1. Orthography Development
Laura Mayfield Tomokiyo

2. Largely from: Developing Orthographies for Unwritten Languages
Michael Cahill and Keren Rice, eds.

3. What is orthography?
A system for representing language in written form
Graphemes (individual characters)
Word breaks
Punctuation
Diacritics
Rules for splitting and hyphenation
Spelling
In language technologies, it can be perfectly acceptable to use an arbitrary intermediate symbol set (like Arpabet) because “only the computer knows.” With orthography development, we are entering the complex domain of human learning and identity.

4. Increased attention to orthographies
Financial
Funding connected to literacy
Humanitarian
UNESCO mother tongue education
Technological
Unicode / font support
Cell phones, smart phones, messaging, etc.

5. An effective orthography is…
Linguistically sound
Acceptable to all stakeholders
Usable

6. Acceptability: Governmental
Are there national policies?
Tone markings disallowed in Ghana
Roman-based orthographies must draw from an official unified alphabet in Cameroon
Is approval required?
CAR must have all new orthographies approved by the national government
Ethiopia has several possible agencies to seek approval from

7. Acceptability: Sociolinguistic
Which dialect to use
Unilectal – which one to use? Prestige? Size? Age?
Multilectal – combine elements, but whose speech does it represent?
Differentiation – allow for levels of standardization
Relationship with other languages
Sometimes desirable to look like another language
Similarity with a familiar or prestigious language
Sometimes desirable not to look like another
Motivated by rivalry, identity
Choice of scripts
Cyrillic vs. roman for Serbian/Croatian
Arabic vs. roman for Tuareg
Fun fact: Language of Koni on northern Ghana has h/ng contrast: /HH AO G UH/ - /NG AO G UH/ ‘woman’

8. Usability: Learning Underrepresentation/Overrepresentation
Fewer/more graphemes than phonemes
Transfer to major languages
Tension between literacy and identity
Readability
Not too many similar characters
Consider fonts (sans serif easier to read)
Testing, testing, testing
Underrepresentation example: using a 5-grapheme set for rich vowel system; ignoring tone
Overrepresentation example: qu/c/k for /k/
How to decide on /CH/ in ghana… <ch,c,ts,tSH,tsch,ky>
<p,d,b,q> same shape – how to explain that the letter is different if it is rotated? Not intuitive.

9. Usability: Production
Unicode compliance
Font rendering
Non-digital printing (custom typewriter keys!)
Entry method (taps, strokes, multi-step)
Multi-step: use Japanese as an example of first selecting onset, then swiping to get vowel, finally selecting from kanji list

10. Usability: Teaching How to get speakers to use the orthography?
Phonemic awareness
Teaching materials and instruction
Motivation/opportunity to write
Formative feedback loop
The orthography is only useful if people use it!

11. Word boundaries Many languages are not written with much white space
Orthographers often intuitively follow a system they are familiar with
Purpose is to help beginning and fluent readers read with ease
Some factors to consider:
Syllable structure
Movability
Separability
Conceptual unity
Pronounceability in isolation….

12. Is Standardization Necessary?
Pros
Streamlines language planning
Easier to generate teaching/learning materials
Basis for a body of literature
Efficient in case of critical endangerment
Cons
How to choose?
Basis for judgments of intellect/ignorance
Obscures diversity in the language
Less relevant in digital age
At the very least, language developers should not feel rushed to publish standardized orthography – take time to test, build consensus
Competing orthographies are source of tension in communities that have better things to do
Do language communities see lack of standardization as problematic?
Who benefits from standardization?
Language documentation context vs. language reform context
European languages standardized organically, over centuries
Community ownership is essential, can’t be seen as top-down

13. Orthography Diplomacy
Linguist’s tendency is toward systematic, logical, efficient design
Not always compatible with community needs
Non-fluent speakers in teaching roles
Increasingly strong transfer wishes/influences
Specialized symbols, unfamiliar distinctions are just hard to learn
Pomo: “Indian phonics”
Pomo: researcher observed an instructor (elder) “translating” the designed orthography into something more familiar. “Neither she nor anyone else in the class understood the specialezed symbols or knew the pronunciation even of familiar symbols.
Example: xó.mča -> home ca
Also: Inupiaq post-it notes in the office

14. Criteria for a new writing system
Maximum motivation for the learner
Maximum representation of speech
Maximum ease of learning
Maximum transfer
Maximum ease of reproduction
Smalley 1963

15. Bias of familiarity Both linguists and non-linguists have it
Makes each group potentially blind to the preferences/intuitions of the other group
Especially: we can fail to recognize that non-linguists / 2L learners of minority language have different transfer issues than we do
Don’t overestimate the ease of learning of phonetically-based alphabets!

16. Bias of familiarity For example…
Students may not be at all proficient in use of the IPA even after a semester-long course
Even proficient users will transcribe differently depending on whether they are native or non-native speakers – we are coming from different phonological systems

17. Assignments A Yanesha’ Alphabet for the Electronic Age
Mary Ruth Wise
Kurtöp Orthography Development in Bhutan
Gwendolyn Hyslop
Case Studies of Orthography Decision Making in Mainland Southeast Asia
Larin Adams
Yanesha – language of Peru