Re: [AfricanLanguages] Re: Recordings with Transciption

[paa kwesi imbeah]

I should just add my voice--that WYSIWYG orthographies (nice phrasing, Don) are probably the greatest obstacle to writing African languages. You get the problem that everyone wants to write in exactly the  way they speak leading to plenty of unnecessary politics.

In our (kasahorow) work, we try to avoid such orthographies and instead promote less WYSIWYG writing methods (diacritics and tonal markings in particular). We think linguists may use these WYSIWYG forms, but generic writing should not be subject to these speech form inconsistencies (people will always speak differently from each other). However, we think that reading guides are the way to teach people how to pronounce written text particular locales. For example, Yoruba written text may be read in as many regional spoken forms as possible. All you need then is a reading guide specific to each regional variation. The benefits are obvious--if you have 1000 Yoruba variants, there will be 1000 reading guides. However, there will still be only 1 Yoruba orthography not 1000.

On 8/27/06, Don Osborn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Thanks Anja for these references. I think we'll see a lot more in the
next few years. Some of us have discussed how ICT can facilitate not
only greater literacy but also a "neo-oral" uses. The question is
whether expanding the literate uses of languages must come at the
expense of oral skills (which are sometimes considerable and
underappreciated by literate cultures).

Regarding transcriptions, one advantage of most African languages is
that they are much closer - much more phonetic - to what is pronounced
in the language than English or French writing is. Kind of "WYSIWYG"
(what you see is what you get) orthographies. The only disadvantage is
it is hard to find a standard spelling ambiguous enough to be
read/pronounced differently in different dialects.

Don

--- In AfricanLanguages@yahoogroups.com, "Anja Choon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

wrote:
>
> Hi Don,
>
> I too think that recordings are very helpful. Just text will not
tell you
> how to pronounce phrases.
>
> That's why we are trying to include recordings in our lessons at
> uwandiigbo.com. We have also one page where you can directly click
at the
> orthographic transcriptions to listen to a native speaker (
> http://www.uwandiigbo.com/recordings/SurvivalIgbo).
>
> A friend of mine has also worked on something similar for Ega (
> http://www.spectrum.uni-bielefeld.de/phonlab/survega.htm). They've used
> phonetic transcriptions I think.
>
> I hope there will be more recordings and on more languages soon.
Greetings,
> Anja
>

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