Fraser Script

The Fraser or Old Lisu script is an artificial abugida invented around 1915 by Sara Ba Thaw, a Karen preacher from Myanmar and improved by the missionary James O. Fraser, to write the Lisu language. It is a single-case (unicameral) alphabet. It was also used for the Naxi language, e.g. the 1932 Naxi Gospel of Mark and used in the Zaiwa or Atsi language e.g. the 1938 Atsi Gospel of Mark.

The script uses uppercase letters from the Latin script (Except for the letter Q) and rotated versions thereof (Except for the letters M, Q and W), to write consonants and vowels. Tones and nasalization are written with Roman punctuation marks, identical to those found on a typewriter. Like the Indic abugidas, the vowel is not written. However, unlike those scripts, the other vowels are written with full letters.

The local Chinese government in Nujiang ''de facto'' recognized the script in 1992 as the official script for writing in Lisu, although other Lisu autonomous territories continue to use the New Lisu.

Consonants

Note: You may need to download a Lisu capable Unicode font if not all characters display.

#Initial glottal stop is only written when the inherit vowel follows, and just like all consonants, the inherit vowel suffix must not be written as that would indicate another follows ( instead of ). It is automatic before all initial vowels but and .
# represents a "vowel" in the Naxi language, presumably a medial , and a consonant in the Lisu language . , and are likewise ambiguous.
# only occurs in an imperative particle. It is an allophone of , which causes nasalization to the syllable.
# , and are used only in Lisu language.
# is used only in Naxi language.

Vowels

:**Only written after a syllable (consonant letter) to indicate a second vowel. Other vowels does not have special letters to emphasize a secondary vowel without glottal stop initial, such as () is not written as and can only be distinguished from () by a space.

For example, is , while is .

When consonant ꓠꓬ, ꓬ is used with vowel ꓬꓱ, ꓬ, without being ambiguous only one ꓬ is written.

When transcribing exotic rimes (diphthongs or nasal endings), letters ꓮ and ꓬ can work like vowels just like English letter Y, making Fraser script behave like an abjadic alphabet like the Roman instead of an abugida like Tibetan; meanwhile space works like a delimiter like a Tibetan tseg, making a final consonant (such as ꓠ) possible without necessity of a halanta sign: 凉粉 reads as rather than as .

Tones

Tones are written with standard punctuation. Lisu punctuation therefore differs from international norms: the comma is (hyphen period) and the full stop is (equal sign).

:*It is not clear how the mid tone differs from the unmarked mid tone.
The tones , , , may be combined with and as compound tones. However, the only one still in common use is .

The apostrophe indicates nasalization. It is combined with tone marks.

The understrike (optionally a low macron) indicates the Lisu "A glide", a contraction of without an intervening glottal stop. The tone is not always falling, depending on the environment, but is written regardless.

Unicode

The Fraser script was added to the Unicode Standard in October, 2009 with the release of version 5.2.

The Unicode block for the Fraser script, called 'Lisu', is U+A4D0–U+A4FF:

An additional character, the inverted Y used in the Naxi language, was added to the Unicode Standard in March, 2020 with the release of version 13.0. It is in the Lisu Supplement block (U+11FB0–U+11FBF):

See also

*OMF International

References

External links

''Omniglot'' entry on Fraser scriptProposal for encoding the Old Lisu script in the BMP of the UCSIssues in orthography development and reform
by David Bradley
Sample text
from Michael Everson's website

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