Extreme Literacy Developing an orthography for

an unwritten language

Dr. Michael CahillSIL International

Endangered Languages Week 2011 , UTA

Many/most endangered languages are unwritten

Literacy is one factor that may help in preserving them

SIL has done a lot in this area

Aren’t all languages written?

Nope 6909 languages are estimated

(see ethnologue.com) 1500-2000 of these are unwritten

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

What’s an “orthography”?

Alphabet or other symbols Spelling rules Word divisions Punctuation

Alphabet or…?

Most languages use an alphabetic system, with consonants and vowels

Some use syllabaries - a symbol is a syllable. Cherokee:

sa Ꮜ se Ꮞ si Ꮟ so Ꮠ

suᏑ

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

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.

[phul] [spul]

Two “p” sounds phonetically, but psychologically, ONE sound. No difference in meaning.

This psychologically real sound is called a phoneme.

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

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!

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…

from the Koma ABC book

Why do Komas read?

Bible reading

Privacy of letters

Town signs

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

Sociolinguistic Factors

“All orthographies are political”

Dialects Konni (Ghana): Main dialect has /h/

Nangurima has /ŋ/: hɔgʊ� vs. ŋɔgʊ� ‘woman’

Can one orthography serve all dialects?

Uni-lectal – choose the prestigious dialect Konni orthography uses <h>,

Nangurima pronounces it as [ŋ].

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

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.

More attitudes People may want the orthography not

to look like another language.

Ghana: Konkombas use <ln> word-finally. The related Kombas spell it <nl>.

Guatemala: Existing orthographies used <qu, c>, but a Mayan resurgence wanted <k>, to distinguish it from Spanish.

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

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!

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.

Educational factorsTransferability 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?

Readability

Want good visual discrimination, little “cluttering”

Extreme examples:

n ņ ɲ ɳ ŋ too many symbols resemble each other

Readability

a a� a� a�� too many stacking diacritics

Font selection: Sans-serif is better for beginners

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)

Unicode fonts are ‘best practice.’

RESOURCES: (http://scripts.sil.org,

http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/index.asp#fonts )

Phonetically-based Unicode-compliant fonts

Doulos SIL: like Times New Roman[ðɪs ɪz ə fəˈnɛɾɪkli beʲst fant]

Charis SIL: designed for readability

[ðɪs ɪz ə fəˈnɛɾɪkli beʲst fant]

Andika – designed specifically for new literacy materials – no seraphs

ɛ, ɔ, ə, ʊ, ŋ, a, à, a

Non-Roman scripts

Arabic-based آلخض پڤ ىيگژپڤک خم جل حليتين

Myanmar-based

Abyssinica (Ethiopic)

Thai Dam ꪘ� ꪦ�ꪠꪱꪘꪱꪍꪬ�ꪓꪜꪱꪔ�

“ 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.” Josué Koné, Miniyanka speaker, Mali