LL-L "Orthography" 2009.05.20 (02) [EN]

[Lowlands-L List]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 20 May 2009 - Volume 02
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Language Codes: lowlands-l.net/codes.php
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
 Subject: Orthography

Dear Lowlanders,

Yesterday I shared my "tweak" of a sentence in Cape Malay Afrikaans of 1977
taken from a blog report (
http://dawudlindewei.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/arabic-afrikaans/). Please see
a repeat farther below.

Here are some more comments:

   - One of the theses of the article was that most of the Cape Malays that
   had themselves been moved to South Africa had been at least exposed to Dutch
   in what is now Indonesia, that their transition to Afrikaans must have been
   relatively easy.

   - I do not believe that Cape Malays plucked the Arabic script system for
   Afrikaans out of thin air. Before they left Southeast Asia, the Arabic
   script had already been used to write some local Malayic languages,
   including Malay proper. Using Arabic letters to represent non-Semitic
   languages was therefore not new to most of them, and the step to using it
   for Afrikaans must have seemed a fairly small one.

   - When we compare the system for Afrikaans with that (*Jawi*) used for
   Malay today we notice that it is more complex in that it seeks to represent
   all vowels and absences of vowels by means of diacritics in the way it is
   done in Qur'anic Arabic. Today's *Jawi* system for Malay represents short
   vowels less consistently, absence of vowels not at all. In fact, it uses no
   diacritics t all. What the two systems share, however, is the use of the
   Araboxenic letter *eng* (Ú ), an *`ayn* (ع) with a triple-dot on top.
   Malay: http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/malay-jawi.php,
   http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/malay-info.php

   - The system used for Afrikaans most resembles that used for Tausug, a
   Malayic language primarily used on the southernmost Philippine islands, also
   in some colonies in Sabah, a Malaysian part of Borneo. Not only is the vowel
   punctuation practically identical, but so is the use of the diacritical *
   sukun* (circle) to indicate absence of a vowel.
   Tausug: http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/tausug-info.php,
   http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/tausug-jawi.php

   - This is not to imply that the system used for Afrikaans has been taken
   from that used for Tausug. I am fairly certain that the system used for
   Tausug represents an older one used among certain Malayic-speaking Muslims,
   that today's *Jawi* for Standard Malay of Malaysia is a newer, simplified
   variant.

   - As for the word *hūka* (هُوْكَ) for Afrikaans *hoge*, we need to bear
   in mind that the fricative [x] can be represented by means of the Arabic
   letter *kha* (Ø®). Furthermore, the systems for Malay and Tausug represent
   /g/ by means of the Araboxenic letter *ga* (Ú¬), a *kaf* (Ùƒ) with a dot on
   top. The use of a *k* (*kaf*) for Afrikaans /g/ means either that this is
   how Caped Malays pronounced it or that this specific letter for /g/ was not
   available to them, that they were not familiar with it. I believe that the
   latter is more likely, because all Malayic languages have the phone [g]. In
   other words, I postulate that early Cape Malays pronounced Afrikaans /g/ as
   [g] but did not distinguish it orthographically for lack of an orthographic
   device to do so. Why not use the letter letter *kha* (Ø®) since Afrikaans
   /g/ is pronounced [x] in most environments? I believe the reason is that [x]
   is a difficult foreign sound for Malayic speakers and at least in the early
   days Cape Malays used the more familiar [g] instead, perhaps influenced by
   the Roman script spelling in Dutch and Afrikaans.

   - You may wonder about *bīdī* (بِيْدِيْ) for Afrikaans *by die*,
   considering that *y* represents the diphthong [əı] in Afrikaans
   (representing an earlier stage of the development from [i:] to today's
   pronunciation of Dutch *ij*). Bear in mind that the short /i/ diacritic
   is sometimes used to represent *schwa*. What seems to be happening here
   is that *schwa* and /-i/ (or rather /-j/) geminate to coincide with what
   in Arabic (and also in Arabic script for Afrikaans) stands for a long "i".
   Representation of Afrikaans *y* and *ie* are thus identical. I see this
   as a weakness of the system, not as an indication that *y* was pronounced
   [i:] at the time.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

***

Brought to you yesterday:

Arabic script:

ان دي ÙƒÙÙˆÙ’Ù†ÙÚ Ù’ سْكَبْ اس بِيْدِيْ هُوْكَ اﷲ تََََعٲلا ان ڤارْلِكْ اﷲ
تََََعٲلا اِس بَاس فَِرْ آلْدِي اِتْسْ

Close transliteration:

ʔǝn dī kūniŋ skap ʔǝs bīdī hūka ʔallāh taʕālā ʔǝn ẘārlik ʔallāh taʕālā ʔis
bās fiar ʔāldī ʔits


Reconstruction:

En die koningskap is by die hoka (= hoge) Allah *ta῾ālā*. En waarlik Allah *
ta῾ālā* is baas vir al die iets.

 *ta῾ālā* 'may be be exalted'
Translation:

And the kingdom is with the high Allah (may he be exalted!). And verily  Allah
(may he be exalted!) is master over all things.

Observations:

   - Short /i/ and short /e/ are shown as indistinct, which points toward a
   *schwa* pronunciation as in *en* and *is*.
   - In *vir*, both short /i/ and short /a/ are indicated (atypically two
   vowel diacritics). I take this as an attempt at symbolizing a low central
   vowel before /r/.
   - Long /o/ had already undergone raising to [u:], as in *hoge* = *hūka*.
   (Unfortunately, this brief sample does not show if raising had already been
   applied to long /e/.)
   - The velar fricative, spelled *g* in Afrikaans, is shown as *k*. I
   assume that the speaker (most likely a person from what is now Indonesia)
   pronounced it as [k].

•

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