Iceve Orthography (original) (raw)
Standardized orthography: a shoe for barefoot
A standard written form is necessary for every language to meet today's technological expectations. Only a standardized orthography can access modern tools such as Google Translator and the like. Moreover, writing is the only possible approach to the domains of administration, bureaucracy and education. Therefore, language standardisation should not be regarded as an enemy of autochthonous languages but as a small price to be paid to support minority languages in the real world and in the cyberspace. In this paper, we will present the joint experience of CNR-ILC and Smallcodes in the use of standardized orthographies for the design of digital tools for minority languages, and report about different approaches to orthography standardisation that were encountered over the years: from a top-down approach of Friulian to a moderately polynomial approach of Alpine Occitan; from an ''umbrella-like'' spelling system of Dolomitan Ladin to a mixed logographic and polynomia...
Orthography: Adjustments, Reforms, Failures
2016
The writing systems were borrowed by people speaking dissimilar languages, characterised by phonetic features that not entirely matched the original set of graphemes. Discrepancies that emerged whenever a foreign writing system was borrowed are constantly obliterated by graphic conventions inside each language. Greek, Latin, nevertheless Romanian graphemes attest the adjustments made throughout the history.
Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft / Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science (HSK), 2019
An Orthography of the Ososo Language.pdf
This work is a proposed orthography for the Ọsọsọ language. Ọsọsọ is Edoid (Lewis 2012). The aim of this study is to close the gap created by the dearth of empirical studies on the language. As pre-requisite for identifying a writing system for Ọ̀sọ́sọ̀, a study of its sound system was conducted. This included aspects of the phonetics and phonology of the language. A study of aspects of word formation in the language was also conducted. These preliminary studies formed the bedrock for formulating an orthography for the language. The study relied on both oral and written data. The oral data were required to ascertain the spoken form of the language hence discourses at meetings, homes, marketplace, marriage ceremony and church service were tape recorded; overt and covert transcription was equally done on the field, while data to verify the orthography literate indigenes use were obtained from circulated copies of Ibadan wordlist of 400 basic vocabulary items and typed script containing 20 short sentences drawn from Thomas compilation which he based on Greenberg’s list of words for African languages. The study also relied on conversation from social media platforms like facebook and whatsapp to further gain insight into the orthography used by different age groups in their vernacular chats. The framework for the study was based on the Structuralist phoneme theory using the minimal pair test. Ọ ̀sọ ́sọ ̀ language has a lot of similarities with its Ẹdoid sister languages especially Ẹdo and Emai, however, it still has sufficient unique peculiarities to require an orthography of its own. This study therefore proposed an appropriate orthography for the language. Although one acknowledges that orthography development of any language is a huge task that requires government backing and series of stake holders workshop, still, effort must start from somewhere especially the provision of a sound linguistic framework which remains the most basic pre-requisite needed for language planning in general and orthography development in particular.
FACTORS IN DESIGNING EFFECTIVE ORTHOGRAPHIES FOR UNWRITTEN LANGUAGES
SIL Electronic Working Papers, 2008
Abstract Recent interest in preserving endangered languages has led to a corresponding interest in orthographies for such languages. This paper, based on SIL's decades-long corporate experience as well as literature studies, summarizes the major factors which must be considered when planning an orthography. Issues of acceptability and usability must be balanced with the obvious prerequisite of linguistic soundness.
Creating an Orthography Description
2003
For those working with minority languages, one of the first needs is the ability to work with the orthography of the language on a computer. The prerequisite for this is an adequate description of the orthography. But how does one go about that description? What is needed to form such a description? This paper provides a detailed outline for such a description with practical suggestions for a variety of script families and addressing particular domain specific issues.
Standardised orthography - A shoe for a bare foot
Smallcodes srl (www.smallcodes.com) is a company based in Florence and made by a group of six people who believed that working with minority languages was economically sustainable and even profitable. We were wrong about that. But we also believed, and we still do, that the way to preserve these minority languages was the use of technology. Technology, by definition, is one of the most standardised and homogenizing field. It may sound bizarre that our way to fight cultural assimilation is the use of the most standardising thing in the world, namely technology, but that is what we firmly believe. That is why, together with the Institute of Computational Linguistics of National Research Council, we gained some experience in the use of standardised orthographies for the design of digital tools for minority languages.
One Orthography, Four Lects: The Unified Berawan Orthography
Berawan is an endangered Austronesian language family consisting of four lects, which are Batu Belah, Long Teru, Long Jegan, and Long Terawan. Their settlements are located in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. The impetus for a unified orthography came from the Berawan community, who desire to write their lects consistently and reflecting the way they speak. The unified orthography was developed starting with a phonological analysis of the Berawan lects. This was followed by several orthography workshops and discussions with individual Berawan communities, culminating in a combined orthography workshop in which a unified orthography was agreed upon. The aim of the paper is to provide the groundwork for establishing the unifed orthography of the Berawan language family. A phonological comparison of the four Berawan varieties is included for this purpose. The phonological descriptions are taken from Burkhardt (2014). maxim of 'maximal representation of speech 'shallow orthography' approach are employed. On this basis, issues that arise for graphemic representation of Berawan phonemes are then discussed and the decisions made by the participants of the combined workshops are described. The paper also touches on issues encountered throughout the discussion. The issues that arose are primarily related to the differences in orthographic systems between the Berawan lects and the Malay language. The paper ends with a proposed unified Berawan orthography including a comprehensive list of phoneme-grapheme correspondences.
A guide to the developing orthography of Icetod
2015
didi didi 'rain, weather' dob dɔbᵃ 'mud' duɗer dʉɗɛr 'water beetle' zeƙw zɛƙwᵃ 'stay, habitation' zin zɨn 'zebra' zot zɔtᵃ 'chain' zuk zukᵘ 'very' loperen 'ghost' namɛɗɔ 'back of head' loupal 'cobra' narɛʉ 'viper species' Feɓurar Fɛɓʉrarᵓ 'February' Mac Macᵓ 'March' Epiril Epirilᵒ 'April' Mey Meyᵒ 'May' Jun Junᵒ 'June' Julay Julayᵒ 'July' tsol tsol 'bee-eater' tsowir tsowir 'speckled mousebird' tsor tsɔr 'baboon' zin zɨn 'zebra' tufereƙ tʉfɛrɛƙᵃ 'black-jack' xuxub xuxubᵃ 'forest dombeya' tsitsin tsɨtsɨn 'dipping stick' watsʼw watsʼwᵃ 'rock-crevice beehive' tsʼe tsʼɛ 'skin' tsorit tsoritᵃ 'blood vessel' Recent past Recent past intentional 1SG 'I' fútíà nàkᵃ fútésíá nàkᵃ 2SG 'you' fútídà nàkᵃ fútésídà nàkᵃ
Orthography Development for the Standardization of Bhujel: Issues and Approaches
JODEM ( Journal of the Department of English), Vol. 3, pp. 1-8, 2011
This paper attempts to examine the issues and approaches to orthography development for the standardization of Bhujel, a preliterate language. Bhujel, natively referred to as puk'gyal yur. (puk'gyal 'Bhujel' and yur language'), along with Hayu and other Kiranti languages, is one of the east Himalayish languages of Himalayish section of the Bodic branch of Tibeto-Burman language family (Regmi, 2007). Ît is an endangered language spoken by 10,733 (.e. 9.196) of the 1. 17.664 ethnic Bhujel (Gurung et al., 2006) However, this language is actually spoken by an estimated 3,923 of 5418 (i.e.72.4%) ethnic Bhujel, most of them living along the Mahabharata mountain range of Tanahun District of Nepal. Presently, they are also
2022. Types of orthographic standardization: A sociolinguistic approach (Télécom Paris, 08.06.2022)
In grapholinguistics (and linguistics in general), ‘orthography’ remains a contentious term let alone concept. Since English is a self-regulating writing system (cf. BERG/ARONOFF 2017, 2018) not or-thographically regulated by any official authority of linguistic policy, ‘orthography’ has often been used as a descriptive term more or less synonymous to ‘writing system’ in central and highly visible anglophone literature. In contrast, in other grapholinguistic traditions – such as the germanophone –, ‘orthography’ is interpreted prescriptively and tied to notions of normativity and system-external regulation (cf. NEEF 2015, DÜRSCHEID 2016, MELETIS 2020). While descriptive grapholinguistics (and its most prominent subbranch of graphematics) is concerned with what is systematic (or ‘grammatical’), i.e., conforms to the regularities of the system, orthography adds to this the evalua-tive and (meta)¬prag¬ma¬tic¬ally relevant notion of ‘correctness’. However, the existence of orthographic standardization cannot be captured by a simplifying dichotomy, with systems like English classified as unregulated and systems like German as officially regulated; instead, there is a whole variety of different orthographies that serve as a normative benchmark in writing systems, rendering their respective users aware of the (in)correctness of scribal practices. In this paper, such different types of orthography will be described with the help of sever-al criteria that form the basis of a preliminary typology. In systems that are equipped with one, an orthography becomes a structural matter; however, it always originates as a social phenomenon, which is echoed by the predominantly sociolinguistic nature of the following criteria (cf. also CA-HILL 2014, HINTON 2014): — Natural vs. artificial captures whether the orthographic conventions in a writing system have de-veloped naturally, through implicit negotiations among users during the prolonged continued use of the writing system (cf. MIHM 2016 for premodern orthographies), to become a ‘phenomenon of the third kind’ (cf. KELLER 2014), or whether they are artificial in the sense of having either been (1) implemented for an existing and established writing system without consideration of the actual use of that system (whether said system already had an orthographic standardization or not), or (2) im-plemented immediately during/after the creation of a new writing system, which has thus never been in use without a standardization. — Regulated vs. unregulated describes, in a narrow sense, whether an orthographic standardization is officially regulated by an external stakeholder of linguistic policy (such as the Council for German Orthography in the case of German orthography) or not (such as English orthographies; cf. also KARAN 2014). — Codified vs. uncodified reflects whether orthographic conventions are externally and explicitly cod-ified as rules – whether these are officially regulated or not. Types of codifications include rule-books, guidelines, and dictionaries. Notably, orthographies can be unregulated but codified (such as English orthographies, for which there exist dictionaries with – strictly speaking – only nonofficial status). — Original vs. reformed is a subcriterion assessing whether a regulated codified orthography exists in its first, i.e., original form, or whether it has been reformed, i.e., re-codified, at least once. — Community involvement vs. no community involvement (or a continuum of bottom-up vs. top-down standardization): In a loose sense, this criterion pertains to the involvement of users in the (implicit or explicit, gradual or onetime) establishment of orthographic conventions, their codifica-tion as rules, and their potential reform, i.e., bottom-up processes of standardization. In a narrow sense, it describes whether community members are involved in the (initial) explicit regulation and possibly codification of orthographic rules (cf. BOW 2013, PAGE 2013 for case studies) – which is the case mostly in the context of literacy development (cf. LÜPKE 2011, the contributions in CA-HILL/RICE 2014), i.e., the creation of new writing systems from scratch. — As the first of two criteria that are structural in nature, variable vs. nonvariable establishes a con-tinuum capturing the degree of a writing system’s graphematic variability. It thus determines the possibility of (licensed or unlicensed) graphematic variation and with it, the expression of social (non-denotative) meaning and creativity etc. in writing. The Japanese writing system, for example, often affords multiple ways of writing the same word (or, more generally, utterance) without a devi-ance from the norm automatically being perceived as strictly ‘incorrect’ (cf. JOYCE/MASUDA 2019). It is crucial whether these variable parts of a writing system are unregulated, as there may exist graphematically highly variable writing systems which are strictly regulated and thus do not afford the same possibilities for ‘correct’ graphematic variation. — Motivated vs. arbitrary is used to evaluate whether orthographic conventions/rules are based on the graphematics of the writing system, i.e., its internal systematics and its actual usage, in which case they are motivated, or whether they are arbitrary and based on other (external) considerations. It is important to emphasize that this list is, of course, non-exhaustive. However, the proposed crite-ria allow categorizing and comparing different types of orthographic standardization. This can (fi-nally) further our understanding of the status that diverse kinds of norms assume in different writing systems. Notably, linguistic norms arguably play a more prominent role in the written modality than in the spoken one – they possibly even originate in writing and literacy (cf. MĬKIL¬LÄH¬DE/LEP¬PÄ-NEN/IT¬KON¬EN 2019 for normativity in language). In this paper, not only the listed criteria will be presented – along with examples of writing systems and their orthographies to which they apply in various combinations – but a related im-portant question that will be raised is what bearing this typology has on central normative concepts such as ‘orthographic rule’ and ‘orthographic mistake’. Specifically, differences in the perception of prescriptivity will be highlighted – what to members of one literate community may be a rule (and a deviation from it a mistake) may for members of another community merely be a convention (and a ‘deviation’ from it variation). Fleshing out the basis of grapholinguistic normativity is expected to not only improve our understanding of writing and literacy practices, but pragmatics – and meta-pragmatic beliefs – regarding the linguistic and communicative behavior of members of literate communities in general. Furthermore, it is relevant to applied fields such as literacy development and the reform of existing orthographies. References BERG, KRISTIAN & MARK ARONOFF. 2017. Self-organization in the spelling of English suffixes: The emergence of culture out of anarchy. Language 93(1). 37–64. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2017.0000 BERG, KRISTIAN & MARK ARONOFF. 2018. Further evidence for self-organization in English spelling. Language 94(1). e48–e53. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2018.0013 BOW, CATHERINE. 2013. Community-based orthography development in four Western Zambian languages. Writ-ing Systems Research 5(1). 73–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/17586801.2012.747427 CAHILL, MICHAEL. 2014. Non-linguistic factors in orthographies. In Michael Cahill & Keren Rice (eds.), Develop-ing orthographies for unwritten languages, 9–25. Dallas: SIL International. CAHILL, MICHAEL & KEREN RICE (eds.). 2014. Developing orthographies for unwritten languages. Dallas: SIL In-ternational. DÜRSCHEID, CHRISTA. 2016. Einführung in die Schriftlinguistik, 5th edn. (UTB 3740). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. HINTON, LEANNE. 2014. Orthography wars. In Michael Cahill & Keren Rice (eds.), Developing or¬tho¬graphies for unwritten languages, 139–168. Dallas: SIL International. JOYCE, TERRY & HISASHI MASUDA. 2019. On the notions of orthography and graphematic representation from the perspective of the Japanese writing system. Written Language & Literacy 22(2). 247–279. https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.00028.joy KARAN, ELKE. 2014. Standardization: What’s the hurry? In Michael Cahill & Keren Rice (eds.), Developing or-thographies for unwritten languages, 107–138. Dallas: SIL International. KELLER, RUDI. 2014. Sprachwandel: von der unsichtbaren Hand in der Sprache, 4th edn. (UTB, 1567). Tübingen: Francke. LÜPKE, FRIEDERIKE. 2011. Orthography development. In Peter Austoin & Julia Sallabank (eds.), Hand-book of en-dangered languages, 312–336. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511975981.016 MÄKILLÄHDE, ALEKSI, VILLE LEPPÄNEN & ESA ITKONEN. 2019. Norms and normativity in language and linguistics: Basic concepts and contextualization. In Aleksi Mäkillähde, Ville Leppänen & Esa Itkonen (eds.), Norms and normativity in language and linguistics, 1–28. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.209.01mak MELETIS, DIMITRIOS. 2020. The nature of writing. A theory of grapholinguistics (Grapholinguistics and Its Applica-tions 3). Brest: Fluxus Éditions. https://doi.org/10.36824/2020-meletis MIHM, AREND. 2016. Zur Theorie der vormodernen Orthographien: Straßburger Schreibsysteme als Erkenntnis-grundlage. Sprachwissenschaft 41(3–4). 271–309. NEEF, MARTIN. 2015. Writing systems as modular objects: Proposals for theory design in grapholinguistics. Open Linguistics 1. 708–721. https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2015-0026 PAGE, CHRISTINA J. 2013. A new orthography in an unfamiliar script: A case study in participatory engagement strategies. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 34(5). 459–474. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2013.783035
ORTHOGRAPHY DESIGN and READING
ORTHOGRAPHY DESIGN and READING, 2022
Orthographies are for reading, of course; and of course, for writing as well, though what is written is intended for reading, at least by the author, at least as he or she writes. The written is something other than a picture or a painting, though both are initially processed visually; and the written is more than a musical score, though both have something to do with sounds 'to-be-performed'. Presumably, then, one's understanding of reading should have, and no doubt already does have, something to do with designing orthographies; and one's understanding of reading is largely a matter of understanding the cognitive processes involved in reading. We are giving ourselves a challenging task: How to "reverse engineer" the design of a new orthography based on what we know about the cognitive processing of reading texts in established orthographies? To advance this project I consider a few of the default understandings that many promote, intentionally or unintentionally, explicitly or implicitly, verifiably or otherwise. These default understandings act (almost) as axioms for some, that is, self-evident truths, that which is taken as given, as already firmly established rules or principles, which perhaps are or should be beyond questioning. I think these common and consequential understandings warrant further scrutiny, which I then pursue.
Languages are primarily spoken and produced as sound but are usually reduced to written symbols based on conventionally accepted orthographies. This is an indicator of the level of development of a language. Orthographies are important because they enhance and facilitate the discrete representation of sound and meaning in readable symbols. Indeed, research has shown that there exists a positive relationship between language orthographies and acquisition, development and enhancement of literacy. Ịzọn language spoken by the central Ịzọn people of the Nigerian coastline from Bayelsa State in the east to Ondo State in the west has not had a standard orthography that would facilitate the proper documentation of the language primarily due to conflicting dialectal interests. This short research paper addresses the issue of a harmonized or unified Ịzọn orthography that would be applicable to and incorporate all the dialects. The study reveals that all the numerous dialects have a common orthography and recommend a thirty-one (31) letter alphabet that can be used as Standard Ịzọn Orthography.
Àbèsàbèsì Orthography: A Proposal
2020
This paper proposes orthography for Àbèsàbèsì a language known as Akpes in Literature with ethnographic identity ibe. Agoyi 2008 proposed the name Àbèsàbèsì formed from the root morpheme Àbèsì 'we' because it is the only identity accepted by all the nine communities that speak variant of the language. All speakers of the language are aware of the endangered status of the language hence the need to have a writing system that will be used in writing literature in the language for teaching and documenting the language. In line with Nigeria National Policy on Education 2004section 4 subsection 19e states that the medium of instruction in the primary school shall be the language of the environment for the first three years. During this period, English shall be thought as a subject. To be able to implement this policy there is the need to propose orthography for the languages to assist speakers of minority languages who feel the need to safe their languages from death. Since the speakers are familiar with the Yoruba orthography, this paper proposes graphemes that are close to the Yoruba graphemes. The orthography is based mostly on a co-language orthography principle. The proposed graphemes ware tested with literate speakers of the language. In all 37 graphemes are proposed for the consonants, vowels and tone phonemes the various dialects attest. This research is sponsored by Àbèsàbèsì Language Development committee.
ON CERTAIN CULTURAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS OF ORTHOGRAPHY
Diplomacy and Security, 2022
This paper conducts comparative analysis of two aspects of the Orthography manual of the Serbian language, The Croatian orthography manual, The Orthography manual of the Bosnian language and of The Orthography manual of the Montenegrin language on the basis of cultural politics. Final goal of this paper is to provide scientific conclusions on influence of cultural politics in creating orthography norms and political functionalization of certain examples used in orthography manuals. Author also introduces a new discipline, yet unknown in serbistics, exemplology. Its standpoints represent methodological frame of this analysis. Author concludes that certain orthography examples could be functionalized in order to sustain certain cultural politics’ agendas and help in creating new cultural models. Author also emphasizes that script standardization represents an act with long-standing effects which is why it cannot be treated in purely linguistic matter.
CALA 2019 - Paper 16-4 - Devising an Orthography for the Cak Language by Using the Cak Script
The CALA 2019 Proceedings, 2019
Cak (ISO 639-3 ckh) represents a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh. The language is known as Sak in Rakhaing State, Burma. The total number of native speakers of the language is estimated at approximately 3,000 in Bangladesh and 1,000 in Burma (Simons and Fennig eds. 2017). Although Cak and Sak are mutually understandable where native words are concerned, comprehensibility becomes arduous with Bangla loan words in Cak, and with Arakanese/Burmese loan words in Sak. Until recently, Cak/Sak did not have a script of its own. However, by the beginning of the 21st century, the Cak script was developed and finally published as Ong Khyaing Cak (2013), in which its fundamental system is described. Although well designed overall, the current Cak writing system found in Ong Khyaing Cak (2013) has several shortcomings. Huziwara (2015) discusses the following five instances: (a) No independent letter for /v/, (b) unnecessary letters for the non-phonemic elements such as the voiced aspirated stops and the retroflexes, (c) the arbitrary use of short and long vowel signs, (d) a frequent omission of high tone marks in checked syllables, and (e) multiple ways to denote coda consonants. In this paper, Huziwara (2015) will first be reviewed. Then, the basic phonetic correspondences between Cak in Bangladesh and Sak in Burma will be examined. Finally, based on these two discussions, an orthography to be employed in the forthcoming Cak-English-Bangla-Burmese dictionary, a revised version of Huziwara (2016), will be demonstrated.