Vol. 2, n. 2: Orthography development in Ash éninka Perené (Mihas 2010)

[Cadernos de Etnolingüística]

Orthography development in Ashéninka Perené (Arawak): a case study

por Elena Mihas

This paper proposes a practical orthography for Ashéninka Perené
(Arawak) by looking at the existing orthographies of the language.
Focusing on the SIL-recommended linguistic orthography, native
language consultants' ad hoc writing samples, and the alphabet
approved by the Ashéninka Perené community of Bajo Marankiari, the
study analyzes a few seemingly problematic issues of the
representation of palatalization, aspiration, and vowel length, as
well as the spelling of the bilabial approximant and the
underspecified archiphoneme N. Special attention is given to loans of
graphemes from the language of wider communication (Spanish) as well
as to orthography depth and consistency in the existing orthographies.
My analysis shows that the native orthographies largely converge on a
set of writing conventions which ignore contrast in aspiration and
vowel length, tendentially mark the archiphoneme N as <n> before oral
stops, use a sequence of Ci to mark palatalization of consonants (with
a few exceptions), and borrow extensively Spanish characters for
native sounds.

http://www.etnolinguistica.org/issue:vol2n2

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