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Extreme Literacy Developing an orthography for an unwritten language

Endangered Languages Week 2011 , UTA. Extreme Literacy Developing an orthography for an unwritten language. Dr. Michael Cahill SIL International. Many/most endangered languages are unwritten Literacy is one factor that may help in preserving them

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Extreme Literacy Developing an orthography for an unwritten language

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  1. Endangered Languages Week 2011 , UTA Extreme Literacy Developing an orthography for an unwritten language Dr. Michael Cahill SIL International

  2. Many/most endangered languages are unwritten • Literacy is one factor that may help in preserving them • SIL has done a lot in this area

  3. Aren’t all languages written? • Nope • 6909 languages are estimated (see ethnologue.com) • 1500-2000 of these are unwritten

  4. Why bother? Can’t they all learn English? • Literacy is one of the factors that helps preserve an endangered language • Identity – your language is you! • Scientific knowledge

  5. What’s an “orthography”? • Alphabet or other symbols • Spelling rules • Word divisions • Punctuation

  6. Alphabet or…? • Most languages use an alphabetic system, with consonants and vowels • Some use syllabaries - a symbol is a syllable. Cherokee: Ꮜ sa   Ꮞ se   Ꮟ si   Ꮠ so Ꮡ su

  7. Alphabet – or…? • A few languages use a logographic system, where a symbol is a whole word. Chinese: 河 hé “river“ 貓 māo "cat” • We’ll be focusing on alphabetic systems today

  8. Which letters to use? • Basic concept – one letter per “sound” • Not just a phonetic sound: “pool” vs. “spool” [phul] [spul] • Two “p” sounds phonetically, but we think of them as one. No difference in meaning.

  9. [phul] [spul] • Two “p” sounds phonetically, but psychologically, ONE sound. No difference in meaning. • This psychologically real sound is called a phoneme.

  10. Hindi • [pəm, phəm] are two different words! • [p, ph] makes a difference in meaning. • Both English and Hindi have phonetic [p, ph ] • Psychologically, ONE sound in English, TWO sounds in Hindi • One phoneme for English, two for Hindi

  11. Back to the alphabet… • For English, one “p” phoneme, and so all we need is one “p” letter. • For Hindi, two “p” phonemes, so we need two “p” letters • But there’s more besides linguistics!

  12. Practicalities… • Develop materials for reading: • Primers • Variety of materials (500 pages?) • Devise teaching strategies • Train trainers = teachers • All this assumes the local people are in favor of literacy…

  13. from the Koma ABC book

  14. Why do Komas read? • Bible reading • Privacy of letters • Town signs

  15. NON-linguistic factors Government policies • The Bureau of Ghana Languages used to disallow all tone marks in orthographies. • In 1979, Cameroon established a unified alphabet. New orthographies must conform. • An orthography should be acceptable to governing authorities

  16. Sociolinguistic Factors “All orthographies are political”

  17. Dialects • Konni (Ghana): Main dialect has /h/Nangurimahas /ŋ/: hɔgʊ́ vs. ŋɔgʊ́ ‘woman’ • Can one orthography serve all dialects? • Uni-lectal – choose the prestigious dialect • Konni orthography uses <h>, Nangurimapronounces it as [ŋ].

  18. More on Dialects • Multi-lectal –orthography has elements of several dialects; one group is not favored • But it doesn’t represent the actual speech of anyone. • European languages, Nynorsk, Dagaare

  19. Attitudes toward other languages • Local people may want the orthography to “look like” a major language In Ghana,<r> is in most orthographies, (whether a phoneme or not!) under the influence of English.

  20. More attitudes • People may want the orthography not to look like another language. Ghana: Konkombas use <ln> word-finally. The related Kombasspell it <nl>. Guatemala: Existing orthographies used <qu, c>, but a Mayan resurgence wanted <k>, to distinguish it from Spanish.

  21. Groups and orthographies • Sometimes orthographies become attached to a certain group: “You’re an evangelico, I’m a Catholic, so I support this one.” Religious groups, political groups, clans, etc. • Include all stakeholders in orthography planning and decisions • Examine previous orthographies, and who designed, supports, and uses them

  22. Choice of entire scripts More than just individual symbols • Cyrillic vs. Arabic vs. Roman-based Давлки -- ألفبائي --- dabigu • Line drawings vs. photographs vs. SignWriting for signed languages • Sometimes good to publish with 2 or even 3 scripts in the same book!

  23. An orthography is an expression of a people’s identity. People accept or reject an orthography based on sociolinguistic factors. If a group doesn’t want to use an orthography, it doesn’t matter how linguistically sound it is. “What the people want” is not just one more factor; it is the most critical factor in acceptance of an orthography.

  24. Educational factors Transferability to other languages • Latin America: <qu> and <c> used for /k/, and punctuation <¿ ... ?> as in Spanish. • Ghana: How to consistently represent /tʃ/ in Ghanaian languages? Obvious to some that it should be <ch>, obvious to others that it should be <ky>. It depended on the language of transfer (and identity): English or Akan?

  25. Readability • Want good visual discrimination, little “cluttering” Extreme examples: n ņ ɲ ɳ ŋ too many symbols resemble each other

  26. Readability á ã́ ä̂ ā̃̋ too many stacking diacritics Font selection: Sans-serif is better for beginners

  27. Practical Production Factors Fonts! • A past problem: what can a typewriter or local printer do? 28 years ago, I ordered “custom keys” on a new manual typewriter (ŋ, ɔ, ɛ)

  28. Unicode fonts are ‘best practice.’ • RESOURCES: (http://scripts.sil.org, http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/index.asp#fonts )

  29. Phonetically-based Unicode-compliant fonts Doulos SIL: like Times New Roman [ðɪsɪz ə fəˈnɛɾɪklibeʲstfant] Charis SIL: designed for readability [ðɪsɪz ə fəˈnɛɾɪklibeʲstfant]

  30. Andika– designed specifically for new literacy materials – no seraphs ɛ, ɔ, ə, ʊ, ŋ, á, à, ã

  31. Non-Roman scripts Arabic-based ﱀﰐﲏﮒﮊﭗﭫﮑﰿﭖﭬﳐﻶخضﱙ Myanmar-based Abyssinica (Ethiopic)  Thai Dam ꪘꪲꪦꪴꪠꪱꪘꪱꪍꪬꪲꪓꪜꪱꪔꪳ

  32. “ Without literacy, our language was in the process of being exterminated...He who loses his mother tongue is just a slave to him who is of the lowest class...But now, even if I die today, I will die happy, because my children have a language which will endure and that they can call their own.” JosuéKoné, Miniyanka speaker, Mali

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