Breaking Rulesfor Orthography Development

Pamela Munro, UCLADeveloping Orthographies for

Unwritten Languages LSA Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, 7 Jan. 2011

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About this talk

• Orthographic rules

• Two case studies:

— Tlacolula Valley Zapotec, spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico, by close to 30,000 people, several thousand of whom live in Southern California

— Gabrielino/Tongva/Fernandeño, the language of the original inhabitants of the Los Angeles Basin, last recorded in the 1930s

• Orthography and community needs

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What is orthography? • An orthography is a systematic, standardized

writing system for a particular language. A good orthography is designed to be appropriate for the sounds and phonology of that language.

• An orthography is different from people’s ad hoc writing on a word-by-word basis, although such efforts may often represent the beginning of orthography development.

• In optimal cases, an orthography can be typed on a standard keyboard (though there are certainly exceptions to this rule).

• An orthography must be acceptable to users (and other stakeholders: Cahill, this symposium).

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What isn’t orthography?

• Orthography is not phonetic transcription. • No two languages can necessarily be written

with the same orthography.• A standardized orthography gives users a

system for writing words so that other speakers can read them.

• This does not necessarily mean that each word has a standardized spelling or pronunciation, or that some speakers’ pronunciations can or should be labeled non-standard.

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Orthographic rules vary from language to language — each language’s orthography is different.

For example, consider the letter <j> in familiar European languages:

• In English, <j> usually represents the sound [ǰ], as in juvenile or junior.

• In French, <j> represents the zh sound ([ž]), as in jeune 'young'.

• In Spanish, <j> represents the sound of German or Scottish ch [x], as in joven 'young'.

• In German, <j> represents the y sound [y], as in jung 'young'.

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Two basic rules for good orthographies

• Every symbol or symbol combination (a sequence such as <ch>) must always represent the same sound (or phoneme) of the language.

• Every sound of the language must always be written the same way.

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Orthographies vary in terms of how well they follow these rules…

• English violates both rules. English sounds are often written in more than one way (for example, the [ey] sound in way, weigh, raid, and rate), and the same English spelling may represent more than one sound (for example, the <ough> in cough, through, rough, and though).

• A Spanish speaker almost always knows exactly how to pronounce a word from its spelling (though some letters, such as <x>, present difficulties). However, many speakers pronounce <y> and <ll> alike, so they may be uncertain of how to spell an unfamiliar word containing a y sound. There is also confusion among <s>, <z>, and <c> and between <g> and <j>, and speakers are often puzzled about where to use the letter <h>.

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Orthographic rules need to be flexible

• A morpheme may be written the same even though it is pronounced differently in different contexts.

• For example, the English plural suffix is always written <s>, even though it is regularly pronounced [z] when it follows a voiced sound: compare the sound of the <s> in pots [s] vs. pods [z].

• My two case studies illustrate two quite different ways in which orthographic rules must be broken to be effective.

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Case Study 1:Tlacolula Valley Zapotec (TVZ)

Ladies from San Lucas Quiaviní with UCLA collaborators.

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Tlacolula Valley Zapotec (TVZ / zab):

the academic projectCollaborators and contributors include• Dr. Felipe H. Lopez, UCLA• Dr. Brook Lillehaugen, University of Nevada,

Reno, and several others — at UCLA, there havebeen three master’s theses and three dissertations written about the language,with more work in progress

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The sounds of TVZ: Consonantslabial den-alv alv-pal retroflex velar

fortis stop p t c / qu [k]

lenis stop b d g / gu [g]

fortis affricate ts ch [č]

fortis fricative f s x [š] x: [ş] j [x]

lenis fricative z zh [ž] zh: [ȥ]

lenis nasal m n ng [ŋ]

fortis nasal mm nn nng (fortis [ŋ])

lenis lateral l

fortis lateral ll

flap (lenis?) r

trill (fortis?) rr

glide (lenis) w y

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The sounds of TVZ: Vowels

Vowels: i, e, ë [ɯ], a, o, uTones: high, low, falling, risingPhonation: modal (plain, e.g. a), checked

(postglottalized, e.g. a’), breathy (e.g. ah), creaky (e.g. à) (at least…)

Up to three (or four?) vowel units may occur in a syllable nucleus, with the same or different phonation.

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TVZ vowel complexes

There are 20 or so different “vowel complex” types, each of which is associated uniquely with a specific tone.

Lopez’s and my 1999 dictionary is written in an “academic” orthography that differentiates each of these.

But even linguists find the details of this writing system hard to use and remember.

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Speakers often remark that words like the following are “spelled the same”….

tone <bel> ? <gyia> ? <na> ? <nda> ?

high Be'll 'Abel' gyiia 'will go home'

low behll 'fish' gyihah 'rock'gyìa 'agave root'

nah 'now'nnah 'says'nàa 'is'

ndàa 'sensitive'

falling bèèe'll 'snake'bèe'l 'naked'bèe'll '(woman’s) sister'beèe'l 'meat'

gyii'ah 'will drink'gyììa' 'flower'gyìi'ah 'market'

nnàa'ah 'heavy'nnaàa' 'hand'

(alsonàa' 'I’, now spelled <naa>)

nda'ah 'had been poured'ndàa' 'loose'ndàa'ah 'had broken'ndaàa' 'hot'

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<Bel> / <bel>

• Be’ll 'Abel'

• behll 'fish'

• bèèe’ll 'snake'

• bèe’l 'naked'

• bèe’ll '(woman’s) sister'

• beèe’l 'meat'

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<gyia>

• gyiia 'will go home'

• gyihah 'rock'

• gyìa 'agave root'

• gyii’ah 'will drink'

• gyììa’ 'flower'

• gyìi’ah 'market'

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<na>

• nah 'now'

• nnah 'says'

• nàa 'is'

• nnàa’ah 'heavy'

• nnaàa’ 'hand'

and also

• nàa’ 'I'/ 'me' (now written <naa>)

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<nda>

• ndàa 'sensitive'

• nda’ah 'had been poured'

• ndàa’ 'loose'

• ndàa’ah 'had broken'

• ndaàa’ 'hot'

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Native speakers are as puzzled as linguists about the best way to write Zapotec.

Nyi’ihs yàa ‘clean water’ on a water purifying facility in Mitla.

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Informally written Zapotec can be inconsistent, for both vowels and consonants.

Dìi’zh x:tèe’n binguul ‘word of the elder’ in the Tlacolula newspaper El Tlacolulense.

(<sh> for zh, <s> for x:, vowel contrasts neutralized)

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TVZ: The teaching project

Lillehaugen, Lopez, andI are collaborating onCali Chiu? A Course inValley Zapotec, nowbeing used for the sixthtime in first year collegeZapotec courses taughtby Lopez at UCLA (and earlier at UC San Diego).

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TVZ: The minimalist orthography

In Cali Chiu? we have replaced theacademic orthography of the dictionarywith a minimalist spelling system thatwrites, for example, all 20+ varieties of a as<a> and merges consonant contrasts witha low functional load (x, x: both <x>; zh,zh: both <zh>; m, mm both <m>; n, nn both <n>;ng, nng both <ng>…).

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Spelling and pronunciation guides

Normally, our book uses only the minimalist spelling. The first time words are introduced, however, they are followed by a pronunciation guide (using the academic orthography) in square brackets:

bel [bèèe'll] 'snake'

bel [bèe'l] 'naked'

bel [bèe'll] '(woman’s) sister'

bel [beèe'l] 'meat'

Different people have different learning styles and bracketed pronunciation guides may be more useful to some than to others, so students are never tested on pronunciation guide representations.

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The (new) TVZ orthography: Conclusions

• The new orthography violates the first basic rule of orthography design (every letter or letter combination must always represent the same sound of the language), just as with the English words in the following sentence pairs:

– He made a bow with the ribbon.

vs. He made a bow to the queen.

– I read this book yesterday.

vs. I read this book every day.

• This “violation” makes the orthography less intimidating to users and does not seem to impede written communication among those familiar with the language.

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Future Plans

• We’re continuing to revise the Cali Chiu? book, and are working on a Spanish translation, which Lillehaugen taught from in Mexico City.

• Lillehaugen has written a well received book on Tlacolula-area plants in the minimalist orthography; versions are planned for other communities.

• The dictionary will be revised using the new system, with the old entries as pronunciation guides.

• Lopez and I are editing speakers’ narratives about the immigration experience, to be published in the new orthography.

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Post-Mimimalist Zapotec Writing

• Several years ago, Román López Reyes (a teacher in San Lucas Quiaviní) established the Colectivo Literario Quiaviní, a group of students who write poetry and stories in TVZ (Chávez Peón and López Reyes, et al., 2009).

• Crucially, however, they write using a form of the (published, hence authoritative) academic orthography, not the (easier!) minimalist orthography.

• But there are many inconsistencies (it’s a very difficult system)….

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Mario Chávez Peón (UBC), Román López Reyes, and I with the Colectivo Literario Quiaviní in 2008.

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Case Study 2:Gabrielino/Tongva/Fernandeño

My fellow members of the Gabrielino/Tongva/Fernandeñolanguage committee include Virginia Carmelo and Jacob Gutierrez,shown here with Pamela Villaseñor, the late Carol Ramirez, and L.Frank Manriquez at the 2006 Breath of Life Workshop in Berkeley.

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Gabrielino/Tongva/Fernandeño• The original language of the Los Angeles

area, traditionally known as Fernandeño (in the San Fernando Valley) and Gabrielino (in the Los Angeles basin)

• In recent decades, called Tongva by descendants of speakers in the Gabrielino areas (I’ll refer to the language this way)

• Last documented in the 1930s by linguist/ethnologist J. P. Harrington

• Presumably “sleeping” for more than fifty years

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J. P. Harrington (1884-1961)

Harrington recorded vast amounts of data on American Indian languages for the Bureau of American Ethnology.

There are 4 microfilm reels of Tongva data, which are being transcribed by volunteers working with the J. P. Harrington Project at UC Davis.

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The Takic (Uto-Aztecan) Languages of Southern California

Takic

Cupan Gabrielino/ Serrano-Kitanemuk Tongva/

Fernandeño

Luiseño- Cahuilla- Serrano KitanemukAjachmem Cupeño

also Tataviam (and others?)

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Linguistic work on Tongva

• I began work on Tongva (systematizing and analyzing Harrington’s notes) in the late 1970s, inheriting the project from Geraldine Anderson and the late William Bright of UCLA.

• Drawing on my experience with other Southern California Uto-Aztecan languages, I developed a practical orthography for Tongva that I used in several linguistic articles.

• Since 2004 I’ve been meeting monthly with the other members of the Tongva language committee, working on basic learning and on developing materials for language learners.

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My academic orthography for Tongva(developed before 1980)

Consonants: ’, ch, h, k, kw, l, m, n, ng, p, r, s, sh, t, v, w, x, y (and, in Spanish loans, b, (d?,) f, g, z).

Vowels: aa, ee, ii, oo, uu (long vowels); a, e, o (short vowels).

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Difficult sounds and spellings (1)

For my Tongva colleagues, the difficult sounds are ’ (the glottal stop, as found in the middle of English uh-oh, as in kwitii’ ‘boy’), ng (as in yongaavewot ‘condor’ or ngooxavavet ‘metate’), and x (as in xaay ‘not’).

Like <j>, the letter <x> has different roles in different orthographies —

• In English, <x> represents a [ks] sound. • In TV Zapotec, as we just saw, <x> represents a [š] sound,

like English <sh> (or its retroflexed counterpart).• In Tongva, <x> is used to represent [x] (like German <ch> in

Bach, or Spanish <j> in Baja)• In Spanish, <x> can represent [ks] in éxito, [š] in mexica, [x]

in México, or [s]/[ks]/[š] in mixteco.

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Difficult sounds and spellings (2)

• For the linguist, the greatest difficulty is finding the most efficient and esthetic orthographic representation of the Tongva vowels….

• In Harrington’s recordings, each word has one stressed and long vowel (written double: these are <aa>, <ee>, <oo>, <ii>, <uu>).

• Harrington wrote unstressed short vowels less consistently, but contrasted only three vowel sounds (qualities): [a]; [e] (occasionally written [i]); and [o] (occasionally written [u]).

• Therefore, in my original linguistic work (including the early drafts of our Tongva dictionary) I wrote only unstressed <a>, <e>, and <o>.

(The Tongva pattern is paralleled by that of closely related Luiseño, which contrasts only unstressed a, i, u.)

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Tongva plurals (1)

Tongva forms noun plurals by reduplication (sometimes there is also a plural suffix):

naavot 'tuna cactus' nanaavot 'tuna cactuses'xaayy 'mountain' xaxaayy 'mountains'peet 'road' pepeet 'roads'toomshar '(type of) oak' totoomshar 'oaks'naaxovar 'cane' nanaaxovar 'canes'paaytxo'ar 'bow' papaaytxo'ar 'bows'

The first consonant and vowel of the singular are copied at the beginning of the plural noun. In the words above, the first two vowels of the plural noun are identical, except for their length/stress. All plurals are stressed on their second syllable (have a long second syllable vowel).

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Tongva plurals (2)

The plurals of other nouns look less regular, however:

kiiy 'house' kekiiy 'houses'huunar 'bear' hohuunar 'bears'muuhot 'owl' momuuhot 'owls'piinor 'hummingbird' pepiinoram

'hummingbirds'

The short copy (first vowel) and long original (second vowel) of these plural nouns don’t look the same….

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Tongva plurals (3)Nouns that have the stress on the second vowel also have their

first vowel short, second vowel long in the plural. Once again, though, in some plurals the first two vowels are the same, but in some they are different:

shaxaat 'willow' shashaaxat 'willows'sheveer 'sycamore' shesheever 'sycamores'novoor 'tray basket' nonoovor 'tray baskets'

mokaat 'song' momuukat 'songs'pekwaar 'blackberry' pepiikwar 'blackberries'shokaat 'deer' shoshuukat 'deer (plural)'

Additionally, other vowels in the word may change in the plural:

xongiit 'squirrel' xoxoonget 'squirrels'

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The problem is the spelling system

• In the academic orthography, the only short/unstressed vowels are <a>, <e>, and <o>.

• Thus, even though we believe that the first vowel of plural kekiiy ‘houses’ is a short copy of the ii in the singular kiiy (pronounced as [i] / [e], the system requires it be written as <e>.

• Similarly, even though we believe that the first vowel of singular shokaat ‘deer’ is a short copy of the stressed uu in shoshuukat ([u] / [o]), we’re required to write it as <o>.

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A new way to write the Tongva vowels

Relaxing the rules about writing unstressed/short vowels and

allowing the use of unstressed/short <i> and <u> makes all the

singular-plural pairs look more regular:

kiiy 'house' kikiiy 'houses’ (not kekiiy)

huunar 'bear' huhuunar 'bears’ (not hohuunar)

muuhot 'owl' mumuuhot 'owls’ (not

momuuhot)

piinor 'hummingbird' pipiinoram 'hummingbirds’ …

mukaat 'song' mumuukat 'songs'

pikwaar 'blackberry' pipiikwar 'blackberries'

shukaat 'deer' shushuukat 'deer (plural)'

xongiit 'squirrel' xoxoongit 'squirrels'

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Consequences of the spelling changes

• The revised orthography is no longer strictly phonological (since it suggests a grammatical difference between unstressed/short <i>/<e> and <u>/<o> which Harrington’s recordings don’t support).

• This change may tempt learners to make a pronunciation difference where original speakers might not have done so. But this is probably not too crucial.

• Another problem is that the status of unstressed/short vowels that don’t alternate with stress/long vowels is uncertain. This too is probably not too important.

• The advantage is that in the new system plurals (and other comparable phenomena) are much easier to learn!

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• The revised orthography is being used often. Here, ourgroup is teaching non-Tongva participants in the 2006Breath of Life Workshop the Tongva Hooke’-Pooke’…

• Prayers and other cultural events offer another opportunity to write and speak Tongva.

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Jacob Gutierrez is a professional artist who hosts our Tongva meetings.

At right are his design for the “Day of the Whale” at the Point Vicente Interpretive Center and one of his Tongva flash cards.

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Jacob Gutierrez’s Tongva/Gabrielino-Fernandeño village map

…using village name spellings in our Tongva orthography (we’re still learning more about this and checking things…).

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The (revised) Gabrielino/Tongva/Fernandeño orthography: Conclusions

• The revised orthography violates the second basic rule of orthography design (every sound of the language must always be written the same way).

• The violation results in an orthography that makes it easier for learners to see the relationship between singular and plural nouns (and other such relationships).

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What all this shows

• Orthographies must be developed on a case-by-case basis to fit the needs of each individual language and community (again, see Cahill, this symposium).

• Ideally, an orthography should follow the one sound / one symbol and one symbol / one sound rules, but sometimes these rules must be modified to serve language and community needs.

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That’s all…

• Niizyi… (Tlacolula Valley Zapotec)

• Horuura’… (Tongva)

(except for the references, which are on the handout)

Thanks to everyone who has helped me learn aboutthese two wonderful languages!