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Bantu Orthography Manual Bantu Orthography Manual Leila Schroeder SIL International SIL e-Books 9 (revised April 2010) © 2008 SIL International® Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2008935395 ISBN: 972-1555671-255-5 ISSN: 1934-2470 Fair Use Policy Books published in the SIL e-Books (SILEB) series are intended for scholarly research and educational use. You may make copies of these publications for research or instructional purposes free of charge (within fair use guidelines) and without further permission. Republication or commercial use of SILEB or the documents contained therein is expressly prohibited without the written consent of the copyright holder(s). Series Editor Mary Ruth Wise Volume Editor Bonnie Brown Compositor Lois Gourley Part 1 Bantu Orthography Manual For linguistic and literacy fieldworkers Abstract The Bantu Orthography Manual is a resource for developing writing systems among the Bantu subgroup of Niger-Congo languages. It offers a strategy for orthography development, combined with a list of resources for Bantu linguistic information and the condensed advice of a coterie of respected Bantu linguistic experts. It offers readability and write-ability considerations whenever applicable. The Manual has a target audience: linguists gathering information for orthography development. Procedures for a “participatory approach” to phonological analysis are described in one chapter. A series of charts help the linguist document and organize the phonological and morphological information gathered. The Linguistic Features chapter lists common linguistic characteristics of Bantu languages, describes the attendant orthographic challenges, and of- fers suggested solutions, along with the pedagogical rationale for each. iv Contents Part 1: Bantu Orthography Manual Chapter 1 - Defining Orthography ..............................................................................2 Definition of orthography ......................................................................................................2 The purpose ...........................................................................................................................2 The goal .................................................................................................................................2 Foundational assumptions for orthography development .....................................................2 Elements of the development process ....................................................................................3 Purpose of this manual ..........................................................................................................3 Chapter 2 - Representing Linguistic Features .............................................................4 Introduction ...........................................................................................................................4 List of graphemes for the segmental aspects of a Bantu writing system ................................7 Vowels ..............................................................................................................................7 Consonants .......................................................................................................................7 Vowels ..................................................................................................................................10 Vowel systems ................................................................................................................10 Vowel harmony ...............................................................................................................12 Vowel length ..................................................................................................................14 Predictable shortening of an underlyingly long vowel ..................................................21 Semivowels ....................................................................................................................22 Vowel elision (also a word break issue) .........................................................................25 Consonants ..........................................................................................................................26 Liquids ............................................................................................................................26 Fricatives ........................................................................................................................27 Nasals .............................................................................................................................27 Affricates ........................................................................................................................29 Implosives ......................................................................................................................31 Double articulated stops ................................................................................................31 Geminate consonants .....................................................................................................31 Prenasalization ...............................................................................................................32 Labialization and palatalization .....................................................................................33 Velarization ....................................................................................................................36 v Morphophonological Processes ...........................................................................................36 Phonological conditioning at morpheme boundaries .....................................................37 Vowel coalescence/assimilation .....................................................................................39 Principles of Tone Marking in an Orthography ...................................................................40 Verbs ..............................................................................................................................42 Nouns .............................................................................................................................43 Functors .........................................................................................................................43 Word Boundary Principles ...................................................................................................43 Clitics vs. affixes: two different animals .........................................................................45 Augment vowels .............................................................................................................47 Associative marker (wa, ba, gwa, gya, etc.) ...................................................................49 The conjunction na .........................................................................................................51 Vowel elision / coalescence in clitics .............................................................................51 In verbs ...........................................................................................................................52 Generalizations ...............................................................................................................53 Chapter 3 - Orthography Testing .............................................................................54 Troubleshooting Problem Areas ..........................................................................................54 Probable Test Needs ............................................................................................................54 Who Should Be Tested .........................................................................................................55 Types of Test ........................................................................................................................55 Informal vs. Formal ........................................................................................................55 Giving formal tests .........................................................................................................55 Appendix A: Determining Functional Load for Tone ...........................................................60 Appendix B: Glossary of Linguistic Terminology .................................................................63 Appendix C: Morphological vs. Phonological Rules .............................................................65 vi Part 2: A Participatory Approach to Orthography Development: Procedural Guide Chapter 1: Overview of Procedures ..........................................................................73 The goal ...............................................................................................................................73 Foundational Assumptions for Orthography Development ..................................................73 Goals ....................................................................................................................................73 Linguistic rationale ..............................................................................................................73 Overview ..............................................................................................................................74 Initial Orthography Development: studying phonology and morphophonology..
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