Fraser script


The Fraser or Old Lisu script is an artificial script 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 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, 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 Chinese government recognized the script in 1992 as the official script for writing in Lisu.

Consonants

Note: You may need to download a Lisu capable Unicode font if not all characters display.
  1. Initial glottal stop is not written. It is automatic before all initial vowels but and.
  2. sometimes represents a "vowel", presumably a medial, and sometimes a consonant. and are likewise ambiguous.
  3. only occurs in an imperative particle. It is an allophone of , which causes nasalization to the syllable.

    Vowels

For example, is, while is.

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 one still in common use is.
The apostrophe indicates nasalization. It is combined with tone marks.
The understrike 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 :