[EMAIL PROTECTED] has made several claims about writing systems for indigenous languages that I, as a linguist with a strong interest in writing systems and substantial experience working with indigenous people, not only as a linguist studying their languages but as a staff member of indigenous organizations, believe to be false.
First, it is not true that linguists have imposed on indigenous languages writing systems devised for their own convenience. In fact, the great majority of linguists write in the International Phonetic Alphabet or something like it for their own purposes, whereas the practical writing systems that they devise are usually different if for no other reason than the fact that until recently any writing system that could not be printed with ordinary type and typed on a standard typewriter was a lot of trouble. The writing system in general use for Carrier, the indigenous language of the area in northern British Columbia in which I live, makes extensive use of digraphs and trigraphs so as to stay within the range of characters available on a Canadian English typewriter. Not only does this claim (for which not a single example is adduced), mis-state the ideology of linguists, which is not to impose IPA, but it fails to recognize that at least in the past several decades in most areas indigenous peoples have had sufficient political clout to reject a linguist's proposal if they did not like it. Second, it is not true that writing systems designed by linguists are inappropriate for practical use. Here again, I note that not a single example is adduced in support of this claim. If there is one thing that modern linguists are good at, it is determining what the phonological contrasts of a language are and designing a system that reflects precisely those contrasts. The only examples that I can think of of writing systems designed in modern times that fail to represent significant contrasts of the language are writing systems designed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by missionaries with little linguistic training. Similarly, the only examples that I can think of of practical writing systems that suffer from the defect of making phonetic distinctions that are not contrastive are writing systems designed quite a long time ago by missionaries or colonial administrators, not by linguists. I know of one case here in British Columbia in which a non-linguist missionary designed a defective writing system in the 1960s but he was unable to persuade the speakers of the language to adopt it. Third, I do not think that it is often the case that writing systems designed by linguists are resented by indigenous people as foreign. By and large, linguists only have a role in creating a practical writing system if they are invited to do it. I do know of a case of people who reject the idea of writing their language at all because it is not traditional to do so, but this is a cultural choice about literacy, not a choice of writing system. To take a local example, two writing systems have been used by native speakers for Carrier. The first, the so-called "syllabics", is a non-Roman system inspired by, but in detail very different from, the Cree syllabics. This system began to decline in the 1930s to the extent that only a handful of people know it today. The second, the Carrier Linguistic Committee system, is a Roman-based system (typable on an English typewriter) developed by missionaries in the 1960s. The great majority of people literate in Carrier use the CLC system. There is no movement to displace the CLC system, even though the missionary who developed it is an evangelical protestant and the majority of Carrier people are Roman Catholic. The bishop has in fact approved of the New Testament translation in this writing system produced by the same missionary and an associated group of native speakers. One elder, recently deceased, was convinced that the Roman-based writing system was responsible for the decline of the language and pushed syllabics very strongly, but he was virtually alone in this belief. The syllabics have a certain cachet and classes in them are popular, but very few people have actually begun to use them as a result. Moreover, everyone knows that they too were introduced by missionaries and are not indigenous. The best examples I am aware of of orthographic imperialism are the imposition of Cyrillic writing systems on languages of the Soviet Union and of Arabic in the wake of the spread of Islam. In the former case there was often no predecessor replaced by Cyrillic, though in some cases a Latin or Arabic system was replaced. In the latter, Arabic in many cases replaced a superior writing system. That variants of the Latin alphabet are used by so many languages is certainly due in large part to the economic, political, military, technological, and ideological factors that have spread languages written in the Latin alphabet so widely rather than any intrinsic virtue of this alphabet but the idea that versions of the Latin alphabet inappropriate to indigenous languages have been widely imposed on resentful indigenous people is a fantasy of armchair radicals with little basis in reality. European colonialism has many sins to account for, but this isn't one of them. Incidentally, those interested in the thinking of 19th century missionaries and colonial administrators may be interested to know that the collection "Original Papers Illustrating the Application of the Roman Alphabet to the Languages of India", which in spite of its title also contains discussion of the pros and cons of the native writing systems as opposed to Roman systems, edited by Monier Williams, London 1859, has been reprinted, clearly printed and nicely bound, by Asian Educational Services at Chennai. Bagchee.com has it for US$25.20. Bill Poser -- Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
