The script bears strong resemblance to Thai script in structure and form and characters inspired from the Hebrew alphabet, although the characters themselves are different.[1] It contains 36 consonant characters, 9 vowel characters, and 7 combining tone characters.[1] There are also 5 characters for determinatives used to indicate that the preceding noun is the name of a person, place, thing, vertebrate or invertebrate animal, or a pet name for the animal. Determinatives are not pronounced, but help distinguish homophones. They appear as the last character in a word, and are not separated by a space.[3]
Terminology
The term Ntawv Nyiajkeeb Puajtxwm Hmoob means ‘Genesis Complete Hmong script’; ntawv means ‘letter’, nyiajkeeb means ‘genesis’, puajtxwm means ‘complete’, and hmoob is ‘Hmong’.[1] The script is also called Hmong Kong Hmong, Pa Dao Hmong (also the name of a different Hmong script), and 'the Chervang script', after its inventor.[1]
