1 Ettien Koffi’s Note For students of African orthographies in Latin script, this is a very important document. The decisions contained in this document have influenced the orthography of African languages. I have seen this document quoted in several documents. However, this is the first time I have seen the document in its entirety. I’m happy to post it on my website. However, the entire document can also be found at: http://www.bisharat.net/Documents/poal30.htm INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF AFRICAN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES MEMORANDUM I Revised Edition PRACTICAL ORTHOGRAPHY OF AFRICAN LANGUAGES Published by the OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS for the INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF AFRICAN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES 22 CRAVEN STREET LONDON, W.C. 2 1930 PRACTICAL ORTHOGRAPHY OF AFRICAN LANGUAGES INTRODUCTION THE first edition of the Practical Orthography of African Languages, consisting of 3,500 copies (3,000 in English and 500 in German) has been sold out within two years. This fact proves that the problem of finding a practical and uniform method of writing African languages has aroused widespread interest, and that the efforts of the Institute towards the solution of the problem have met with considerable response. The second edition is being printed in English, French, and German. 2 Up to the present, the principles of orthography recommended by the Institute have been accepted for the following languages: Fante, Twi, Ga, Ewe on the Gold Coast; Efik, lbo, Yoruba, and partially for Hausa in Nigeria; for Mende, Temne, Soso, Konno, Limba in Sierra Leone; Shilluk, Nuer, Dinka, Bari, Latuko, Madi, and Zande in the Sudan; in Mashonaland it is proposed for a written language to be called Shona, based on the closely related dialects of Karanga, Zezuru, Ndau, Korekore, and Manyika. In the Union of South Africa and in other parts of the continent the introduction of the new orthography is under discussion at present. A number of books for school and mission use have appeared in the new orthography in several of the above-named languages, and others are in preparation. Further information about these can be obtained on request from the Institute. The aim of the recommendations of the Institute has been, and is, the unification and simplification of the orthography of African languages. Over large areas which have political, geographical, or linguistic unity an unsatisfactory state of affairs is found to exist at the present time owing to lack of agreement as to the general principles of writing down the languages, and as to the letters to be used and the meanings attached to them. In Africa to-day conditions of life are such that many thousands of natives leave their home districts and, either with or without their families, settle temporarily or permanently in districts where their mother tongue is not understood. Thus, for everyday intercourse, for church and school life, or in order to read a newspaper, they are obliged to learn another language. It would obviously be a great advantage if in the orthography of the new language, the value of the letters were the same, or as nearly as possible the same, as those they have already learnt for their mother tongue. Moreover, in many parts of Africa, children in the early stages of school life receive instruction through the medium of the mother tongue, and later in a language which is used over a wider area. The change from mother tongue to another language may not be very difficult for the Negro, because of his linguistic ability and because the two languages are generally closely related, and their construction, grammar, idiom, and vocabulary are often very similar. But if the two languages are written with two different systems of orthography, confusion is likely to arise, and unnecessary difficulty is placed in the path of the learner. In such cases the promotion of uniformity is clearly an important need of the moment. Another urgent need is expressed in the second purpose of the Memorandum, viz. the simplification of orthography. The number of ways in which speech-sounds are represented to-day in Africa is overwhelming. In every case the basis is the Latin alphabet. As many African languages contain sounds for which the Latin letters are inadequate and which nevertheless must be distinguished in writing, many 3 methods of representing these sounds have been devised. The only systematic orthography which has been used to any considerable extent is that of R. Lepsius, described in his Standard Alphabet (2nd edition, London and Berlin, 1863). It is not necessary here to insist upon the scientific value of this alphabet, and especially of the enlarged and improved forms which Meinhof has devised for the particular needs of African languages, and the alphabets which have sprung from it (e.g. the Anthropos alphabet of P. W. Schmidt). It is possible by means of this system to represent speech-sounds with great accuracy. For the practical use of the native, however, the Lepsius and Anthropos alphabets have notable disadvantages, in that they make extensive use of diacritic marks above and below the letters. For practical purposes in everyday life diacritic marks constitute a difficulty and a danger. In the first place it is found that in current writing these marks are liable to be altered so as to be unrecognizable and even omitted altogether, as everyone who has had to read written texts in African languages will readily acknowledge. Such alterations and omissions of diacritic marks are also frequently found in print. For example, in Yoruba and in other Nigerian languages the horizontal line which Lepsius used in writing 'open' e and o has been replaced sometimes by a vertical line and sometimes by a dot. In the Lepsius alphabet, however, the dot has the opposite meaning to the horizontal line, and is used to indicate a 'close' vowel. A. T. Sumner has published handbooks in the Mende, Temne, and Sherbro languages (Freetown, 1917, 1921, and 1922). In the first of these, close vowels are represented by a dot under the letter and the open vowels are unmarked; in the Temne and Sherbro books the usage is reversed, the open vowels being represented by a dot under the letter and the close vowels remaining unmarked. In Sotho school-books open e and o have been printed in four different ways. In the Introduction to the Standard Alphabet (p. xii) the following statement is found: 'For the uncritical Native ... many of the diacritical marks may be dispensed with, or will gradually drop off of themselves.' This expected dropping off has certainly taken place, but proper distinction has not been made in what may and what may not be dispensed with. The following are some further drawbacks to the use of diacritics. Letters with diacritic marks give a blurred outline to words and thus impair their legibility. Again, a letter consisting of two, three, or four separate elements is much more difficult to grasp and much more likely to strain the eyes than a simple letter. This objection is particularly true of diacritic marks under the letters, as these are most easily overlooked in reading and forgotten in writing. Some existing alphabets are 4 so overloaded with diacritic marks that a glance at them is sufficient to show that they are unsatisfactory from a practical point of view. When native pupils are no longer under the supervision of a teacher in school they simply drop most of the diacritics in writing. Economic considerations also support the case for uniformity and for the use of letters without diacritic marks. If the types in use differ from language to language and have to be stocked to meet every special case, European printers are less likely to undertake the production of African books than if similar type can be used over large speech areas. In printing-types diacritic marks are apt to break off, and they wear out more quickly than the letter itself, so that more frequent renewals are necessary. All these facts, together with practical experience, have led us to recommend the introduction of a few new letters, which in view of their legibility and the suitability of their cursive forms are clearly to be preferred to ordinary Roman letters with diacritic marks attached. The adoption of these letters will put an end to the multiplicity of signs in use at present; each new letter is, moreover, a simple uniform symbol and not a conglomeration of two or more elements. Diacritic marks are manifestly a makeshift, and a practical alphabet for current use should not be constructed of makeshifts. The representation of each sound (or rather each phoneme, see p. 14) by one separately designed letter should be considered as an essential principle of orthography. Such difficulty as there may be in new letters lies in the fact that for Europeans (but not for the African child who is beginning to learn to read) these letters are unfamiliar and strike us as strange. It is difficult to find any other objections to them. Although the above objection has not much intrinsic weight, it must nevertheless be taken into consideration to some extent in constructing a system that is to be of general practical use. For this reason, in the alphabet proposed the number of new letters is reduced to a minimum, and the principle of representing each essential sound by a separate symbol is not always rigidly adhered to. Thus in some cases- as for instance in the representation of palatal consonants- it has been thought advisable to resort to 'digraphs' or groups of two letters to indicate single sounds. Diacritic marks too have not been altogether banished: they are used to show 'central' vowels, nasalized vowels, and tones.