32.2320, Review: Language Documentation; Writing Systems: Jones, Mooney (2020)

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Subject: 32.2320, Review: Language Documentation; Writing Systems: Jones, Mooney (2020)

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Date: Thu, 08 Jul 2021 17:26:01
From: Lionel Mathieu [lmathieu at bu.edu]
Subject: Creating Orthographies for Endangered Languages

 
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/31/31-1473.html

EDITOR: Mari C. Jones
EDITOR: Damien  Mooney
TITLE: Creating Orthographies for Endangered Languages
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2020

REVIEWER: Lionel Mathieu, Boston University

SUMMARY

“Creating Orthographies for Endangered Languages” is an edited volume of
fourteen independent case studies that offer a transcontinental perspective on
script designs and development for threatened languages spoken in a variety of
sociopolitical contexts. 

The eponymic introductory chapter, written by the editors, Mari C. Jones and
Damien Mooney, delves right into the challenging enterprise of procuring a
written form to oral languages subject to endangerment by considering key
elements at the heart of orthography development (or graphization) for
revitalization purposes. Hence, considerations of literacy (Section 2),
standardization (Section 3), linguistic factors (e.g. the phonemic principle,
the functional load, morphophonemic spelling, orthographic ‘depth’, the
lexical orthographical hypothesis, establishing word boundaries, and marking
tone; Section 5) and extra-linguistic factors (e.g. native-speaker input,
ideological distanciation, the transfer of literacy, cognition and pedagogy,
pre-existing orthographies, and practical concerns; Section 6) are formally
discussed – with some reference to empirical instantiations – before providing
an overview of each case study to follow.

Chapter 2 (“Who Owns Vernacular Literacy? Assessing the Sustainability of
Written Vernaculars”, Christopher Moseley) reports on data from a
UNESCO-backed survey on the development of Roman-based orthographies for
thirty previously unwritten languages. Responses from questionnaires sent to
linguists and/or missionaries across the world reveal the challenging task of
designing sustainable and viable vernacular written media (underpinning
literacy broadly construed) for intergenerational circulation, in an era of
mass communications channeled via increasingly more accessible technologies,
in a multilingual world. Factors coming into play in ascertaining the critical
point of self-sustainability and viability of such vernacular orthographies
are presented, along with considerations (and instantiations) about the nature
of vernacular literacy in a 21st century reading/writing environment. 

Chapter 3 (“Hearing Local Voices, Creating Local Content: Participatory
Approaches in Orthography Development for Non-Dominant Language Communities”,
Mansueto Casquite and Catherine Young) discusses orthography development for
purposes of mother-tongue-based multilingual education, where native-speaker
participants are fully engaged in a collaborative crafting- and
decision-making process. The authors argue for greater consultation and
implication of the ethnolinguistic community in the design and implementation
of a novel writing system, where both linguistic and extra-linguistic elements
are informed by native-speakers. An instance of participatory orthography
development in the endangered languages of the southern Philippines serves as
an illustrative example of such communal endeavor, where tools and methods,
processes and products, issues and implications are detailed.

Chapter 4 (“Orthographies ‘In the Making’: The Dynamic Construction of
Community-Based Writing Systems among the Náayeri of North-Western Mexico”,
Margarita Valdovinos) “presents a case study in which mediating actors [e.g.
teachers, local intellectuals, political leaders, researchers] occupy a
central position in the materialization of a particular linguistic policy –
namely the adoption of an orthographic system for the Chwíse’etaana Náayeri
(Cora Mariteco), an indigenous language spoken by approximately five thousand
people in the state of Nayarit, in north-western Mexico.” (69). By reflecting
on the steps of the orthography-making process that took place in 2012, the
author explores the social dynamics of orthography development ranging from
the macro- (political, educational, dialectal) to the micro- (prosodic,
phonetic, orthographic) levels of interactions. A particular emphasis is made
on the author’s own experiences and work with actors of the language community
to devise a native-speaker-informed orthographic system.

Chapter 5 (“Community-Driven, Goal-Centred [sic] Orthography Development: A
Tsakhur Case Study”, Kathleen D. Sackett) describes another situation of
community-driven participation in the elaboration of a new Roman-based
orthography for the approximately 50,000 Tsakhur people living in Azerbaijan.
Initiated in 2012, and guided by socio-linguistic/political/economic goals and
principles emanating from sustained and interactive discussions with the
community, the author chronicles her assignment as a linguist consultant in
applying such guiding aspirations to the design and development of the Tsakhur
orthographic system. Concrete, language-supported explanations of these
painstaking efforts are provided, offering readers an insider’s look into the
actual linguistic and orthographic work that goes into fashioning a written
system for a language at risk.
 
Chapter 6 (“Writing for Speaking: The N|uu Orthography”, Sheena Shah and
Matthias Brenzinger) describes the “Writing for Speaking” project that seeks
to establish a shallow orthography for N|uu, a nearly extinct language with
only three fluent speakers left (all sisters in their mid 80s) in Southern
Africa. With one of the largest phonemic inventories in the world – including
the presence of numerous click sounds – the challenge of rendering N|uu in a
Roman-based script has been tackled by a few research groups (in collaboration
with community informants), all producing slightly different written forms of
the language by way of linguistic and pedagogical materials during
revitalization efforts. This chapter features an abundance of language samples
for readers to appreciate this ongoing feat of developing an orthographic
system, along with some spelling and writing conventions, for a phonologically
rich yet highly endangered language.

Chapter 7 (“Reflections on the Kala Biŋatuwã, a Three-Year-Old Alphabet from
Papua New Guinea”, Christine Schreyer) considers the post-graphization efforts
on the Kala alphabet developed in 2010 and offers perspectives and evaluations
from both the community members’ work on and use of the language’s
recently-created orthography, as well as that of the author accompanying such
endeavor. By embracing the notion of ‘orthography as a process’, the author
first retraces the impetus for and evolution of their parallel dialectal
approach to orthography development, giving voice to the Kala-speaking actors
who took to heart to create a writing system that is inclusive of their
community’s cultural, social, and dialectal diversity. The author then goes on
to elaborate on specific insights and potential revisions to the
three-year-old Kala alphabet, addressing matters of orthographic
representation, readability, and ease of use, as part of “a lengthy and
engaged reflective process” (141).

Chapter 8 (“When Letters Represent More Than Sounds: Ideology versus
Practicality in the Development of a Standard Orthography for Ch’orti’ Mayan”,
Kerry Hull) focuses on the ideological motivations impacting the development
and subsequent appropriation of an agreed-upon, standardized writing system
for the Mayan language Ch’orti’, spoken by some 12,000 individuals in eastern
Guatemala. The original designs of a pan-Mayan alphabet – by the Summer
Institute of Linguistics [SIL] on the one hand, and the Academia de Lenguas
Mayas de Guatemala [ALMG] on the other – were met with differing views by
Ch’orti’ practitioners and revitalization groups. Despite increased literacy
and transmission rates, the Ch’orti’ orthography became, over the years, the
terrain of disputes over ideology, power, and identity, even effecting changes
in linguistic behavior in both speech and writing, in part to eradicate
linguistic and orthographic traces of Spanish in the indigenous language.
Comparative examples of the competing SIL and ALMG orthographic renditions
serve to illustrate how notions of linguistic correctness and accuracy can be
supplanted by ideology.

Chapter 9 (“The Difficult Task of Finding a Standard Writing System for the
Sioux Languages”, Avelino Corral Esteban) “analyses and compares [the Lakota
and Dakota varieties of Sioux, a Native American language with an
alphabet-like record dating back to the early 19th century,] in order to
determine which reproduces the pronunciation most faithfully.” (155). As in
most situations of language planning and revitalization, linguistic facts
aren’t the be-all and end-all of orthography development and standardization
as is evidenced in i) the representation of dialectal variation in two
mutually intelligible dialects of Sioux, and ii) the choice between a number
of competing writing systems among historically and orthographically
fragmented communities. The author goes into great detail to survey how Sioux’
phonological segments and features (e.g. stress marking) are represented in
these various writing systems, before considering educational,
socio-historical, political, and technical factors impacting the choice of a
standard Sioux orthography for the sake of linguistic identity, unity, and
longevity.

Chapter 10 (“Orthography Development in Sardinia: The Case of Limba Sarda
Comuna”, Rosangela Lai) evaluates the effectiveness of a standard orthography
(Limba Sarda Comuna [ LSC]) for two macro-dialectal varieties of Sardinian, an
insular Romance language of Sardinia. At issue are the two criteria adopted to
design the LSC (i.e. the etymological criterion and the ‘Sardinian
distinctiveness’ criterion), which ultimately favor the northern and central
dialect of Logudorese over the southern one of Campidanese. After considering
both linguistic and socio-political aspects, the author comes to the
conclusion that the LSC was designed to closely befit the Logudorese dialect
as it reflects its diachronic development, and stems from a graphization
process that saw no community consultation, involvement or testing, ultimately
hindering Sardinian literacy and preservation efforts as a whole.

Chapter 11 (“Breton Orthographies: An Increasingly Awkward Fit”, Steve Hewitt)
makes the case for adopting a supradialectal orthographic standard for Breton,
a vulnerable language with four mutually semi-intelligible dialects in
north-western France. With the support of numerous isoglossic maps and charts,
the author proceeds to first exhaustively catalog all of the contrastive
phonological, orthographic, and morphological features across the Breton
dialects, before chronologically reviewing, with equally great detail, the
drawbacks and good points of the dozen or so main orthographies (from Old
Breton onward). In light of the complexities of the Breton dialects and the
inconsistencies in existing modern orthographies, the author is promoting his
own ‘etymological orthography’, which although more complex to learn, may be
the most adequate for the range of dialectal variation at hand.

Chapter 12 (“Spelling Trouble: Ideologies and Practices in
Giernesiei/Dgernesiais/Guernesiais/Guernésiais/Djernezié …”, Julia Sallabank
and Yan Marquis) comments on the status of a severely endangered Norman
language with no official recognition or name, spoken on one of the
Anglo-Norman islands off of coast of Normandy, France. With a dwindling
population of native speakers, but a growing community of second language
adult learners relying on electronic means of communication, Guernesiais finds
itself in a diglossic situation where the long-standing prestige of French
influences spelling conventions and writing practices – fueling an ideology of
orthographic ‘correctness’ among some literate speakers – despite a massive
language shift towards English, the island’s dominant language. Because
pervasive spelling inconsistencies due to an absence of standardization appear
to be the greatest hurdle to new Guernesiais learners and future generations
of users, the authors offer a more transparent orthography with a particular
attention towards learners.

Chapter 13 (“Orthography Development on the Internet: Romani on YouTube”, D.
Viktor Leggio and Yaron Matras) “investigates the role of new communication
technologies as an alternative to the nation-state approach to language
standardization” (254) for Romani, a non-standardized minority language spoken
across dispersed communities in Europe. Based on a corpus of communal YouTube
networks, the authors explore Romani users’ spontaneous spelling solutions as
they manifest dialectal and diasporic features, revealing orthographic
influences from other dominant languages of Europe. The advent of social,
online networks has increasingly democratized orthographic practices and
conventions, and in the case of endangered, oral languages, such public
platforms have birthed a new sphere of communication, where bottom-up
processes of graphization arise in polyphonic, transnational, digital
environments.

Chapter 14 (“Orthography Creation for Postvernacular Languages: Case Studies
of Rama and Francoprovençal Revitalization”, Bénédicte Pivot and Michel Bert)
examines the case of orthography development in the absence of revitalization
as a means to reverse language shift for two highly vulnerable languages with
little to no intergenerational transmission and public use: Rama, an ethnic,
Amerindian language of Nicaragua, and Francoprovençal, a Gallo-Roman language
spoken in France, Switzerland, and Italy. After first establishing the
sociolinguistic contexts and vitality status of these languages, the authors
delineate the development of their orthographic systems, along with their
ensuing degrees of literacy, function, and ideological stance. For both Rama
and Francoprovençal, language assumes a more symbolic rather than utilitarian
function, where the (un)standardized written form acts as a linguistic marker
of identity and membership, something worth preserving.

Chapter 15 (“Changing Script in a Threatened Language: Reactions to
Romanization at Bantia in the First Century BC”, Katherine McDonald and
Nicholas Zair) deals with the alleged reasons for adopting the Roman alphabet
to transcribe the Oscan language, spoken and written in the southern Italian
town of Bantia between the fourth and first century BC. Based on a close
reading of the language, script and orthography in the Lex Osca Tabula Bantina
(100-91 BC), the longest and most detailed written record of Oscan, the
authors reexamine the claim that the ancient language was already in a state
of endangerment before its demise during the Social War (91-88 BC), which saw
the rapid settlement of Romans in the region, thereby assuredly installing the
hegemony of Latin. By carefully scrutinizing and reinterpreting misplaced word
dividers, spelling and punctuation mistakes, and the deliberate use of certain
graphemes, the authors contend that “the language of the Tabula Bantina
provides very little support for the idea that Oscan was already endangered at
the time it was written” (298).

EVALUATION

This volume is geared towards a readership of linguists interested in
sociolinguistics, orthography development (or graphization), language
revitalization, planning and policy. The prose is generally clear, polished,
and moderately light in terms of technical jargon and/or concepts, making its
content accessible to readers with a foundational background in phonology and
ethnolinguistic descriptions.

Through an array of fourteen, article-length, international case studies, this
volume addresses and frames critical questions related to the creation of an
orthographic system for oral languages succumbing to language shift and/or on
the verge of death. Topics of focus include: orthographic standardization and
language variability; literacy and learnability; structural and diacritical
features; digitalization and portability of newly-created writing systems;
sociopolitical ecology, community, and values system undergirding script
development; and cohesion with neighboring and distant speech communities.

The editors are to be commended for assembling a set of rigorous projects
that, for the most part, place the language communities at the heart of the
orthography development enterprise. These case studies offer a much more
collaborative and inclusive view of the role and place of the linguist expert
in assisting speech communities to take ownership of their endangered
language’s orthography in order to realize and sustain successful
revitalization outcomes. All of the contributors recognize the fact that
orthographies are not conceived, and do not operate, in a vacuum, but rather,
within a community of speakers with a history, a culture, a social fabric,
and, in the case of endangered languages, a future to secure. Emanating from
all corners of the world, the work presented in this volume is as fascinating
as it is inspiring.

A particularly remarkable feature of this volume of otherwise distinct case
studies is the fact that a number of authors cite some of the same
foundational studies to anchor their graphization work (e.g. Smalley, 1964;
Fishman, 1991; Seifart 2006; Rice and Cahill 2014). Additionally,
contributions consistently cross-reference one another, which further
emphasizes the perspective of a coherent and unified field of research and
undertaking.

On that note, one possible objection concerns the introductory chapter,
written by the editors. While it presents readers with critical considerations
in the development of an orthographic system for vulnerable languages, the
authors/editors do not make mention of the content/findings of the case
studies featured in the volume to support their more abstract/theoretical
explanations. Instead, they reference other studies, other contexts, and other
languages of wider communication to serve as illustrative examples of, for
instance, extra/linguistic factors in creating orthographies. The content of
the fourteen case studies is only summarized in a closing, overview section
that makes reference to the previous, more formal, ones. In that respect, the
introduction may lack a sense of cohesiveness for a volume of already
independent case studies (that nevertheless effectively acknowledge one
another). Hence, a greater integration of the latter into the more formal
discussions would have been particularly welcomed (also to elevate the status
of endangered languages in formal work).

Furthermore, the introductory chapter heavily cites, or makes reference to,
Grenoble and Whaley (2006) (64 times), Sebba (2011, 2012b) (33 times
altogether), Seifart (2006) (29 times), and Lüpke (2011) (27 times) to the
point where the reader may be left wondering about the editors’ original
contributions to the larger conversations surrounding the challenges,
components, and issues of orthography development that haven’t been discussed
previously. As well-written and informative as it is, the introduction may at
times read like a mere review of the aforementioned studies (among others) –
especially given the fact that it doesn’t make mention of the featured case
studies until the last, overview section of the chapter.

As for individual chapters, a few deserve particular mention and comments.

Chapters 4, 7, 11 and 14 can be read as ethnolinguistic studies supported by
maps, photos, phonemic and alphabetic charts, and representative language
excerpts. They provide readers with concrete illustrations of the languages
under consideration as well as personal experiences from authors with the
language communities. Chapter 7 in particular faithfully recounts thoughts and
opinions of community members on the functionality and use of their
collaborative orthography, thereby transcribing for readers the polyphonic and
dynamic process of orthography development amongst stakeholders. 

On the contrary, and unlike most other chapters, Chapter 10 is a revealing
example of an orthography development process that failed to take into account
speakers’ opinions and input by modeling its writing system in a unilectal and
top-down approach. It stands in contrast with other approaches that opted for
a much more inclusive and participatory procedure, providing readers with
tangible examples of both successes and failures in creating orthographies for
endangered languages.

Chapters 9 and 11 are particularly heavy in detailed descriptions of
linguistic and orthographic features, and Chapter 11 is also dense to read due
to an overuse of abbreviations. Specialists may nevertheless appreciate the
level of precision and specificity that these authors provide.

Chapter 13 also sets itself apart from other case studies in that it presents
a quantitative study of inter-user, computer-mediated organic exchanges in a
non-standardized minority language that showcases how bottom-up processes are
at work in the absence of top-down, institutionalized language planning
efforts. The authors methodically examine the emergence of self-organizing
spelling conventions in an orthographically unregulated domain of
communication, the Internet. This is a particularly nice addition to this set
of case studies, which predominantly spotlights the collaborative work of
linguists and community members in the development of an orthographic system.

Likewise, Chapter 15 may contrast with all the other contemporary case studies
– as it has more to do with paleographic work than orthography planning – but
it nevertheless provides insightful words of caution about ascribing
modern-day practices and motivations behind orthography creation (for
revitalization purposes) to ancient languages that have long gone extinct. The
authors help us recalibrate our understanding of the past by reconsidering
some of our present perspectives on language death and revitalization as
applied to writing orality.

Despite differing political, social, historical, and cultural circumstances,
speakers, orthographers, and community members face a common set of
transversal challenges (e.g. domains of literacy or questions of
standardization) in their efforts to slow down or reverse language shift. This
volume of case studies brings it all together for readers to not only learn
about, but also pause and marvel at the astounding amount of work that goes
into creating an orthography for unwritten and vulnerable languages.

REFERENCES

Fishman, J. A. 1991. Reversing language shift: Theoretical and empirical
foundations of assistance to threatened languages. Clevedon: Multilingual
Matters.

Grenoble, L.A. and L.J. Whaley. 2006. Saving languages: An introduction to
language revitalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lüpke, F. 2011. Orthography development. In P. K. Austin and J. Sallabank
(eds.), The Cambridge handbook of endangered languages. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 312-336.

Rice, K. and M. Cahill. 2014. Introduction. In M. Cahill and K. Rice (eds.),
Devoloping orthographies for unwritten languages. Dallas, TX: SIL
International, pp. 1-6.

Sebba, M. 2011. Sociolinguistic approaches to writing systems research.
Writing systems research 1(1): 35-49.

Sebba, M. 2012b. Spelling and society: The culture and politics of orthography
around the world. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. 

Seifart, F. 2006. Orthography development. In J. Gippert, N. P. Himmelmann,
and U. Mosel (eds.), Essentials of language documentation. (Trends in
linguistics. Studies and monographs 178). Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter,
275-299.

Smalley, W. 1964. How shall I write this language? In W. A. Smalley (ed.),
Orthography studies: Articles on new writing systems. (Helps for translators
6). London: United Bible Societies, pp. 31-52.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Lionel Mathieu holds a PhD in linguistics from the University of Arizona. He
is a Lecturer in French in the Department of Romance Studies at Boston
University. His research interests in linguistics focus primarily on the
phonology-orthography interface in second language acquisition, bilingualism,
loanword adaptations, and historical linguistics.





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