Fraser script


The Fraser or Old Lisu script is an artificial abugida for the Lisu language invented around 1915 by Sara Ba Thaw, a Karen preacher from Myanmar, and improved by the missionary James O. Fraser. It is a single-case alphabet. It was also used for the Naxi language, e.g. in the 1932 Naxi Gospel of Mark, and used in the Zaiwa or Atsi language, e.g. in the 1938 Atsi Gospel of Mark.
The script uses uppercase letters from the Latin script and rotated versions thereof 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 for official matters.

Consonants

Note: You may need to download a Lisu-capable Unicode font if not all characters display.
  1. Initial glottal stop is only written when the inherent vowel follows, and just like all consonants, the inherent vowel suffix must not be written as that would indicate another follows. It is automatic before all initial vowels but and.
  2. represents a "vowel" in the Naxi language, presumably, and a consonant in the Lisu language., and are likewise ambiguous.
  3. only occurs in an imperative particle. It is an allophone of , which causes nasalization to the syllable.
  4. , and are used only in Lisu language.
  5. is used only in Naxi language.

    Vowels

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 diphthongs and nasal codas, 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 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 and the full stop is .
*

The tones,,, may be combined with and as compound tones. However, the only compound tone still in common use is.
The apostrophe indicates nasalization. It is combined with tone marks.
The 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.

Letter forms

Although Fraser published a serif form of the script, almost all typesetting today is done in a sans-serif typeface.

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 :