[verst]

I would love such a model. My wife's family is Iu Mien which is a sub group of the Dao/Yao Chinese ethnic minority. Mien is its own language but most speakers are essentially illiterate. I'm good with language but there simply isn't a course or any books for learning the language. Not much in writing to begin with given the high illiteracy rate. I would love to build a translation system - project Hail Mary style :)

[yorwba]

FWIW someone wrote their PhD thesis on the Iu Mien language: https://opal.latrobe.edu.au/articles/thesis/An_Iu_Mien_gramm... It's not a textbook, but that doesn't mean you can't try to use it as a textbook. For example, there are some thoroughly-analyzed example texts. Also, the acknowledgments section mentions the Iu Mien Literacy Project, which has published a short course on the very basics, as it turns out: https://iumienliteracyprojects.com/resources/ I suspect the 925-page PDF contains some more hints to additional resources like that. :)

[verst]

Unfortunately there are two sub groups of Iu Mien with somewhat different vocabulary as well - and my wife is from the other group. I had found this pdf document previously - thanks for the pointer! I'll see what I can do with it.