Sam Pollard

Samuel Pollard (20 April 1864 in Camelford, Cornwall – 16 September 1915 in China) was a British Methodist missionary to China with the China Inland Mission who converted many of the Big Flowery Miao (now called the Hmong) in Guizhou to Christianity, and who created a writing system that is still in use today.

Biography

Born the son of a Bible Christian Church preacher, Sam Pollard initially aimed for a career in the civil service. However, a conference in London in 1885 encouraged him to instead become a missionary. [cite web | url=http://www.mundus.ac.uk/cats/4/959.htm | title=Sam Pollard | author= | work=School of Oriental and African Studies Library | accessmonthday=July 29 | accessyear=2005 — the School of Oriental and African Studies Library holds most of Sam Pollard's notes, diaries, letters, and papers] He was appointed a missionary in 1886, left the United Kingdom for China in 1887, and was posted to Yunnan province in 1888. He remained in China, as a missionary, until his death from typhoid.

In 1891 he was posted to a newly opened Bible Christian mission station in Chaotung, where he married Emmie Hainge. He began a Christian movement with the Big Flowery Miao in 1905 that spread to Chaotung. Pollard also invented a script for the Miao language called the Pollard Script (also sometimes called the "Ahmao script"). He credited the basic idea of the script to the Cree syllabary, "While working out the problem, we remembered the case of the syllabics used by James Evans, a Methodist missionary among the Indians of North America, and resolved to do as he had done" (1919:174). He also gave credit to a non-Miao Chinese pastor, “Stephen Lee assisted me very ably in this matter, and at last we arrived at a system” (1919:174).

Pollard never claimed any divine inspiration or vision in creating the script. Rather, he left a record of hard work, advice from others, and ideas from other scripts. At the beginning, he wrote, he “made an experiment in getting out a written language for the Miao”, even writing out some symbols in his diary (Enwall 1994:1.104). He credited the basic idea of the script to the Cree syllabary (discussed above), “While working out the problem, we remembered the case of the syllabics used by a Methodist missionary among the Indians of North America, and resolved to do as he had done” (1919:174). He also gave credit to a Chinese pastor, “Stephen Lee assisted me very ably in this matter, and at last we arrived at a system” (1919:174). In another document he wrote “Mr. Stephen Lee and I are attempting to reduce the Miao language to a simply system of writing. The attempt may succeed or it may end... stillborn” (Enwall 1994:1.105). He asked himself in his diary “How shall I manage to distinguish tones?” then later wrote how he had found the solution in adopting an idea from Pitman’s shorthand (Enwall 1994:1.170, 171). In listing the phrases he used to describe the process of creating the script, there is clear indication of work, not revelation: “we looked about”, “working out the problem”, “resolved to attempt”, “assisted”, “at last we arrived at a system”, “adapting the system”, “we found”, “solved our problem” (1919:174,175). In all of this, we see no hint of specific revelation or any vision, only intellectual labor.He used it to translate the New Testament. The script was unique in the fact that it used the initial consonant of a syllable, with the vowel placed above or below it, in order to indicate which tone the vowel was. [cite web | url=http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=95137&pageno=73 | title=Across China on Foot | author=Edwin Dingle | work=Project Gutenberg | accessmonthday=July 29 | accessyear=2005 — Dingle describes how Sam Pollard used positioning of vowel marks relative to consonants to indicate tones]

Pollard received pressure from some British sources that if the Roman alphabet was not suitable, he should consider using the Burmese alphabet (Enwall 1994:1.108). He did not accept this suggestions, but Pollard did leave the door open for switching over to Roman letters, writing in 1906, "It is quite possible later on to turn our system into Romanised, where there is a successful Romanised system in use which will solve the tone difficulty" (quoted in Enwall 1994:1.108). A large part of Pollard’s motivation for creating his script was to have a way to adequately mark the sounds of the language, especially the tones. It has remained in use for 90 years, despite efforts to supersede it.

During his mission he travelled extensively, founding churches, training other missionaries, performing the role of language examiner, and arguing the causes of Miao Christians.

Bibliography

* cite book
author=Sam Pollard (with Henry Smith and F J Dymond)
title=The Story of the Miao
year=1909
publisher=United Methodist Magazine
id= republished posthumously as:
** cite book
author=Sam Pollard (with Henry Smith and F J Dymond)
title=The Story of the Miao
year=1919
location=London | publisher=Henry Hooks
id=
* cite book
author=Sam Pollard
title=Tight Corners in China
year=1913
publisher=
id=
* cite book
author=Sam Pollard
title=In Unknown China: observations, adventures and experiences of a pioneer missionary
year=1921
publisher=
id=
* cite book
author=Sam Pollard, ed R Elliott Kendall
title=Eyes of the Earth: the diary of Samuel Pollard
year=1954
publisher=London, Cargate Press
id=

Pollard, Samuel. 1919. Gathering up the fragments. London: Hooks.

References

Enwall, Joakim. 1994. A Myth Become Reality: History and Development of the Miao Written Language, two volumes. (Stockholm East Asian Monographs, 5 & 6.) Stockholm: Institute of Oriental Languages, Stockholm University.

Hudspeth, Will. 1937. Stone-Gateway and the Flowery Miao. London: The Cargate Press.

Pollard, Samuel. 1919. Gathering up the fragments. London: Hooks.

* — Morrison recounts meeting Sam Pollard and his wife at the Bible Christian Mission in 1894
* — reports on an article in "The Sunday Times" describing the continuing influence of the work of Sam Pollard after his death
* — quotes Sam Pollard in his efforts to instil a "new-born sense of shame" into his converts, to curb behaviour that he regarded as being drunkenness and promiscuity
* — Lemoine reports that after 1949 the Pollard script was retained as a symbol of cultural identity and pride
*

Further reading

* cite book
author=William Alexander Grist
title=Samuel Pollard. Pioneer Missionary in China
year=1921
location=London | publisher=Henry Hooks
id=
* cite book
author=Walter Pollard
title=Sam Pollard, a hero of China
year=1928
location=London | publisher=Seeley, Service & Co
id=
* cite book
author=Ernest H Hayes
title= Sam Pollard of Yunnan: The Pioneer Series
year=1946
location=Wallington | publisher=Religious Education Press
id=, also published as:
** cite book
author=Ernest H Hayes
title=Sam Pollard of Yunnan
year=1947
publisher=Carwal Publications
id=
* cite book
author=
title=Zai Wei Zhide Zhongguo (In Unknown China)
year=2002
publisher=Yunnan Minorities Press
id=ISBN 7-5367-2353-9 — full Chinese translations of books about the ministry of Po Geli (Sam Pollard) including "The Story of the Miao", "In Unknown China", "Stone Gateway", and the "Flowery Miao"
*cite web | url=http://www.archives.ecs.soton.ac.uk/miao/pronunciation/soundssymbols.pdf | title=The symbols and sounds of the Ahmao script | author=Daniel W. Crofts, College of New Jersey | work=AAS Annual Meeting 2005, China and Inner Asia session 168 | accessmonthday=July 29 | accessyear=2005
*cite web | url=http://www.tribaltextiles.info/Galleries/A-hmao/ahmao_introduction.htm | title=The people called “A-hmao” and their writing | author=R Keith Parsons | work=A-Hmao introduction | accessmonthday=July 29 | accessyear=2005
* cite book
author=Daniel H. Bays (editor)
title=Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present
year=1996
publisher=Stanford University Press
id= — Part II includes Norma Diamond's study of Sam Pollard's work
* cite book
author=
title=Samuel Pollard: missionary supreme, born 20 April 1864; a centenary tribute
year=1964
publisher=
oclc=24160324
* cite book
author=R Elliot Kendall
title=Beyond the Clouds. The story of Samuel Pollard of South-West China
year=1948
publisher=Cargate Press
id=
* cite book
author=Ernest C. Pollard
title=Sermons in Stones
year=1993
publisher=The Woodburn Press
id= — Written by Samuel Pollard's son, a well-known professor of physics and biophysics. "Sermon" 17, "The Story of Sam Pollard, written for Atheists" offers a very personal look at Sam Pollard's life and motivation

Hudspeth, Will. 1937. Stone-Gateway and the Flowery Miao. London: The Cargate Press.

Moody, Edward H. (1956). Sam Pollard. Grand Rapids: Zondervan and London: Oliphants Ltd.

ee also

*List of China Inland Mission missionaries in China

External links

* [http://wikitree.org/index.php?title=Samuel_Pollard Samuel Pollard's family tree]
* [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/pollardmiao.htm The Pollard script]

Persondata
NAME=Pollard, Sam
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Pollard, Samual
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Missionary in China, Inventor of Miao script
DATE OF BIRTH= [20 April 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH=Camelford, Cornwall, England
DATE OF DEATH=16 September 1915
PLACE OF DEATH=China