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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">Dear Otomangueanist colleagues,</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">Orthography continues to be a challenge in
Otomanguean. There are two questions that come to mind.</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">1) Is it possible to maintain one standard
orthography for Otomanguean, say with some modifications like we see in the
Romance languages?</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">2) What are the common phonological issues
in Otomanguean that make a unified orthography difficult?</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">3) What sociological factors determine what
orthography a community will adopt?</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">4) What organizations (mother-tongue or other) are
dealing with the issue of orthography in Otomanguean?</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">I asked Beth Merrill to comment on her experience
with Zapotec in Oaxaca. She has been involved in several workshops on the
issue and is currently working on a language salvage project (SIL).</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">Any additional comments are greatly welcome.</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:
Beth_Merrill @sil.org</B> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> Scott Berthiaume </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Friday, January 17, 2003 11:18
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> zapotec
orthography</DIV></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>As usual, the factors driving different
orthographic decisions tend to be historical and sociological much more than
linguistic. One of the interesting linguistic factors is that many Zapotec
languages have a sixth vowel (i.e., as compared to the five vowels of
Spanish)--however, phonetically, the sixth vowel is all over the map in
different Zapotecs; in some variants, it's an ae (read IPA
symbol) like in "cat", in some it's a barred i sound (previously written in
Chichicapan as an e with dieresis; they've since changed to a barred i
character, which many Zapotec orthographies use; those that use the dieresis e
usually are symbolizing the ae sound) and there are other variations as well;
some variants have lost the sixth vowel altogether.</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Lenis and fortis poses an interesting proposition;
there's probably as many different ways to indicate that as there are people in
the room! (Okay, so I'm exaggerating, but only a little.) For example,
Isthmus Zapotec--one of the most numerous and most literate groups--writes the
lenis and fortis palatal fricative exactly the opposite of how most of the
Valley groups do (x and xh, and xh and x respectively). Others use an underline,
or a geminate character (xx and x), and there are also other ways.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The group would like for the same sound to be
written the same in all the variants, but because the phonemes aren't the same
in all the variants, the issue of what you're contrasting with often drives
orthographic decisions. For example, in some variants there
is contrast between x (typically used to write the English sh) and sh,
because the x is retroflexed and slightly backed, and can occur in the same
environment and changes the meaning of the word.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Beth Merrill</FONT></FONT></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>