a Mong person clearly explains this.
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Mong village in the high mountains. Photo: Thanh Cuong |
First, let's learn about how this ethnic group calls itself. We call ourselves "Hmoob". In which the "H" sound is silent, when read it almost only serves as a background for the "m" sound and is not pronounced. This case is quite similar to the role of the "h" sound in the English word "hour" or in the case of the word "homme" in French. Therefore, the vowel cluster "Hm" here, when pronounced, can almost only hear the letter "m". The "oo" sound is similar to "ông" in Vietnamese. And finally, the letter "b" at the end, this is a symbol for the fact that this word has accents such as the acute and grave accents in Vietnamese.
But the difficult problem here is that this “b” sound is a nasal sound, when pronounced it almost does not produce a complete sound, it adds emphasis to the word being pronounced. This nasal sound does not exist in Vietnamese, so it is difficult for writers to guide pronunciation with words. From all these explanations, we see that pronouncing or calling the Mong people Mong is the closest way to the name that our community calls us.
There is only one small problem here, which is the presence of the nasal sound 'b' in this phrase. Since Vietnamese does not have it, it is difficult for me to explain it in words, so readers can listen to the pronunciation of the ethnic name of the Mong people in the mp3 file below:
So, in terms of pronunciation or pronunciation, Mong-b (emphasizing the nasal sound b) is almost the most correct when talking about the Mong people. So what about writing, why in written documents, the ethnic names of the Mong people are sometimes written as Meo, Mieu, Miao; and sometimes written as H'mong, HMong, Hmong, Mong?
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Mong students at Tay Son Ethnic Minority Secondary School (Nghe An) perform a panpipe dance. Photo: Thanh Cuong |
Regarding the way of calling and writing related to the Miao - Meo cluster, research documents explain that: In the past, when the Mong people still lived mainly in the Yellow River basin (in today's Chinese territory), we were one of the earliest ethnic groups to know how to cultivate agriculture. The Han people at that time called us Miao (Chinese: 苗; pinyin: Miáo). Through the explanation of hieroglyphics, the word Miao is composed of the word field (田) and the word grass (愺). In Chinese, field is the word for land, grass is the word for grass and trees.
So, the word Miao (苗) actually refers to the community that grows grass and trees on the land or the community that cultivates agriculture. It is not the word Mao (猫) which means cat as some people mistakenly believe. Thus, besides calling the Mong people Mong-b as above, we can also call them Miao (Miao) as the Chinese call them.
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Literacy class for Mong women in Huoi Moi village, Tri Le commune, Que Phong district. Photo: Khanh Ly |
As for the way of calling and writing related to Hmong (H'mong, HMong, Hmong), in fact it is entirely due to errors in the circulation of administrative and statistical documents.
On April 29, 1955, President Ho Chi Minh signed Decree 230/SL on the promulgation of regulations for the establishment of the Thai-Meo Autonomous Region, in which Article 14 clearly stated: “For ethnic groups that do not have their own scripts, research will be conducted on how to transcribe the spoken languages of those ethnic groups. All ethnic groups have the right to use their own spoken and written languages in all matters.” From that time on, the Department of Research and Development of Ethnic Minority Scripts of the Ministry of Education built the Vietnamese Mong script, using the Hoa Mong phonetics of Sa Pa, Lao Cai province as the standard pronunciation. After that, the Government issued Decree No. 206/CP on November 27, 1961 on the approval of the Mong script plan, officially promulgated and put into use as a script used to teach illiteracy to the Mong people and teach the Mong language to cadres working in the Mong area.
According to this Vietnamese Mong script, the ethnic name of the Mong people is recorded as “Hmongz”. In which, “h” is still a silent sound when read, not pronounced but only complements “m”; “z” is a nasal sound similar to “b” as I explained at the beginning of the article. Thus, from this point on, the ethnic name of the Mong people has been recorded almost officially on administrative documents as “Hmongz”.
By 1979, in the List of Vietnamese Ethnic Groups, the ethnic name of the Mong people was written as “Hmong”, omitting the “z” at the end. This was probably a mistake in the drafting. And from there, the name “Hmong” or “HMong” was born. Later, many people, including administrative officials, wrote the ethnic name of the Mong people incorrectly with names such as “H’mong”, “H’Mong” or “Hơ-Mong”.
To unify the ethnic name of the Mong people, the Ethnic Council of the 10th National Assembly issued Official Letter No. 09-CV/HDDT signed on December 4, 2001, requesting the correct reading of the name and concept of the ethnic group. The official letter clearly stated: "The name of the Mong ethnic group, if written in the common language, the official language of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is written as the Mong ethnic group".
Thus, regarding the name of the Mong people, when pronounced as Hmoob (Hmongz) as in the above dialogue, and when written as Mong is the most accurate in both semantics and official text.
ResourceswhetherReference
Vuong, QD (2005).Spiritual Culture of the Mong People: Tradition and Present. Culture - Information Publishing House and Institute of Culture.
Hanoi National University Publishing House. (2016).In search of the Mong language: Research with the Mong community in Giang Tra village, Ta Phin commune, Sa Pa district, 2013-2014.
Statistical Publishing House. (2020). Chapter 2: Population and demographic characteristics. PrintResults of the Survey to collect information on the socio-economic situation of 53 ethnic minorities in 2019. essay.
Nguyen, KT (nd).Mong ethnic group in Vietnam and some issues ON LANGUAGE 1198278 - Journal of Social Sciences, NO.. StuDocu. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from https://www.studocu.com/vn/document/truong-dai-hoc-su-pham-thanh-pho-ho-chi-minh/lich-su-dang/dan-toc-mong-o-viet-na m-va-mot-so-van-de-ve-ngon-ngu-1198278/22062204?fbclid=IwAR1fAbsYyuDBM_e1Nbr7r4eBkzkQqIvy9I2WpKrLECrzD1sT3XIU0e89CFA
Lemoine, J. (2005).What is the actual number of the (h)mong in the world? by Jacques ...Hmong Studies Journal. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://www.hmongstudiesjournal.org/uploads/4/5/8/7/4587788/lemoinehsj6.pdf
Nguyen, TM (2017).The nomadic peaks: A way to find the H'mong personality. Tri Thuc Publishing House and Tao Dan Book Company.
