<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Robert Hsu</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:hsu@hawaii.edu">hsu@hawaii.edu</a>></span><br>Date: Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 6:31 PM<br>
Subject: Re: digraphs and sorting<br>To: James Kari <<a href="mailto:jmkari@alaska.edu">jmkari@alaska.edu</a>><br>Cc: <a href="mailto:gmholton@alaska.edu">gmholton@alaska.edu</a>, "S. Hargus" <<a href="mailto:sharon@u.washington.edu">sharon@u.washington.edu</a>><br>
<br><br><p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">Hi Jim--<span> </span>Thanks for forwarding this thread from </span><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">Gary</span><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">.<span> </span></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial"> </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">Gary</span><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">:<span> </span>I don't know of any studies, and in any case general studies may</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">not be too relevant since in a particular language maintenance situation</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">this is probably a decision for the speakers, like orthography design.</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial"> </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial"><span> </span>Subjectively I think I prefer digraphs and trigraphs to be alphabetized</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">as sequences of single characters like th in English--fewer primary letters</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">to remember the order of.<span> </span>That would reduce the need for a mnemonic aid </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">like the footers in the Koyukon dictionary.<span> </span>Also, from a tree-traversing </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">point of view, if there are fewer distinct units--fewer possible branches--</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">searches can be whittled down faster, though the depth would increase a bit.</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">Still, these are only theoretical speculations and subjective feelings.<span> </span></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial"> </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial"><span> </span>A similar situation occurs when certain segments or distinctions like </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">voicing or dialectal variation are merged in alphabetization, e.g.,<span> </span>gh/g, </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">k/ch, b/m<span> </span>in Koyukon, or<span> </span>nh/n, s/z<span> </span>in Deg Xinag.<span> </span>Other distinctions are</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">also commonly merged, like long and short vowels.<span> </span>Merging also reduces </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">the number of primary letters, possibly speeding look-up.<span> </span>It has the </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">further benefit, when disinctions with low functional load or which are </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">otherwise easily confused are merged, of simplifying look-up when the user </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">is not sure of the values (length, voicing, etc.) in the word.</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial"> </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial"><span> </span>Apart from ease of use, another issue is whether the phonemic inventory</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">need be enshrined in the organization of a dictionary designed for language </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">maintenance, as opposed to a reference dictionary.<span> </span>(In fact, for the </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">former, must the orthography itself be phonemically entirely faithful?</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">The fully phonemic transcription can always be placed in a separate band.)<span> </span></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial"><span> </span></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial"><span> </span>This doesn't answer your original question about digraphs.<span> </span>But with </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">on-line dictionaries being practical now, we can have the luxury of </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">presenting a dictionary in more than one form without worrying about cutting</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">down more trees.<span> </span>The one example of this I know is the Marshallese On-line </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">Dictionary, which is presented in both the original phoneme-by-phoneme order</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">and "unified" order which merges plain and modified letters:</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial"> </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial"><span> </span><a href="http://www.trussel2.com/MOD" target="_blank">www.trussel2.com/MOD</a></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial"> </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">You could do the same with the different treatments of digraphs, and gauge</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">user preference.<span> </span>Although looking up a word through an electronic interface</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">is a different experience from using a book, browsing the electronic </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">versions should give a feel for the consequences of the different ordering </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">systems, something impossible to capture in the abstract.</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial"> </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial">Best wishes,<span> </span>Bob</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:Arial"> </span></p><br><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 8:29 AM, James Kari <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jmkari@alaska.edu" target="_blank">jmkari@alaska.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:#ccc 1px solid;MARGIN:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;PADDING-LEFT:1ex" class="gmail_quote">Hi Bob,<br>how are you? this is a subject you know something about.<br>Lots of activity here. I attach an abstract for Ath. conf next month in Bellingham. program is at uaf.edu.anlc/alc<br>
best regards<br>Jim<br><br>
<div class="gmail_quote"><div class="im">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Mike Morgan</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mwmbombay@gmail.com" target="_blank">mwmbombay@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
Date: Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 7:22 AM<br>Subject: Re: digraphs and sorting<br></div>To: <a href="mailto:ATHAPBASCKAN-L@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">ATHAPBASCKAN-L@listserv.linguistlist.org</a><br><br><br>I would imagine that it would depend on the existing level of literacy<br>
in a majority language, and what orthographic conventions are used by<br>that majority language community. If most members of a community are<br>already used to the idea that "th" is a separate sound but is<br>
alphabetized after "tg" and before "ti", then presumably following<br>
this practice in creating an orthography would make things easier.<br><br>Though, of course, making things easier is NOT ALWAYS the primary<br>goal, and sometimes OPPOSING any existing majority language practices<br>is preferred as it increases the degree of distinctiveness of the<br>
minority language.<br><br>as I said though, although I think I have seen studies on this<br>somewhere, I have no idea where or when they might have been...<br><br><br>PS technology can also enter into the mix: Welsh has a long history of<br>
treating "ch", "dd" and "ll" as separate digraphic characters, and<br>alphabetizing them accordingly (so "ch" follows "cz", etc). With the<br>advent of word processing, but before special software which<br>
alphabetized according to welsh rules, things started to change, and<br>many people followed English practices ("ch" after "cg"). Now that<br>such software is ubiquitous, it is (mostly) back to tradition...<br>
<br>mwm<br>
<div>
<div><br>On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 8:40 PM, Gary Holton <<a href="mailto:gmholton@alaska.edu" target="_blank">gmholton@alaska.edu</a>> wrote:<br>> Hello,<br>><br>> I know this list doesn't get a lot of traffic, so apologies in advance<br>
> for spamming you with this query. For years I've accepted without<br>> question the orthodoxy which sorts dictionary entries by digraph<br>> rather than by single characters. This makes obvious sense, since<br>
> digraphs such as th or even trigraphs such as tł' are single phonemes<br>> and hence shouldn't be relegated to secondary status within a<br>> dictionary. On the other hand, we also know that many languages do<br>
> just fine treating digraphs as separate characters for the purposes of<br>> dictionary sorting (e.g., English has no "th" section; Malay has no<br>> "ng" section). So, my question is, does anyone know of any usability<br>
> studies -- or even just subjective account -- comparing the relative<br>> advantages of each approach within a language maintenance situation?<br>><br>> Gary Holton<br><br><br><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
</font></span></div></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><span><font color="#888888">--<br>
mwm || *U* C > || mike || мика || माईक || マイク || மாய்க் (aka Dr Michael W<br>Morgan)<br>sign language linguist / linguistic typologist<br>academic adviser to "Nepal Sign Language Training and Research Centre"<br>
project<br>NDFN, Kathmandu, Nepal<br></font></span></font></span></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br></font></span></blockquote></div><br>
</div><br>