“Is this my language?”
Developing a writing system for an endangered-language community
It used to be taken for granted that language documenters would develop an
orthography for the language which they document in cases where no writing
system exists already. Such systems facilitate the production of materials
for revitalization of the languages. Lately however questions have been raised
as to whether the time and money expended in such endeavors are worth it.
Two main reasons are that the orthographies are not often used anyway and,
where they are successful, since they are often standard orthographies, they
destroy variation in languages. In this paper, I argue that standardization goes
with literacy development, and is desirable in situations where it is clear that
such languages would be used in school situations. However, most languages
of endangered communities do not have any prospect of being used in school.
Because of this rather than focus on the development of a standard orthography
system, documenters should rather develop systems that enable communities
to write in the vernacular. Such systems use “orthographic transcription” which
minimally ensures the association of sounds with letters. Beyond that, speakers
are allowed to write as they speak. This means that colloquial expressions
and dialectal differences would be incorporated into the system of writing. The
advantage of this system is that adults particularly do not have to spend a long
time learning to represent their languages in ways that may not necessarily be
the same as the way they speak. I discuss the experience I had with Nyagbo
where my development of a vernacular writing system proved more successful
with the community than an attempt to develop a standard orthography.
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Cited by 2 other publications
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