The Qiang/Rma Script is a newly created script to write the Qiang/Rma language. Qiang/Rma is a Tibeto-Burman Language spoken in Sichuan Province of China with around 100,000 ethnic Qiang and Tibetan speakers.
The script contains 52 phonetic letters and a couple more punctuation marks (62 characters in total). It is an alphabet with some characteristics of abugida. The shapes of the letters originally come from an abstract representation of a goat head with long curved horns, which is the symbol for Qiang Ethnicity, and its segmentation, rotation and other variations. However, out of consideration of legibility as well as aesthetics, the letterforms have undergone iterations of several versions and the original pictographic intention has largely become obscured.
Specimen:
sduava seqina?
Type in:
Letters:
| Letter | IPA | Romanization | Font Mapping | Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| b | p | b | b | ba |
| p | ph | p | p | pa |
| B | b | bb | B | bba |
| m | m | m | m | ma |
| f | f | f | f | fa |
| w | w | w | w | wa |
| P | v | wf | P | wfa |
| d | t | d | d | da |
| t | th | t | t | ta |
| D | d | dd | D | dda |
| n | n | n | n | na |
| L | ɬ | lh | L | lha |
| l | l | l | l | la |
| Y | ɭ/r | rl | Y | rla |
| g | k | g | g | ga |
| k | kh | k | k | ka |
| G | g | gg | G | gga |
| M | ŋ | ng | M | ma |
| h | x | h | h | ha |
| H | ɣ | hh | H | hha |
| j | tɕ | j | j | ja |
| q | tɕh | q | q | qa |
| J | dʑ | jj | J | jja |
| y | j | y | y | ya |
| x | ɕ | x | x | xa |
| X | ʑ | xx | X | xxa |
| Q | q | gv | Q | gva |
| K | qh | kv | K | kva |
| F | ɦ | vh | F | vha |
| v | χ | v | v | va |
| V | ʁ | vv | V | vva |
| z | ts | z | z | za |
| c | tsh | c | c | ca |
| Z | dz | zz | Z | zza |
| s | s | s | s | sa |
| S | z | ss | S | ssa |
| T | tʂ | zh | T | zha |
| C | tʂh | ch | C | cha |
| W | dʐ | dh | W | dha |
| U | ʂ | sh | U | sha |
| R | ʐ | rr | R | rra |
| ◌u | u | u | u | ugud |
| ◌e | ə | e | e | eged |
| a | ɑ | a | a | amegv |
| i | ɪ | i | i | i |
| I | y | ü | I | yu |
| o | o | o | o | o |
| A | æ | ae | A | aemaegv |
| E | e | ea | E | eameagv |
| O | ː | double letter | O | agvei |
| O | ʔ¹ | O | agvei | |
| r | ɹ² | r | r | r |
| ◌N | ◌̃ | nn | N | nn |
| & | ʐme³ | Rrmea | & | rrmea |
1: Same character as the long vowel sign. Used when no consonant letter is available for diacritics.
2: R-coloring of vowels.
3: This is a special letter meaning Qiang/Rma that's invariant across dialects.
2: R-coloring of vowels.
3: This is a special letter meaning Qiang/Rma that's invariant across dialects.
Vowel variation
Two distinct methods are currently in use for representing the vowels /ɑ/ and /æ/. The first method employs one dot for /ɑ/ and two dots for /æ/, while the second method uses a bar for /ɑ/ and a V-shaped diacritic for /æ/. These variations originated from differing decisions made during the early stages of script development.
The dot style, having been utilized in the textbook published in 2018, can be viewed as the more “official” method. However, the bar style is also recognized by users and can be observed in various public settings. In fact this page has undergone modifications in showing one or the other of the styles.
Tone marks:
Most southern Qiang varieties have tones, where the High-Low contrast is the prevalent case. The Taoping variety in Li County with 6 tones has the most number of tones found in Qiang.
Two tone marks `(High) and ~(Low) (mapped to ` and ~ respectively in the font) and their interaction with the long vowel sign "O" (length contrast only in atonal varieties) are expected to write all tones in Qiang. Take for example the syllable ma/ma/, the following are its possible tonal representations: ma ma` ma~ ma`~ maO ma`O ma~O ma`~O maO` maO~ maO`~ ma`O` ma`O~ ma`O`~ ma~O` ma~O~ ma~O`~ ma`~O` ma`~O~ ma`~O`~
Given the somewhat different tonal contrasts in different dialects, a rule of thumb for using the marks is that if the dialect only has a high-low difference, then only the high tone is explicitly marked, and the low tone is represented by no mark. If there are two low tones, the lower one is explicitly marked with a low tone symbol. If there are more than three basic tones, the least common one can be marked by two tone symbols at the same time. For tones with contour changes, if it is a rising tone, a long vowel sign with a high tone can be added; if it is a falling tone, a long vowel sign with no tone mark or a low tone can be added; if it is some other contour, two long vowel signs can be added or other combinations of tones and long vowels can be used.
Tone in Luobuzhai
For now, only the Luobuzhai variety spoken in Wenchuan county has some real-life adoption of this new script. Here are some of the rules to write tones in Luobuzhai.
One High tone mark is used to write the Luobuzhai variety. Besides it, the long vowel sign is also used to mark syllables that are rising tone at word-final positions and low tone when followed by suffixes, as vowel length alone does not differentiate words and the rising tone is realized with longer articulation.
Other Low tones are left unmarked.
In Luobuzhai, within a word, only the first syllable of a continuous block of high-toned syllables is marked with the High tone mark. The rightward “spread” of the high tone stops when met with a syllable comprising of the long vowel sign (low tone with overt marking).
| Mark | Name | Font Mapping | Usage Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ∅ | No marking for Low tone | mu | /mu(L)/ people | |
| ` | High tone mark | ` | mu` | /mu(H)/ fire |
| O | Long vowel sign Rising/Low tone mark |
O | DiEmuO | /die(L)mu(R)/ to forget |
| mu`ku | /mu(H)khu(H)/ smoke | |||
| DiEma`muOyE | /die(L)mɑ(H)mu(L)je(L)/ (thing) not to forget | |||
| Fama`loOmi` mu | /ɦɑ(L)mɑ(H)lo(L)mi(H) mu(L)/ people who don't come down |
L: low tone, H: high tone, R: rising tone.
Punctuation marks:
| Mark | Name | Mark | Name | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| , | comma | ‘ | left single quote | |
| . | period | ’ | right single quote | |
| ! | exclamation mark | “ | left double quote | |
| ? | question mark | ” | right double quote |
Keyboard Layout
Given the large number of letters in the Rma script, it’s necessary to use the Shift key to map all the letters to keys. To ensure smooth input in practice, the following composing mode is developed. This mode, which is inspired by the Romanization scheme, allows for the input of all Rma letters without the need to press Shift:
