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Father Yves Bertrais
THE HMONG
RPA FOUNDERS’ RECOGNITION
Sheraton
Inn Milwaukee
Brown
Deer, Wisconsin, U.S.A.
June 28,
1997
BRIEF
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF
THE HMONG RPA
SCRIPT AND ITS FOUNDERS
The Hmong
constitute one of the most ancient peoples in Asia. Today,
they number about 8 million, including other subgroups of
Miao, scattered by the events of history, over centuries,
from China to Southeast Asian, from Laos to Australia,
Europe and America. Since 1975, which marked the end of
the Vietnam War, more than 150,000 Hmong refugees from the
Secret War of Laos have been resettled in the United
States.
If the
Hmong had a long and rich oral tradition, their language
was provided with a writing system only 45 years ago.
Thus, in 1952, in Luang Prabang, the Royal City of the
former Kingdom of Laos, three men - Dr. Linwood Barney,
Father Yves Bertrais and Dr. William Smalley - put their
efforts and knowledge together to create the Hmong
Romanized Popular Alphabet (R.P.A.) script. Immediately
after, Father Bertrais started teaching the Hmong R.P.A.
to a first group of young Hmong in his adopted Hmong
village of the Guars Mountains (Roob Nyuj Qus), some 50
miles south of Luang Prabang, where in 1950 he had begun
his apostolic mission with the Hmong in Laos, whom he has
never left since then.
Today,
tens of thousands of Hmong, men and women, young and old,
in Laos, Thailand, Burma, China, Vietnam, France (and
French Guyana), Australia, Canada, Argentina and in the
United States use the Hmong RPA script as a vehicle to
communicate among themselves. The Hmong media (newspapers,
radio broadcast and television) which are beginning to
develop in the United States, and American public offices
and hospitals use the Hmong writing system for their
official translations or communications. The Hmong RPA is
now officially taught at the Central Institute of the
Chinese Nationalities in Beijing and in several American
public schools and universities. Finally, in the early
1980’s, thanks to the beneficence and contribution of
Archbishop Renato R. Martino, Apostolic Nuncio, Permanent
Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, Father
Bertrais, with the assistance of a group of Hmong, was
able to start conducting intensive research on Hmong
history, culture and traditions in Southeast Asia and in
China. Over the past four decades, thousands of books and
newsletters have been published in the Hmong languages. In
brief, in less than a half century, the Hmong RPA has
contributed to he social, economic and political
development of the Hmong people who came from the Middle
ages to modern times.
Thus, the
Hmong around the world owe a deep debt of gratitude to Dr.
Barney, Father Bertrais and Dr. Smalley, the founders of
the Hmong RPA. The Hmong RPA Founders’ Recognition which
takes place today at Sheraton Inn Milwaukee of Brown Deer,
Wisconsin, is the humble expression of the Hmong
sentiments of appreciation.
Who are these founders with a
so generous heart?
1) Dr.
Linwood Barney was born in 1923 in Rumney, New
Hampshire, U.S.A. He graduated in 1946 from Taylor
University of Indiana and received his Doctoral Degree
in Anthropology at the University of Minnesota in 1968.
In 1951, he was sent by his Christian and Missionary
Alliance Church to Xieng Khouang, Laos, where he first
met the Hmong people. In 1952, he contributed to the
creation of the Hmong RPA in Luang Prabang, in 1954, Dr.
Barney was forced by the situation of the First
Indochina War (1946-1954) to leave Southeast Asia to
come back to the United States. He was successively
pastor, missionary, professor and, finally, dean of
Jaffrey School of Missions, renames as Alliance
Theological Seminary in New York.
2) Father
Yves Bertrais was born in 1921 in Nantes, France. In
1969, he graduated from the Sorbonne, University of
Paris, with a thesis on Hmong traditional marriage. In
1948, he arrived in Vientiane, Laos, to take the Word of
Jesus to the highland Laotian people. In April 1950, he
joined the Hmong in the village of the Gaurs Mountains
in Luang Prabang province. In 1952, he participated in
the invention of the Hmong RPA script which he taught to
the Hmong in Laos first and, later on, in Thailand,
China and Vietnam. While pursuing his apostolic mission
in the mountains of Laos, he actively contributed to the
preservation of Hmong history, culture and traditions as
well as to the social and economic development of the
Hmong people. Finally, he is the founder of the Hmong
Cultural Heritage Association, based in French Guyana,
which was renamed Association of Hmong Cultural
Heritage, recently transferred to the Philippines to be
close to the majority of the Hmong, who remain in China
and Southeast Asia.
3) Dr.
William Smalley was born in 1923 in Jerusalem,
Palestine. He received his Ph.D. in anthropological
linguistics at Columbia University in New York City in
1956. In 1951, he went to Luang Prabang, Laos, to study
and analyze the Khmu language. In 1952, he was
instrumental in the creation of the Hmong RPA and , in
1954, he left Southeast Asia to come back to the United
States, where he worked as a translation consultant for
the American Bible Society. From 1968 to 1987, he taught
at Bethel College of Shoreview, Minnesota.
For the
Steering Committee
Xia Vue
Yang
June 28,1997
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