- David R. Mortensen. 2004. Preliminaries to Mong Leng (Hmong Njua) Phonology. Abstract: Mong Leng (also called Hmong Njua or Green Hmong) is a dialect group within Far Western Hmong, and Mong Leng varieties are mutually intelligible with several other dialects of Far Western Hmong, including Hmong Daw (White Hmong). The Mong Leng speaker population is quite large for a Hmongic language, and there are perhaps 1,245,000 or more speakers worldwide. These speakers are distributed through parts of Southwestern China (Guizhou, Sichuan, and Yunnan provices), Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Burma and (via migration from Laos) the United States, French Guiana, France, Australia, and several other western nations. This paper is meant as a short sketch of the phonological inventory and phonotactics of Mong Leng. The dialect presented in this paper is a somewhat idealized form of the language variety spoken by Mong Leng emigres from Xieng Khoang province in Laos. A different treatment of a similar dialect of Mong Leng (from Thailand) is to be found in Lyman (1974). Basic information about Hmong Daw (White Hmong) phonology is to be found in Heimbach (1969:xi-xiv, xvii-xxiii), and a different treatment is given by Ratliff (1992:8-13). Wang (1983:16-23) gives a good phonological sketch of the Dananshan dialect of Hmong, closely related to both Mong Leng and Hmong Daw.
