Assamese Transliteration Scheme
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
TRANSLITERATION SCHEME ASSAMESE SCRIPT TO LATIN SCRIPT PART : 1 DEFINITIONS PART : 2 CHARACTERS AND SIGNS PART : 3 CONSONANT CLUSTERS & DISTINCTIVE VOWEL FORMS PART : 4 BIBLIOGRAPHY TRANSLITERATION SCHEME ASSAMESE SCRIPT TO LATIN SCRIPT PART : 1 DEFINITIONS 1. LANGUAGE : The whole body of words and of methods of combination of words used by a nation, people, or race. 2. WORDS : A combination of vocal sounds, or one such sound, used in a language to express Dr an Satyakamidea (e.g. to denote a thing,Phukan attribute, or relation), and constituting an ultimate minimal element of speech having a meaning as such. Alternative expressions are, a vocable or a term. 3. SYNTAX : The arrangement of words (in their appropriate forms) by which their connexion and relation in a sentence are shown. Also, the constructional Dr Satyakam1 Phukan uses of a word or form or a class of words or forms, or those characteristic of a particular author. The department of grammar which deals with the established usages of grammatical construction and the rules deduced there from. 4. GRAMMAR : That department of the study of a language which deals with its inflexional forms or other means of indicating the relations of words in the sentence, and with the rules for employing these in accordance with established usage; usually including also the department which deals with the phonetic system of the language and the principles of its representation in writing. Often preceded by an adjective designating the language referred to, as in Hindi, Russian, Latin, English, French etc. grammar. The Science of the sounds (phonology), inflexions (accidence) and constructions (syntax), used in a language (universal, general, philosophical, geographical). Study of the general principles on which the existing Dr modes Satyakam of verbal expression rests. Phukan 5. ORTHOGRAPHY : That part of grammar which treats of the nature and values of letters and of their combination to express sounds and words. It is a standardized system for using a particular writing system (script) to write a particular language. All orthographic system, whether alphabetic, syllabic, or Dr Satyakam2 Phukan logographic, were invented a few thousand years ago with the sole purpose of communicating spoken language in graphic form. 6. INFLEXION : Modify words to express grammatical relations. The modification of the form of a word to express the different grammatical relations into which it may enter ; including the declension of substantives, adjectives and pronouns, the conjugation of verbs, the comparison of adjectives and adverbs. 7. SYLLABLE : A vocal sound or set of sounds uttered with a single effort of articulation and forming a word or an element of a word; each of the elements of spoken language comprising a sound of greater sonority (vowel or vowel- equivalent) with or without one or more sounds of less sonority (consonants or consonant-equivalents); also, a character or set of characters Dr formingSatyakam a corresponding element Phukan of written language. Unit of pronunciation forming (part of) a word and containing one vowel sound usually preceded or followed or both by consonant(s). 8. SCRIPT : A kind of writing, a system of alphabetical or other written characters. A set of graphic characters used for the written form of one or more Dr Satyakam3 Phukan languages. 9. ALPHABET : The set of letters used in writing a language. Originally meant for the Greek language combination of the first two letters of the script, α Alpha and β Beta, later the term was extended to Latin and then to other scripts. 10. ABUGIDA : A writing system in which default representation of a consonant is a combination of that particular consonant and a particular vowel. The vowel may be changed by modifying the basic symbol. All Indic scripts are Abugida and the default vowel is ª a অ º except the Chakma script where the default vowel is ª aa আ º. Term Abugida is derived from the first four letters of the Ge©ez script ä, bu, gi, da much like Alphabet derived from the first two letters of the Greek script. Ge©ez is a script of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Dr Satyakam Phukan 11. LINGUISTICS : The science or the scientific study of languages. Latin Lingua = The tongue or a tongue-like organ. Dr Satyakam4 Phukan 12. LETTER : An alphabetic character. A character or mark designed to represent one of the elementary sounds used in speech. Individual symbols that compose the alphabet. 13. PHILOLOGY : Science or the scientific study of the structure and development of languages. 14. MORPHOLOGY : The branch of grammar which is concerned with the form of words (including word-formation and inflexion). 15. MORPHEME : The smallest meaningful morphological unit of language, one that cannot be Dranalysed intoSatyakam smaller forms. Phukan 16. PHONETICS : The science or the study of speech sounds as physical phenomena. Articulatory Phonetics (the most anatomical and physiological division) describes how vowels and consonants are produced or ªarticulatedº in various parts of the mouth and throat. Dr Satyakam5 Phukan Acoustic Phonetics (the branch that has the closest affinities with physics) studies the sound waves that transmit the vowels and consonants through the air from the speaker to the hearer. Auditory Phonetics (the branch of most interest to psychologists) looks at the way in which the hearer's brain decodes the sound waves back into the vowels and consonants originally intended by the speaker. 17. PHONOLOGY : The study of how sounds are organized and used in natural languages. Phonology is about patterns of sounds, especially different patterns of sounds in different languages, or within each language,different patterns of sounds in different positions in words etc. 18. PHONEME : A phonological unit of language that cannot be analysed into smaller linear units and that in any particular language is realized in non- contrastive Dr variants.Satyakam Represented between Phukan two forward slashes example /f/. 19. ALLOPHONE : Any of the variants making up a single phoneme. Dr Satyakam6 Phukan 20. GRAPHEME : The class of letters and other visual symbols that represent a phoneme or cluster of phonemes. 21. ALLOGRAPH : Variants of the representation of a character. One of a number of letters or letter-combinations representing a phoneme. Example f (in friend) and gh (in cough) are two of the allographs representing the phoneme /f/. Hence allographic. 22. GLYPH : A sculptured mark or symbol. In information technology, a glyph (pronounced GLIHF) from a Greek word meaning carving is a graphic symbol that provides the appearance or form for a character. Dr Satyakam Phukan 23. FONT : A set of symbols used for display or printing of a script in a particular style. 24. LIGATURE : Two or more letters joined together and forming one character or type. Dr Satyakam7 Phukan 25. DIPHTHONG : A union of two vowels pronounced in one syllable. 26. TRIPHTHONG : A combination of three vowel sounds in one syllable 27. CLUSTER : A group of successive consonants. They are combination of single consonants pronounced in a rapid sequence. Each consonant retains its distinctive mouth move, but sometimes the individual phonemes are blurred a bit to make a smooth sequence. 28. TRANSCRIPTION : Representation of the sounds of a source language by graphic characters associated with a target language. Dr Satyakam Phukan 29. TRANSLITERATION : Representation of the graphic characters of a source script by the graphic characters of a target script. 30. REVERSE TRANSLITERATION : Process whereby the characters of a target script are transliterated into Dr Satyakam8 Phukan those of the source script. 31. ROMANIZATION : Conversion of non-Latin graphic characters into Latin graphic characters, using either transliteration or transcription. 32. ASSAMESE SCRIPT : The script used to write the Assamese language, continuation of the Assamese form of the ancient Kamrupi (Assamese) script. This script is distinctive and different from the Sanskrit form of the ancient Kamrupi (Assamese) script used to write the Sanskrit, Pali and other languages following the Sanskrit type of Phonology. The present Maithili or Mithilakshar script represents it now. The Bengali script is an altered form of the latter. The alteration has deformed the Bengali script due to the used of the letter র supposed to represent the phoneme /w/ for representing the phoneme /r/. There is therefore no letter in present Bengali script to represent the phoneme /w/. Assamese script is one of the most oldest of the Indic script, specimens of which are found as early as 4 thDr/5th century Satyakam AD in the Assam state ofPhukan India and in the Arakan/Rakhine state of Myanmar/Burma. By its schema it has similarities with Brahmi script but by its graphical forms it is closest with the Tibetan script. Some of the Assamese graphical forms are also seen in an altered form in the Thai script of Thailand (former Siam). Dr Satyakam9 Phukan 33. ASSAMESE ORTHOGRAPHY : Assamese orthography follows the grammar set by an Assamese Sanskrit scholar Purushottam Bhattacharya Bidyabagish, the book goes by the name ªPrayoga Ratnamala Byakaranº. The Sanskrit orthographic principles laid down there are applied in Assamese after the required alterations. Principles of the ªPrayoga Ratnamala Byakaranº differs from the Sanskrit grammar of Panini and his followers. The Assamese script therefore has Khya ক as a letter of the Assamese Abugida in contrast to the other Indic scripts following Paninian system where Khsya ক is considered a ligature of ক joining with ষ. In Assamese dictionaries Khya ক is the last letter whereas in the present Bengali dictionaries after the one written by W Carey, it comes after ক . But in the first Bengali dictionary by H P Forster in 1799 AD, it was all like the Kamrupi- Sanskrit script. Bibliography no. 17 in Part-4 below. 34. ASSAMESE TRANSLITERATION : The Dr difference Satyakam between Assamese and Phukan other Indic scripts of India are manifested visibly in the transliteration part.