The
Formation of Practical Alphabets
In
forming a practical orthography one is
constantly disturbed by a dilemma or series of
dilemmas. He wishes to make his orthography
scientifically adequate in order to get the best
and fastest results in the teaching of reading;
he wishes his alphabet to reflect the actual
linguistic structure of the language spoken by
the people. But he wishes also to have an
orthography which will not be offensive to the
people in the region in which it is spoken or to
the administration of the area. He wishes it to
be adapted to traditional alphabets of the
region and at the same time to be easy to write
and print. These two general types of
principles, the phonemic and the social ones, do
not coincide. One is therefore likely to find
oneself engaged in debate with people who wish
to emphasise the one or the other without due
regard for a fine balance between them.
Frequently also he will be considerably
perplexed himself as to the wisest adjustments
to make.
No
specific set of rules can be given which will
cover the multitude of different situations to
be found in the field. One will be better
equipped to meet the problems, and to reach a
solution which may prove adequate, if he will
consider carefully the following principles for
the formation of practical orthographies.
General Phonemic Goals
A
practical orthography should be phonemic. There
should be a one-to-one correspondence between
each phoneme and the symbolisation of that
phoneme.
Note:
Some orthographies are based upon the
syllable and have a one-to-one correspondence
between each syllable and the symbol
representing it. Syllabaries have proved to be
effective, and in areas where syllabaries are
traditionally acceptable a syllabary may still
prove to be the most adequate solution. If,
however, a choice were available, one should
probably set up a phonemic script with one
symbol for each phoneme.
1. A
practical alphabet has a separate symbol for
each unit proved to be phonemically distinct.
Specifically, every sound unit which may replace
other sound units and thereby cause a change of
meaning should be represented in the
orthography.
If a
person has too few symbols, some sound units
will represent two distinct sounds. Words which
are actually different in phonemic form and
meaning may then turn out to be written
identically. In such cases the speaker finds it
impossible to know what words are being
represented except as he may be able to guess
them from the context.
Occasionally one hears a person say; ‘The
natives do not need the extra symbols since they
can guess what the words mean without them; the
context makes it clear.’ To be sure, the native
may be able to guess what a word means from the
context, provided he can read the context and
does read it first. This, however, encourages
bad reading habits by forcing the beginner to
read ahead for contextual clues and then turn
back to guess the meaning of earlier words.
Furthermore, if too many spellings are obscure
he may be unable to read the context itself. For
bilingual speakers who have learned to read
another language it is quite true that at the
first stage of transfer to the vernacular the
extra symbols in it do not contribute to ease of
reading. It would be erroneous to conclude that
the special symbols for extra phonemes would
never be of value. At first the reader might
guess as well – or better – without as with
them. As soon as he learns through association
with some of the words containing them what the
phonetic value of the symbol is, however, he can
then replace guessing with reading. This then
lends itself to easier, faster and more accurate
absorption of material. Some people contend that
English can be read even though it is not
written with phonemic consistency. This is true
– though the English students pay a heavy
cultural price for the inconsistency. Children
seem to require two or three times as long to
learn to read English as comparable children do
to learn to read Spanish, which is written
unambiguously.
There
should be no more symbols than there are
phonemes. It is very confusing to the speakers
when a single phoneme is arbitrarily written
with two or more letters without any way of
knowing which words are to be written with the
one symbol or the other. A practical orthography
would have one symbol only for each phoneme lest
the student learning to read have difficulty in
remembering which one to use when they do not
reflect any distinction of sound which he can
hear.
In a
phonemic orthography, spelling does not have to
be remembered as an arbitrary set of
rules. A sound is heard, and the symbol for that
sound is written. Spelling is then merely the
symbolising of the sounds. Once the memory
correlation has been made for the symbol, no
further memory burden is entailed.
2.
Submembers of a phoneme should rarely receive
distinct symbolisation since the speaker tends
to be unaware of these differences. Mutually
exclusive varieties of a phoneme should not have
separate symbols representing them. The
representation of submembers of a phoneme by
different symbols, when these submembers occur
in distinct environments, however, is not as
serious an error as the representation f sounds
which are not so limited by environments. The
speaker, even thought he may not hear the
difference, can nevertheless build up a
mechanical rule which tells him when to use the
one symbol or the other; it does not demand the
memorisation of an arbitrary list of words. The
only case, nevertheless, in which a conditional
variety of a sound should receive a separate
symbol is one in which certain variants of a
phoneme in the vernacular constitute separate
phonemes in the second language. In such a case,
the pressures from the social situation may be
very strong, and may at times force the
investigator to depart from phonemic practices
in order to get popular support for his
orthography, or may modify his phonemic analysis
in such a way through the inclusion of loan
words in the vernacular.
3.
Freely fluctuating varieties of a phoneme should
not receive separate symbolisation but should be
written with a single symbol. The reasons for
this are the same as those for the previous
principle.
4. When
the investigator finds free variation between
two full phonemes, however, the recommendation
is different; in scientific publications of
texts, a word should be written the way it is
pronounced at each utterance so that the readers
may see for themselves the proportionate
occurrence of the one phoneme or the other.
When, however, a practical orthography is being
proposed it is preferable for the investigator
to represent one of the phonemes or the other in
each particular word and to write that one
consistently regardless of which of the two
phonemes the speaker may use at any particular
moment.
The
basis for this decision may be either frequency
or dialectal distribution. If one of the
phonemes is used more often than the other, he
should presumably use the more frequent one. If
over a wider area, including a number of
dialects, one of the phonemes is used in certain
areas where the other is not found, the
investigator will do well to choose for
consistent writing the one which has the widest
dialectal distribution; in this way, his
published material will be acceptable in more
dialects, since it represents a form current
over a wider area.
5. As
for abbreviated forms, the words should in
general be written as they are pronounced, and
not according to the constituent parts of words.
6. When,
however, forms differ according to whether they
are pronounced fast or slow, the choice may be a
bit different. Pronunciations which are given
only in extremely rapid or extremely slow speech
are best avoided in symbolisation because people
do not tend to read with that same speed – at
least not in the early stages of learning.
7. When
the analysis shows that sounds must be
interpreted as consonants or vowels, or as long
or short vowels, or as phonetically-complex
phonemes, it is preferable for them to be
written so as to reflect this analysis. The
complex ones should in general be written with
single symbols rather than with combinations of
symbols. Prevailing orthographies and available
types may, however, force one to use
combinations of symbols.
8.
Symbols for tone and stress should reflect an
adequate analysis of the language. Where tone
and stress are phonemic, and affect the meaning
of words, they should be symbolised at each
occurrence of the units. One should not content
oneself with writing tone merely on those words
which may be misunderstood if the tone is given
inaccurately. Tone should be written on each of
the words of the tone language, wherever the
tones occur. In this way the speaker learns the
meaning of the tone symbols, and how to read
them, within the words where the consonants and
the vowels and the context make these particular
words unambiguous. Once he has learned the
meaning of the tone symbols in unambiguous
contexts of this type he should then be able to
utilise these symbols to distinguish words where
the tone is the only distinctive characteristic.
9.
Borders between certain types of units may need
symbolisation. It is customary to write spaces
between words. This breaks up the line into
smaller units which are more readily grasped
than is possible if spaces are not used at all.
But these units should represent the actual
language structure and should carry significance
to the speaker.
10. One
of the severe problems in the preparation of a
practical orthography consists in the adequate
representation of words borrowed from other
languages. If these loan words are completely
assimilated to the native language, they should
be spelled as they are pronounced in the native
language and not as they are spelled in the
source language. When loan words are not
completely assimilated, and contain sounds which
the native language does not have, it is
generally preferable to add symbols to represent
them in the native alphabet.
When
words are borrowed into the native language,
especially items like names of individuals or
cultural objects, one should deliberately modify
the spelling to make it confirm to the way they
are pronounced in the native language.
General Social Goals
1. A
practical orthography should be acceptable to
the people of the region where it is to be
introduced. It should receive popular support
and approval. In order to learn to read people
must first desire to learn to read if they are
to do so with relative ease. The most important
single attribute of materials for beginners is
that they create in the learner the strong urge
to master them. Within any large area, there are
almost certain to be one or a number of people
who have already learned to read some alphabet.
If there is no alphabet in the native language,
they will have learned to read the alphabet of a
second language or an official language of some
type. These people are likely to be bilingual,
speaking the other languages which they can read
as well as having their own language.
Furthermore, they are usually the leaders of
their communities since their education gives
them opportunities for representing their
neighbours in official ways. If, therefore,
these bilinguals object to the native language
alphabet they can persuade illiterates that it
is not worth the effort to learn to read it. In
the face of such discouragement many beginners
will not even try to learn, and if they do not
try they are unlikely to succeed. It is
important, therefore, that an alphabet receive
popular support, and specifically some support
from the bilinguals.
Administrators who do not speak the language but
who have control of the territory in which the
native language is being spoken are likely to be
very insistent that the alphabet be the same as
that of the dominant culture. They usually
desire that any minorities be rapidly absorbed
into the linguistic stream of the larger
community so as to make administrative problems
less severe and to give unity to the region, and
they are likely to conclude that a unified
alphabet is a prerequisite to such cultural and
administrative unity.
2. For
these reasons, it is preferable, if possible, to
introduce no strange letters; that is avoid
symbols which are not found in the trade
language or the dominant regional language.
3.
Similarly, diacritical marks are to be avoided
where possible inasmuch as they are likely to
constitute strange additions to the notional
symbols. The diacritics which are likely to
cause more difficulty are those which are
unfamiliar to the administrators and bilingual
speaker of the area.
A
profusion of diacritics is undesirable for a
further reason: they are likely to be left off
by the natives in writing because they slow down
the writing. Readers may then have some
difficulty in rereading the material which has
been so written.
4.
Symbols should be chosen which are easy to
print.
5. It
may be desirable that the alphabet be adapted to
the needs of the bilinguals in the same area so
that he may use the same alphabet to read both
languages.
Likewise, one may want to have an easy transfer
from the native language alphabet to the
alphabet of the second language.
6. The
alphabet chosen should represent insofar as
possible a wide area, especially when there is
dialectal variation. In general the alphabet
should be the same for all dialects and minor
differences should not be reflected in the
alphabet. But when the dialect differences are
too high, it might be desirable to add or delete
symbols to reflect the sound pattern of the
particular dialect.
7. One
needs to observe the strength of a tendency to
incorporate loan words. The assimilated loan
words may carry with them some of the sounds of
the source language, or some special
distribution of those sounds, and in this way
modify the phonemic system of the native
language.
In such
a situation the decision for symbols may well be
toward the direction of the source language.
8.
Government control and sponsorship of reading
campaigns in the native language may affect the
alphabet. The officials might decide, on the one
hand, to utilise alphabets which are best for
the monolinguals, or they might decide to
utilise alphabets which are as close as possible
to that of the dominant regional language.
9. The
more primers being introduced in native
languages, the greater is the pressure towards
using adequate phonemic alphabets, especially if
there is a concerted effort to carry on literacy
campaigns for adult monolinguals.
With
people learning to read, however, one must
remember that motivation is highly important.
People can be taught to read any alphabet
(1) provided ample time is given and (2)
provided they desire to read strongly enough.
Conflicts between
Phonemic and Social Goals
The
goals outlined in the preceding sections
frequently come into conflict with each other.
In many cases it proves impossible to reach all
the goals at the same time. The desire to write
phonemically may conflict with the desire to
indicate all the sounds.
The
desire to use no new letters comes into conflict
with the desire to write all sound units with
distinct symbols.
The
desire to use single unit symbols conflicts with
the desire to use diacritics. Yet if enough
letters are not available the only way to obtain
new symbols is to create new ones or to modify
the traditional ones with diacritics.
One’s
wish to obtain popular support for one’s
alphabet may involve restricting the choices
available for the alphabet. Yet one wishes to
provide for all sounds with unit symbols, but to
do so may offend people who maintain traditional
attitudes.
Similarly one wishes to use the letters of the
alphabet of the second language to the most
advantage by using them where necessary with
flexible values, or with values different from
those seen in the source language. Yet one
wishes to avoid conflicting values for the
letters in the two alphabets.
One
wishes to provide the alphabet which will be
easiest fro the teaching of monolingual
illiterates. Yet at the same time one wishes to
provide an alphabet which will most easily serve
as a bridge for the transfer from the native
language to the second language, or which will
be most easily handled by people who have
already learned to read and write the second
language without being able to understand it
adequately.
Finally
one wishes to be able to make an alphabet from
the point of view of the psychology of the
native speaker, that is, reflecting his phonemic
system. Yet one also wishes to have his alphabet
acceptable to the psychology of the people who
speak the second language.
The
balancing of these conflicting goals and
principles is a highly difficult undertaking,
especially since people are likely to become
emotionally involved in these issues. In many
instances no really satisfactory solution can be
reached – and the best which can be done is to
adopt the least objectionable of several awkward
possibilities.
The
investigator must consider carefully the nature
of the public to be reached with the alphabet.
If it is
(1) people who have never learned to read
anything at all, the problem has several phases;
need of (a) an alphabet suitable for primers and
the teaching of reading, (b) an alphabet
suitable for literature, (c) an alphabet
suitable for vernacular writing, unless all
writing is to be done in the second language,
(d) an alphabet suitable for transfer to the
dominant regional culture. If it is (2) people
who do not understand the dominant regional or
the second language, but have been taught to
read it by local or government effort, then
these people have been provided (a) with an
alphabet for primer usage, but (b) with no
literature, since that available in the dominant
regional or the second language is
unintelligible to them.
Now
since the second group has all the culture needs
of the first group for literature, and the group
is very large, it is very important to meet
their needs, even if it be slightly at the cost
of some of the details which are easier for the
first group.
This
duplicate set of goals demands an alphabet which
does not go to extremes in any direction. If the
goal were to provide for primers only, any
symbols could be used which were clear, provided
regional unity and cultural absorption does not
prevent such a course. Likewise, the second
group is accustomed to the second language
alphabet, and any sharp departure from slows
down their use of the literature, especially by
lowering their morale; such morale cannot be
legislated but must be wooed.
On the
other hand, a severe attempt to adapt to
exclusive second language symbols puts too great
a burden on the first group by making the task
too intricate and non-systematic in relation to
their own internal sound relationships.
The
orthographical innovations which can be
introduced to an area are to a considerable
extent proportionate to the prestige of the
persons sponsoring them. Private individuals
cannot compete with the prestige of local
leaders and their opinions, even when the
opinions are but prejudices. Central government
sponsorship can go much further, since it cannot
so readily be accused of following anti-national
measures.
Ultimately, the problem cannot be solved through
the formation of an alphabet by fiat, but by a
literature being read. A good alphabet with no
motivation will not be read; a poor one with
good motivation will allow the absorption of
much learning even by people who find the
reading difficult. |
