the formation of practical alphabets

8/13/2019 The Formation of Practical Alphabets

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Chapter 16THE FORMATION OF PRACTICAL ALPHABETS

Directions:Be prepared to make a pract ical al-phabet of any of the problems already given.This practical alphabet should be chosen insuch a way as to obtain an acceptable balance betueen phonemic principles and generalsociological si tuat ions.

Discussion:In formi:nr; a practical orthographythe investigator is constantly disturbed bya dilemma or series of dilemmas. He wishesto make his orthography scientif ically adequate in order to get the best and fastestresul ts in the teaching of reading; hewishes his alphabet to reflect the actuall inguist ic structure of the vernacularspoken by the people. But he wishes alsoto have an orthography which will not beoffensive to the people in the region inwhich i t is spoken or to the national government of the area. He wishes i t to beadapted to t radit ional alphabets of the re gion and at the same time to be easy towrite and print. These two general typesof principles, the phonemic and social ones,do not coincide. The investigator is therefore l ikely to find himself engaged in debate with people who wish to emphasize theone or the other uithout due regard for afine balance b e ~ v e e n them. Frequently alsohe wil l be considerably perplexed himselfas to the wisest adjustments to mal::e.No specific set of rules can begiven which will cover the multitude of different situations to be found in the field.The investigator will be better equipped tomeet the problems, and to reach a solutionwhich may prove adequate, i f he will consider carefully the following principlesfor the formation of practical orthographies.

GENERAL PHONEMIC GOAISA practical orthography should bephonemic. There should be a one-to-onecorrespondence between each phoneme and thesymbolization of that p h o n e m e ~1some orthographies are based upon

the syl lable and have a one-to-one correspondence between eaoh syllable and thesymbol representing i t . Syllabaries haveproved to be effect ive, and in areas wheresyllabaries are t radit ionally acceptable asyllabary may s t i l l prove to be the mostadequate solution. I f , however, the investigator has the choice, he should probably set up a phonemic script with one sym-bol to each phoneme.

(1) A phonemic alphabet has a separate symbol for each unit proven to be phonemically dist inct by the Analytical Procedures. Specifically, every sound unit whichmay replace other sound units and therebycause a change of meaning should be represented in the orthography.

I f a person has too few symbols,some sound units will represent two dist inctsounds. Words which are actually differentin phonemic form and meaning may then turnout to be written identically. In sucho.ases the native finds i t impossible to knouwhat words are being represented except ashe may be able to guess them from the context. I t would be unfortunate, for exanmle,i f English /p/ and /b/ were both u r i t t n ~simply as P on the g r o u n d ~ that the invest igator did not l ike the looks of the le t terb . Native speakers of English uould thenfind considerable confusion betueen wordsl ike pile ' and 1 bi le .

Occasionally one hears a person say:'The natives do not need the extra symbolssince they can guess what the words meanwithout them; the context makes i t clear.To be sure, the native may be able to guesswhat a word means from the context, providedhe can read the context a ~ d does read i tf i r s t . This, however, encourages bad readinghabits by forcing the beginner to read aheadfor contextual clues and then turn bacl : toguess the meaning of earlier words. l\trthermore, i f too many spellings are obscure hemay be unable to read the context i tself. Forbilingual speakers who have learned to read atrade language i t is quite true that at thef i r s t stage of t ransfer to the vernacular theextra symbols of the vernacular do not contribute to ease of reading. I t would be erroneous to conclude that the special symbolsfor extra phonemes would never be of value.At f i r s t the reader might guess as uell--orbetter--without as with them. As soon as helearns through association Vlith some wordscontaining them what the phonetic value ofthe symbols is , houever, he can then replaceguessing with reading. This then lends i t -self to easier, faster, and more accurateabsorption of the material. Some people con-tend that English can be read even though i tis not written with phonemic consistency.This is true--though the P ~ l i s h studentspay a heavy cul tural nrice for the inconsistency. Children seem-to require two orthree times as long to learn to read Englishas comparable children do to learn to readSpanish, which is written unambiguously.

There should be no more syrabols thanthere are phonemes. I t is very confusing tonatives when a single phoneme is arbitrarily2 8


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PRACTICAL ALPHABETS 209written with two or more le t ters without anyway of knowing which words are to be writtenwith the one symbol or the other. In theSpanish of Latin America, for example, manystudents have great diffiaul ty in remembering whether to write words with b or vsince in the dialects of many of them thetwo units are no longer phonemically dist inct . (This ambiguity applies to the writing of Latin-American Spanish, but not tothe reading of i t , since both symbols can beread alike without causing diff icul ty. )They have no choice, therefore, but to t ryto remember which symbol is to be written inany specific word. In the same way thesespeakers in many areas of Latin America havedi f f icul ty in remembering whether to writeY or 11 since in certain of the dialectsthe two symbols represent a single phoneme.In addition, for most of these speakers thel e t t e r h a t the beginning of words represents no sound a t a l l , and school childrenfind i t very hard to remember which wordsare written with h and which words arewritten without. A pract ical orthographyshould have one symbol only for each phonemeles t the student learning to read havedi f f icul ty in remembering which one to use\7hen they do not reflect any distinction ofsound which he can hear.

In a phonemic orthography, spel l ingdoes not have to be remembered as anarbi t rary set of rules. A sound i s heard,and the symbols for that sound written.Spelling is then merely the symbolizing ofthe sounds. Once the memory correlation hasbeen made for the symbol, no further memoryburden is entailed.(2) Submembers of phonemes shouldrare ly receive dist inct symbolization sincethe native tends to be unaware of these

dif ferences. Mutually exclusive varie t iesof a phoneme should not have separatesymbols to represent them. 'rhe representat ion of submembers of phonemes by differentsymbols when these submembers occur indisi;inct environments, however, is not asserious an error as the r ~ r e s e n t t i o n ofsounds which are not so l imited by environments. The native, even though he may nothear the difference, can nevertheless buildup a mechanical rule which te l ls him when touse the one symbol or the other: i t doesnot demand the m e r n o r i ~ ~ t i o n of an arbi traryl i s t of words. The only case, nevertheless,in which a conditioned variety of a soundshould receive a separate symbol is one inwhich certa in variants of a vernacularphoneme const i tute separate phonemes in thetrade language. In such a case, thepressures from the social si tuation may bevery strong, and may a t t imes force theinvestigator to depart from phonemicpractices in order to get popular supportfor his orthography, or may modify hisphonemic analysis in such a way through theinclusion of loan words in the vernacular.

(3) Freely f luctuating varie t ies of

a phoneme should not receive separate sym-bolization but should be written with asingle symbol a.s iildicated in Chapter 2. Ther e ~ o n s for th i s are the same as those whichhave just been given for not writing conditioned varie t ies of sound.

( 4) When the investigator findsfree variation between two fu l l phonemes,however, the recommendation is differentin scient i f ic publications of texts , a w ~ rshould be written the way i t i s pronounced a.teach utterance so that readers may see forthemselves the proportionate occurrence ofthe one phoneme or the other. When, h o w e v ~ ra pract ical orthography is being proposed,i t is preferable for the invest igator torepresent one of the phonemes or the otherin each part icular word and to write that oneconsistently regardless of which of the twophonemes the speaker may use at any particul a r moment.The basis for decision as to 7rhichphoneme to represent in these l a t t e rinstances may be ei ther :frequency >or dia

l ec ta l distribution. I f one of the phonemesis used more often than the other, he shouldpresumably use the more frequent one. I fover a wide area, including a number of minordialects, one of the phonemes is used incertain regions where the other is not found,the invest igator will do well to choose for' consistent writing the one which has thew:i dest dialecta l distribution: in th is wayhis published material wil l be acceptablemore dialects , since i t represents a formcurrent over a wider area.15 As for abbreviated forms, thewords should in general be written as theyare pronounced, and not according to theconstituent parts of words which the invest i

gator may recognize by morphologicalanalysis.One should write, for example ' I 'mgoing' rather than ' I am going. ' The' fac,.that one knows that ' I 'm' i s an abbreviationof ' I am' i s not suffic ient evidence toforoe the writing of the longer formSimilarly one should write 'wives with vand not with f : the fact that 'wives' i sderived from 'wife' i s not suffic ient evidence to force one to write f in both thesingular and the plural . The reason forthese decisions is that the goal of learningto read rapidly and easi ly is achieved bymaking a conscious or unconscious associationbetween sound and symbol. Therefore, the

symbols given should represent the sounds aspronounced. The presentation of formsf i l led out on the basis of other informationsuch as morphology, usually appears to hinder 'rather than to help this establishment ofsound-symbol association.. ( 6) ~ / h e n however. forms differaccord1ng to whether they are pronounced fastor slow, the choice may be a bit differentPronunciations which are given only in ex-tremely rapid speech are best avoided in


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210 PHONELIICSsymbolization because people do not tend toread with tha t same rapidity--at least notin the early stages of learning. The slowreading of an extremely rapid form iscertain to produce an unnatural result whichmay be misunderstood by the native learningto read. On the other hand, pronunciationswhich are used for extremely slow speechshould also be avoided. Many of these arel ikely to include extra sounds, or pauses,or extra stresses, or extra lengths ofvowels, which are total ly unnatural to thespeaker in any normal l inguis t ic context;here again in te l l ig ib i l i ty will be affectedand the result will be much less desirableto the native than would a different style .In general then, the choice should be forthe consistent writing of pronunciationswhich are neither extremely fast norextremely slow. The most satisfactorychoice seems to be a somewhat slow butnormal style. First reading efforts arel ikely to be slow and this allows writtenpronunciation and spoken style to be parall e l .

(7) ~ ~ e n the analysis shows thatsounds must be interpreted as consonants orvowels, or as long or short vowels, or asphoneti aally-complex phonemes, i t is preferable for them to be written so as to reflectthis analysis. The complex ones should ingeneral be written with single symbolsrather than with comb ina tiona of symbols.Prevailing orthographies and available typemay, however, force one to use combinationsof symbols.

a) Symbols for tone and stressshould reflect an adequate analysis of thelanguage. Where tone and stress arephonemic, and affect the meanings of words,they should be symbolized a t each occurrenceof the units . One should not c ont ant onese l f with writing tone merely on thosewords which may be misunderstood i f the tonei s given inaccurately. Tone should bewritten on each of the words of the tonelanguage, wherever the tones occur. In thisway the native learns the l J3aning of thetone symbols, and how to read them, withinthe words where the consona11ts and the vowelsand the context make these pa=ticular wordsunambiguous. Once he has learned the mean-ing of the tone symbols in unambiguouscontexts of this type he should then beable to ut i l ize these symbols to distinguishwords where the tone is the only distinctivecharacter is t ic .

In EngJ..ish, for exa1DPle, we have thephonemes /p / and /b / , and /si and /z / . Attimes the meaning of words is dependentupon the occurrence of these phonemes; atother times one is able to guess the mean-ing of words regardless of which phoneme issymbolized. In 'peel ' and beal , pi leand b i l e , 'pay' and 'bay', 'cap' and 'cab',seal ' and zeal , h iss and h i s , thedifference is dependent upon the choice ofone or the other of these sounds. In so11ewords, however, no such contrast can be

found. Note, for example, the words bi te(with no ' 'pita') , 'bishop' (with no' 'pishop'), 'boyish' (with no ' 'poyish'),'pineapple' (with no ' 'bineapple'), pi lo t(with no ' 'bi lot ' ) , 'zebra' (with no' 'sabra' or *se:pra', or *zepra'), 'zone'(with no '*sane'), 'zig-zag' (with no'*s ig-sag ') , 'zero' (with no ' 'aero'), 'sa>""e'(with no ' 'zave'), 'sacred' (with no'*zacred'). In these las t instances i twould not do for the investigator to say tohimself, 'There is no contrast here betvi'eenPI and /b/ , nor between / a / and /z / ; wewill , therefore, decide to write al l of thesewords with s and p so as to save writingb nd z so many times. ' The resultwould be that the words bi te , 'bishop','boyish' , 'pineapple' , pi lo t , 'zebra''zone' , 'zig-zag' , 'zero' , 'save', s a c ~ e d ,

w o ~ l be written pi te , 'pishop' , 'poyish','_p1neapple' , pi lo t , ' sepra ' , 'son e ,' s ig-sag' , 'aero' , ' save ' , 'sacred'. Yetthis would be unfortunate since then thenative would find an inconsistent representation of these sounds; a t times, both /p/and / b / would be written "p", and at times/b/ would be synibolized w1 th b .This type of inconsistency isdifficul t for the native to write since hemust memorize an arbitrary l i s t of wordswhich contain the one or the other symbolhe is l ikely to make many mistakes in d o i ~ gso. I t is much more economical of time andeffort to write more symbols, i f necessaryin order to keep a consistent and dist inct i ;erepresentation of the sound phonemes. Thisapplies to tone as well as to segmentalsounds. I t has been i l lustrated here withsegmental sounds to give the English readera better opportunity to see how such inconsistency would affect his own languagewhich does not have tonemes. Tones affectthe native speaker of a tone language, hew-

ever, much as do his consonants and vowels.( 9) Borders between certain typesof units may need symbolization. I t iscustomary to write spaces between words.This breaks up the line into smaller unitswhich are mo re readily grasped than ispossible i f spaces are not used at al l . I tseems easier for the native to read shortunits than long ones provided that theseshort units consti tute actual isolatabletypes. I t will not be helpful, but, on thecontrary, a hindrance to break up the l inesinto more or smaller units , however, thanrepresent the actual language structure. narbitrary writing of spaces just to makewords shorter slows up reading and the

understanding of the material since i t isl ikely to leave many items between spaceswhich the native never pronounces in isolation in normal speech. In this case hemay t ry to pronounce, and actual ly succeedpronouncing by themselves, those i ternsseparated by spaces, but i f they are notwords, but only parts of words, boundmorphemes, and the l ike, they carry tool i t t l e meaning to him as total units to beintel l igible . I t is preferable to use units


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PRACTICAL ALPHABETS 211which are large enough to carry significanceto the native.

The method for determining theadvisable length of units has already beengiven in Chapter 13 Occasionally more thanone type of break must be recognized. Thesemay be symbolized by hyphens or by someother device. The technical discussion ofthese possibil i t ies will be found in thesame place - ts the handling of spaces.10) One of the severe problemsin the preparation of a practical orthogra

~ : r y consists in the adequate representa tionof words borrowed from other languages.Such loan words are most l ikely to representthe trade language, or national languageof that area. Various kinds of words arel ikely to be brought over into the language-words for ob je eta of trade (such as chocola te , tobacco , oranges , and so on)which were not originally in_the area, aswell as governmental terms, legal terms, andmany others.I f these loan words have been completely assimilated to the native language,then they will not contain sounds which thenative language lacks, nor will they containfamiliar sounds in unfamiliar sequences. Inthese instances assimilated loans should bespelled as they are pronounced by the native,and spelled with the symbols uti l ized forthe native language and not with the t ra-ditional spelling of the second language.I f the spelling of the trade language wereutilized rather than the spelling and pronunciation of the assimilated form, therewould be further interference in the attemptto set up an adequate correspondence betweensound and symbol within materials placed inthe native hands. I f the pronunciation of

the loan words is highly inconsistent,however, then one may at times best ut i l izethat form which is identical with or closelyapproximates the source from which i t wasborrowed.Vfuen loans are not completelyassimilated, and contain sounds which wordsof native origin do not contain, then theproblem is more severe and frequently theinvestigator must add to his alphabet symbolsto represent these extra sounds. SeeCha-pter 12 Preferably these symbols shouldbe the ones used to spell the sounds of thetrade language.

other times an investigator mayhimself Wish to prepare l i terature in thevernacular and in these instances he maydesire to bring in from the trade languagecertain words which have never been incurrent use in the vernacular. Such itemsmay include names of individuals or cul tura l objects and the l ike. n this situation,the investigator should deliberately modifythe spel l ing to make i t conform to the wayin which the loans which are actually inthe native language have been modified inpronunoiation by the natives. a e should

not hesitate to eliminate sounds from theloans which he s introducing i f those soundsare not found n the native language. naddition, he should modify large consonantclusters or sound sequences which are difficult for the native to pronounce, and i f ata l l possible should leave these words fittinginto the types of sequences of sounds whichactually occur in words of native origin.This type of deliberate adaptation makes thewords easier for the native to learn to readand yet does not change the meaning or usageof the words as such. One caution, however,is in order. In bringing in new words, or inmodifying them to f i t the native pattern,one must be careful to check to see that hehas not created a word which actually isidentical with a native word which has someobjectionable meaning.

GENERAL SOCIAL GOALS1) A practical orthography shouldbe acceptable to the people of the regionwhere i t i s to be introduced. I t shouldreceive popular support and approval. In

order to learn to read people must f irstdesire to learn to read i f they are to do sowith relative ease. The most important single attr ibute of materials for beginners isthat they create in the learner the strongurge to master them. Within any large area,there are almost certain to be one or a number of people who have already learned toread some alphabet. If there is no alphabetn the vernacular, they will have learned toread the alphabet of the trade language or ofa national language of some type. Thesepeople are l ikely to be bilingual, speakingthe language which they can read as well ashaving their own language. Furthermore, theyare usually the leaders of their communitiessince their education gives them opportuni

t ies for representing their neighbors inofficial ways. If , therefore, these bil inguals object to the vernacular alphabet theyoan persuade i l l i terates that i t is not worththe effort to try to learn to read i t . nthe face of such discouragement many beginners will not even try to learn, and i f theydo not t ry they are unlikely to suaoeed. I tis important, therefore, that an alphabet receive popular support, and specifically somesupport from bilinguals.Administrators who do not speak thelanguage but who have control of the ter r i -tory in which the vernacular is being spokenare l ikely to oe very insistent that thealphabet be the same as that of the national

culture. hey usually desire that anyminorities be rapidly absorbed into theling11istic stream of the larger communi.tyso as to make administrative problems lesssevere and to give unity to the nation, andthey are likely to conclude that a unifiedalphabet is a prerequisite to suah culturaland administrative unity. a t i o n ~ l l yappointed administrators of small areas,therefore, are l ikely to give more approvalto an alphabet which reflects the nationalone that to an alphabet whioh isdivergent


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212 P H O I ~ E I I I C Sfrom i t . any divergence from the nationalsymbols must, therefore, be explained carefully to local or central administrators,since approval or lack of approval by themmay affect the practical goals concerned.This does not eliminate the uti l izat ion ofessential symbols which do not occur in thenational language, provided that the authorit ies can be made to see the value of them.

(2l For these reasons, the investigator will find i t preferable, i f possible,to introduce no strange le t ters that ishe will avoid symbols which are 'not found'in the trade language or the nationallanguage of the area. Unfortunately thisprinciple (and some others' comes into conf l ict with the phonemic goals which we havementioned earl ier . This creates variousdilemmas which will be discussed after thegeneral social goals are outlined.(3) SLmilarly, diacritic marks areto be a7cided where possible inasmuch as theyare l ike ly to constitute strange additionsto the national symbols. Diacritics whichare already in use in the area are l ikely tobe less offensive. English sneakers, forexample, are l ikely to be unaware of thefact that the dot over i is a diacri t icaddition to a basic mark; they take forgranted that i t is a part of the l e t te r i t -se:f . Likewise in Latin America a t i ldeover n in the let ter :fl' passes withoutcomment. The diacri t ics which are l ikely tocause more diff iculty are those which areunfamiliar to the administrators and bilingual speakers of an area.A profusion of diacri t ics is undesirable for a further reason: they arel ikely to be l e f t off by natives in writing.One or two diacri t ic marks are not l ikely tocause much trouble--compare English i andSpanish :fl' ; i f a number of them occur inany one language, however, the speed ofwriting is ~ l o w e d up, and some of them atleast are l ~ k e l y to be omitted in writingreaders may then have some diff iculty in ;a-reading the material which has been sowritten,(4) Symbols should be chosen whichare easy to print . l f one 1s in a countrywhose printing establishments do not have thesymbols chosen for the orthography, thenbooks cannot be printed there with thatalphabet, or else special types must besecured from abroad or made to order. I tis improbable that al l of the print shops ofan area will introduce new type unless thereis a wide demand for i t so that new le t tersor strange le t ters in an alphabet are l ikelyto l imit the number of presses which willprint the material. Such a l imita t ion isundesirable since i t is l ikely to res tr ic tthe ease with which the orthography. willspread and the speed with which the vernacular will become a medium of written communi-cation. 5) In order to avoid strange

symbols, and in order that the materialmight be readily printed, the investigatorwill want to ut i l ize to the best advantageal l of the le t ters which are actually withinthe Roman alphabet, and therefore availableto most presses. This is the principle ofFLEXIBILITY of usage of le t ters . I f hefinds that he has one le t ter le f t over whichhe has not used, he may consider uti l izingth is le t ter for some sound other than theone which i t would normally represent int radit ional alphabets. This type of modification has been used to good advantage,for example, in Africa where certain t ~ ~ e sof le t ters such as c , q , and x havebeen used for clicks. Nevertheless i f thedifference is too striking--especially i fthese same letters are used for other soundsin neighboring dialects--i t may not bepracticable. For the clicks, for e x ~ m p l enew le t ters are now being introduced forcertain of the African languages.

There is l ikely to be difficulty i fle t ters are uti l ized with one phoneticquality in the vernacular a strikinglydifferent one in the t rade language ornational language. Minor differences may beignored, but one should hesitate to use n:say, for [a]. In general, one should beready to use the le t ter t for any variet;rof l t ] [th], and so on.

(6) The investigator will want toform an alphabet which is adequate for teaching i l l i te ra tes to read. He will be especially sympathetic toward the p r o b l e ~ s ofthe monolinguals who do not have access tothe l i terature of a trade language. Hewill want his alphabet to be adapted to theirneeds so that they can learn to read in theshortest possible space of time.7} The investigator will also be

very desirous that the alphabet be adapted tothe needs of bilinguals in the same area sothat a native who with great effort haslearned to read the trade language, butperhaps does not understand i t well, may beable to uti l ize the same alphabet in readinghis own language which he can understandonce he hears i t . For this purpose, then,the alphabet should conform as closely as ispracticable to the trade language. \fuensounds are the same in the native languageand in the trade language he will want thesymbols to be the same for each language sothat those who have learned to read the oneset of symbols wil l not then find themselvesforced to learn a second set of symbols forthe same or similar sounds. Individuals whohave learned to read the one may be discouraged from t rying to read the other i f thetwo are not paral lel .Likewise, the investigator will wantto have an easy transfer from the vernacularalphabet to the alphabet of the tradelanguage so that once a monolingual speakerof the vernacular has learned to read hislanguage he oan uti l ize that knowledge in theeasiest way for obtaining a knowledge of the


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PRACTICAL ALPHABETS 21 3trade language. Unfortunately , both ofthese principles come into confl ic t withother desiderata, and a practical compromisebeo\7een them must be obtained.

(8) The alphabet chosen should re-present insofar as possible a wide area.Vihen dialects differ i t may be impossibleto have a single alphabet represent thephonemes of more than a small geographicalsection of the country. But i f possiblethe symbols decided upon should serve morethan one dialect . When the two dialectsdiffer so much that i t proves impossible tohave a single alr habet represent them, thenthe best solution is to have a basic alpha-bet in which the majority of the letterscan be used in a l l dialects and from thisbasic set of symbols to depart where neces-sary for specific areas by eliminatingcertain of the le t ters or by adding furtherones. I f then l i terature i s prepared in thevarious dialects , natives may learn to readin their own particular speech. Once theyhave lea,rned to read, however, dialectdifferences are less of a barrier and theymay then be able to cross over such bounda-ries and read the l i terature of surroundingreluted t r ibes. I f in one of these dialectsa lay writer begins to create a l i teraturewhich proves so interest ing to the speakersof the other dialects that they al l demandi t then a standard dialect may develop bythat dialect achieving prominence and becom-ing the accepted medium for l i t e ra ry pro-duction throughout the entire area. Itseems preferable to le t a standard l i te rarydialect develop in this way, whereverpossible, ra ther than trying to force thegrowth of one ar t i f ic ia l ly before there arereaders who are interested in crossing suchdialect barr iers .

I f lay authorship i s developing inthe vernacular, that increases the desir-abi l i ty of an alphabet which is easi lyprinted in available presses, since the sizeof the reading public is apt to be largeri f some of their ov writers ~ o u b l i s hmaterial which appeals to them strongly.This might increase the demand for l i teratureand for l i te ra ture ~ h i c h could be producedlocally without dependence upon foreignpresses.( 9) One I eeds to observe thestrength of a tendency to 1ncor Jorate loanwords from the trade language. Somelanguages res is t the acceptance of loanwords. Other languages readily absorb a

great number of them. If many loans areassimilated by the language they may carryvri th them some of the sounds of the tradelanguage, or some special distribution ofthose sounds, and in this way modify thephonemic system of the vernacular.In such a situation the decision forsymbols may well be toward the direction ofthe trade language. I f many words are beingintroduced from the trade langu ge this factgives intensity to the desire to make the

vernacular alphabet coincide with that ofthe trade language. Similarly, i f bilingual-ism is increasing rapidly, the pressurewould be toward uti l iz ing the symbols usedin the trade l n ~ ~ e(10) Increasing government sponsor-ship of reading campaigns in the vernacularfor the monolinguals may affect the alphabet.

The off ic ia ls might decide, on the one hand,to ut i l ize alphabets which are best for themonolinguals, or they might decide to u t i -l ize alphabets which are as close as possi-ble to that of the national language.Their decision may in part bemodified by a further tendency: a trendtoward accepting l inguis t ic principles. nAfrica, for example, there seems to be grow-ing movement toward the adoption of thesymbolS proposed by the InternationalInst i tute of African Languages and Cultures.Such tendencies make i t easier to introducea phonemic script which is best suited to thef i r s t reading efforts of the monolinguals.(11) The more primers being lntro-duced in vernaculars, the greater is thepressure towards using adequate phonemicalphabets, especially i f there is a concertedattempt to carry on l i teracy campaigns foradult monolinguals, for whom primers need tobe readily teachable with alphabets whichare easily absorbed.With people learning to read, however,one must remember that motivation is highlyimportant. PeoFle can be taught to readany alphabet (1) provided ample time is givenand 2) provided they desire to read stronglyenough. For English the spellings are noteasy to remember, since there are a tremendousnumber of exceptions to phonemic writing.For this reason i t takes a c o n s i d e r b l ~period of time for the average child or adultto learn to read i t . Nevertheless, a largeproportion of Speakers of English learn toread because they desire to, or becausesocial and official pressure is placed uponthem to force them to do so. Likewise inthe vernacular people will learn to read i fsocial or official pressures supply a strongenough incentive.

CONFLICTS BETWEEN PHONE1UCND SOCIAL GOALS

The goals outlined in the precedingsections of this chapter frequently come intoconflict with each other. n many oases i tproves impossible to reach al l of the goalsat the same time. Some of these conflictsmust be noted here. The desire to writephonemically may conflict with the desireto indicate al l the sounds. For example twosounds may be submembers of a single p h o ~ min the vernacular, but separate phonemes inthe trade language. In such an instancethere is bound to be considerable pressureto write these s ubmembers of the vernacularwith separate symbols paralleling those ofthe trade language. For example, in Aztec of


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Morelos, 1 (v] and [w] are aubmembers ofa single phoneme, with [v] occurring beforefront vowels and [w) occurring beforecentral and back vowels. Yet in Spanish/w/ and /v / are s e p a r a t ~ phonemes.Similarly in Cakchiquel of Guatemala,[v) and [f] are submembera of a singlephoneme, with [v] occurring in i t ia l ly inwords and [f] final ly in words--but in thetrade language of the area, Spanish, the twoare separate p h ~ n e m e s I t is sometimesnecessary to wr ite submembers of phonemeswith dis t inct symbols under th is type ofcultural pressure.The desire to use no new le t te rscomes into conflict with the desire to writeal l sound units with dis t inct symbols. Ifhowever, there are more sounds than thereare available le t te rs one must adopt someexpedient to represent them.The desire to use single unitsymbols, only, conflicts with the desire toavoid diacri t ics. Yet i f not enough le t te rsare available the only way to obtdin newsymbols is to create new ones or to modifyt radit ional ones with diacri t ics. Likewise,one wishes to avoid new le t te rs yet to doso demands the use of diacri t ics or digraphs,both of which i t is advisable to avoid.One wishes to obtain popular approvalfor one s alphabet in order that t might beaccepted, and this may involve restrict ingoneself to le t te rs of the trade alphabet.Yet one wishes to provide for al l soundswith unit symbols, but to do so may offendpeople who maintain t radit ional at t i tudes.Similarly one wishes to use thele t te rs of the trade alphabet to the mostpossible advantage by using them wherenecessary with flexible values, or withvalues different from those seen in thetrade language. Yet one wishes to avoid conf l ic t ing values for the letters in the twolanguages.One wishes to provide the alphabetwhich will be easiest for the teaching ofmonolingual i l l i terates . Yet a t the sametime one w.Lshes to provide an alphabet whichwill most easi ly serve as a bridge for thetransfer from the vernacular to the tradelanguage, or which will be moat easilyhandled by people who have already learnedto read the trade language without being ableto understand i t adequately.Finally, one wishes to be able tomake an alphabet from the point of view ofthe psychology of the native, that isref lecting his phonem: .c system. Yet one also

1nata from Richard Pittman Summer[nsti tute of Linguistics.2 Data from W Cameron Townsendlummer Inst i tute of Linguistics.

wishes to have his alphabet acceptable tothe psychology of the people who apeak thetrade language.The balancing of these conflictinggoals and principles is a highly diff icultundertaking, especially since people arel ikely to become emotionally attached to theparticular alphabet Which they have p r e v i c ~ s -ly been using, and to be unshakeably con

vinced that no other orthography is sat isfactory. In ~ y instances no reallysat isfactory solution can be reached--andthe best which can be done is to adopt theleast objectionable of several awkwardpossibi l i t ies.The analyst must consider carefullythe nature of the public to be reached withthe alphabet.If i t i s (l) people who have neverlearned to read anything at a l l the problem has several phases: need of (a) analphabet suitable for primers and the teaching of reading, (b) an a l p h ~ b e t suitable forl i terature, (o) an alphabet suitable for

vernacular writing, unless a l l writing is tobe done in the trade language, (d\ an a l ~ h a -bet suitable for transfer to the nationalculture. I f i t is (2) people who do notunderstand the national language, but havebeen taught _to read i t by the tremendousefforts of the local teachers in theFederalsystem, then thes_e people have been provided(a with an alphabet for primer usage, but(b) w.Lth no l i te ra ture since that availablein the national language is unintelligibleto them.Now since this second group has a l lthe culture needs of Group 1 for l i terature,and the group is very large (in some t r ibesfar larger, and growingly so, than any group

which nontechnitions will teach to read asadults in the non-trade language group\ i tis exceedingly important to meet their needs,even i f i t be s l ightly a t the cost of somedetails which are easier for Group 1.This duplicate se t of goals demandsan alphabet which does not go to extremes inany direction. I f the goal were to providefor primers only, any symbols could be usedwhich were clear (say, Chinese signs, orE ~ t i a n ones) but the nacesRity of n ~ t i o n a lunity and cultural absorption prevents sucha course, Likewise, Group 2 is accustomedto a t r a d e l a n g u o : ~ . g e alphabet, and any sharpdetarture from i.t slows up their use of thel i terature, especially by lowering theirmorale; SllCh morale oannot be legislated butmust be wooed.On the other hand, a severe attemptto adapt to e ~ c l u s i v e trade-language signsputs too great a burden on Group 1 by makingthe task too intricate and nonsystematic inrelation to their own internal soundrelationships.The orthographical innovations whioh


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PRACTICAL ~ ~ T 215aan be. introduced to an area are to a consideraole extent proportionate to thepr?stige of. the persons sponsoring them.P r ~ v a t e i n d ~ v i d u a l s cannot complete withthe prestige of local chieftains and theiropinions, even when the opinions are butprejudices. Central government sponsorshipcan go much further, since i t cannot sor e a ~ i l y be accused of following ant i

n a t ~ o n a l measures.Ultimately the problem cannotsolved through the formation of an alphabetby f iat , but by a l i terature b e i n ~ read Agood alphabet with no motivation ~ 1 1 n ~ t beread; a poor one \Vith good motivation willallow the absorption of much l e a r n i n ~ evenby people who find reading d i f f i c u l t ~- l r . ..SPECIFIC SYMBOLSThe specific le t te rs which the investigator will choose may vary according tothe area in which he is working. In ter r i -tory where Chinese is the official language,symbols might be quite different, forexample, from those chosen for usage inRussian-speaking terri tory or in LatinAmerica, or in Africa. Any suggestionsgiven here, therefore, must be subject tomodification according to the o u l t u r ~ l environment. Nevertheless i t may be convenient to present certain possibi l i t ies forgeneral consideration.(1) Voiceless StopsFor unaspirated /p/, 1 / t / , and kthere i s usually l i t t l e diff iculty indeciding what letters to use--that i s , "p","t", and "k". Even in Latin America thesymbol "k" is probably preferable in spiteof the fact tr1at for ian ish the t radit ionalsymbol is "c" before a), /o/ , and /u/ , but"qu" before / i / and e/ . The fact that inSpanish one does find a small number ofword such as kilo and kilometre spelledwith "k" would--se6m, however, to constitutesufficient precedent to w a r ~ a n t the ut i l i -zation of that le t te r in order that thephoneme can be represented consistently.I f there are two "k" phonemes, onefront and the other back, possibly the useof "k" for the front one and "q" for theback one is usually the best solution.I f the government of a country inLatin America insists on a very close adclarence to Spanisn usage, the best compromise1hioh one can make i s to use "a" and "qu" for/k/ , but "k" for / f./. This is not a o m p ~ e t ~ l ~ :Jatisfaatory, since the use of "a" and qu:or submembers of the one phoneme would not'neet completely the principle of having aone-to-one correspondence between symbol and1Braokets enclose phonetic symbols,diagonals indicate phonemic ones, quotesrepresent practical orthographical suggestions.

honeme. However, inasmuch as the two sub~ e m b e r s are conditioned by occurrence beforevowels i t is not completely arbi t rary.F u r t h e ~ difficul t ies are involved, however,inasmuch as "a" in Spanish orthography isalso used in certain words for /R/.The glot tal stop oan be writteneither with a large symbol such as [ ? ) (a.

question mark without the lower dot), ormay be written with an apostrophe. I f theglot tal stop is s t r ic t ly parallel to a ful lconsonant and acts in distribution l ike them,the larger sign may be preferable. I f ,however, the glottal stop acts differentlyand seems to be more closely related to aclose-knit nucleus, then the apostrophe isprobably batter, since i t would interruptthe words less and indicate closer unitywith the vowel.I f aspirated stops are unit phonemes,and no other stops occur in the language,they may be written as "p , 11t" , and "k I f , however, aspirated stops a r e ~ i n g l e - u n i tphonemes which contrast with unaspirated

voiceless stops, then the aspirated onesmay well be written (in an area whereEnglish is the trade language l as p , "t and "k" and the unaspirated ones with "b","d", and 11g". In .i Jnglish-speaking countriesthis solution is acceptable and has givengood results , sino e ll:nglish ll tends torepresent an aspirated sound Lph] while unaspirated [p) in stressed syllables soundsto English ears somewhat l ike "b". In Latin~ m e r i c a however, this solution would becompletely unacceptable inasmuch as thenormal phonetic interpretation of "p" wouldbe an unaspirated voiceless variety. Thusi f i t were written "b" i t would cause misunderstanding for those bilinguals who readSpanish.

I f the contrast, on the other hand,is between a series of voiceless unaspiratedstops voiced unaspirated stops, then thevoiceless ones would be written p , t" ,and "k", and the voiced ones "b", "d", and"g". I f three series are phonemiaallypresent, then the voiced ones could bewritten "b", "d", and "g", the voiceless unaspira.ted ones "p", "t", and k", and thevoiceless aspirated series in some other way.When the voiceless asnirated stonemust be distinguished from the others--sothat the symbols "p", "t", and "k" are notadequate--several possibil i t ies must beconsidered. As for diacri t ics , a reversedapostrophe may be used, such as p' ". Thishas the advantage of appearing l ike a unitsymbol, but has the disadvantage of containing a diacri t ic . A second possibil i ty is touse i ta l ics . ~ h i s has the strong advantageof being a unit symbol which is similar tothe non-ital ioized form. I t has the disadvantage that in manuscript i talics arerep resent ad by underlining :E. , "t" andrather than by different-shaped,letters.In some foreign print shops, i ta l ic lettersare di ff icul t to obtain in the.proper type

the formation of practical alphabets

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