Orthographic Standardization Research Articles

Challenges for non-English speakers: inter- and intralingual factors shaping the writing of Ukrainian authors in biologial sciences

Background. Nowadays, almost all indexed journals expect submissions in English, which is a great challenge for exophonic authors. Code-switching context, where cross-language effects, especially native language interference, are well distinct, is critical for approaching the dilemma. Navigating the complicated issues of language-related challenges will be impossible without referring to three crucial levels of written production: lexical, syntactic, and textual. In our investigation, we address the nature of potential errors and their inter- and intralingual origins. In particular, we identify and interpret the deviations from Standard English in scholarly research writing of Ukrainian authors in the field of life sciences, exemplify and classify errors into categories based on the type of language misuse. Materials and Methods. Language material for the study comprised 50 manuscripts submitted by authors from Ukraine to the journal “Studia Biologica”. This research is a mixed-method study encompassing descriptive qualitative and descriptive quantitative methods. Content analysis was employed as the data gathering technique. The analysis of texts was focused on tracing deviations from consistent principles and rules of Standard English and linguistic features of English research discourse and encompassed such steps as highlighting the error, cross-checking and stating the deviation, listing and classifying the errors, and tracing a possible connection of the error to authors’ first language interference. Results. The study identified language areas where Ukrainian authors fail to effectively communicate their ideas to the global academic community. At the textual level, the problem areas encompass defective paragraph structure and excessive verbosity. At the syntactic level, the most critical deviations from the language and stylistic norm comprised misuses of word order and clauses, wordy and confusing sentences with multiple issues that hinder the readability of text. The most widespread grammatical mistakes include missing predicates, faulty subject-verb agreement, incorrect forms of the verb, and inappropriate use of articles, pronouns, demonstratives and quantifiers. At the lexical level, the prevalent errors relate to various types of loan translation, but also include improper word choices and poor vocabulary. Orthographic mistakes, though in minority, refer to the spelling of toponyms, capitalisation, switching from American to British orthographic standards and other random spelling errors. Conclusions. An insight into the nature of the analysed deviations suggests the presence of both intra- and interlingual factors that cause mistakes in papers submitted for publication in the field of life sciences. The error analysis can be beneficial in the educational process for both educators and practitioners. Proper understanding of the functional mechanism of the mistakes might increase the awareness of the potential pitfalls and consequently help avoid them. The classification of errors can be adopted in the educational process and contribute to the development of error pedagogy.

Nêhiyawi-pîkiskwêwina maskwacîsihk : Spoken Dictionary of Maskwacîs Cree

ABSTRACT: This paper details the development of nêhiyawi-pîkiskwêwina maskwacîsihk: Spoken Dictionary of Maskwacîs Cree (in progress). Since 2014, this joint project between the Maskwacîs Education and Schools Commission (MESC) and the Alberta Language Technology Lab (ALTLab) has sought to record carefully pronounced, isolated spoken audio for the approximately 9,000 entries in the Maskwacîs Dictionary of Cree Words (Maskwachees Cultural College 2009), as well as to fill lexical gaps through elicitation, to record example sentences for as many of these entries as possible, and to make these recordings publicly available online. Between 2014 and 2018, approximately 700 hours of audio and close to 120,000 recordings for 20,300 carefully spoken word and phrase types were gathered in elicitation sessions. After extracting and annotating the relevant Cree vocabulary, these audio clips were compiled in a novel, publicly accessible online Speech Database as well as through itwêwina , the intelligent bilingual online Cree–English dictionary. The entries in this database are currently in the process of orthographic standardization, gloss standardization, and linguistic analysis. Simultaneously, native speakers of Cree are re-reviewing the database's entries to ensure pronunciation quality and verify definitions where needed. In this paper, we discuss the origins of this project; the original elicitation sessions; the postprocessing, standardization, and validation of the recordings; and means by which these recordings can be publicly accessed online.

El concepto de la comunidad de práctica en el contexto de un grupo determinado de hablantes de a Fala de Xálima

The concept of community of practice in the context of a selected group of speakers of a Fala de Xálima The purpose of this paper is to study the current sociolinguistic situation of the language community of Xálima through the prism of the theory of community of practice. We define the community of practice as an aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in an endeavour of preserving and promoting their vernacular language. The empirical material will be a series of anthropological observations and comments on the semi-directed interviews, made in situ by the authors, in which we will analyse the efforts towards the orthographic standardization and their possible effects. We aim to demonstrate that the methodological principle of community of practice is applicable and suitable to shed new light over sociolinguistic minorized contexts, especially when conducting research in the field of the so-called third wave of sociolinguistics.

LACK OF ORIGINALITY AND PLAGIARISM AS PRECONDITIONS OF UKRAINIAN BILINGUAL DICTIONARIES’ INFERIOR QUALITY (A Study of English-, French-, and Italian-Ukrainian Dictionaries)

Introduction. The use of high-quality general and specialised dictionaries is indispensable for professional translators and other users to work effectively with foreign languages. A lack of such dictionaries affects the opportunities of cross-cultural communication and is an evidence of an inferior condition of national lexicography. The issues of the quality of Ukrainian bilingual dictionaries have been paid minor attention in scientific research. While they are used widely, no analysis has been carried out to justify whether such dictionaries are appropriate in terms of quality.The purpose of the article is to analyse the lack of originality and use of plagiarism in English-, French-, and Italian-Ukrainian dictionaries, emphasising how these factors precondition the dictionaries’ inferior quality.Methods. Secondary research was used for collecting necessary data. Comparative analysis allowed revealing the original sources from which Ukrainian dictionaries copy information. Translation analysis was performed to illustrate the dictionaries’ inferior quality. Deductive thinking was used to investigate the implications for translators and the public.Results. The findings of the research testify that all major English-, French-, and Italian-Ukrainian dictionaries are based on the use of plagiarism and direct copying of information from Russian dictionaries. The authors resort to Russian-Ukrainian translation, often with the use of automated translation software, to present the results as authentic Ukrainian bilingual dictionaries. These academically dishonest practices result in the dictionaries’ systemically inferior quality: incorrect terminological translations, domination of Russian calques, and violation of orthographic standards. Both professional translators and the public are thus deprived of any opportunity to use high-quality and genuine Ukrainian bilingual dictionaries.Conclusion. The most widely used English-, French-, and Italian-Ukrainian dictionaries are rooted in copying from Russian dictionaries, which is the main factor preconditioning their inferior quality. This approach testifies the poor condition of Ukrainian lexicography today and illustrates the relevance of the issue.

On names and terminology from Oriental-Islamic culture in Bosnian spelling

Names and terminology from Oriental-Islamic spirituality and culture are an important layer of the lexicon of the Bosnian language to which users mostly build a special relationship. That is why orthographic standardization of such words is a very challenging and responsible task. The expectations are always different. In the case of the names and terminology discussed in this article, Muslim theologians, intellectuals, imams, etc. have the greatest influence and the most significant role. They must first of all understand that the vocabulary in question has ceased to be Arabic by the act of borrowing and has become Bosnian, falling that way under the normative ‘jurisdiction’ of the Bosnian language. Only by incorporating all such words into the appropriate Bosnian spelling categories we show that they are fully accepted and domesticated in the Bosnian language. Likewise, as we wander around choosing different ways of writing them (especially those that are foreign to the Bosnian language and spelling), we are actually showing that these words are still a ‘problem’ for us, even after centuries of their presence in the Bosnian language. In doing so, one should know that every battle against natural laws, including linguistic ones, is lost in advance.

Mediums of Power and Powerlessness in Soviet and Post-Soviet Central Asia

Mediums of Power and Powerlessness in Soviet and Post-Soviet Central Asia Botakoz Kassymbekova Victoria Clement, Learning to Become Turkmen: Literacy, Language, and Power, 1914–2014. 302 pp. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. ISBN-13 9780822964636. $28.95. Victoria Clement's Learning to Become Turkmen: Literacy, Language, and Power, 1914–2014 traces how language, literacy, and learning formed the Turkmen nation in the 20th and early 21st centuries. Clement shows how under three different regimes—imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet—cultural and/or political leaders were working on transforming Turkmen into modern citizens through language reform and literacy campaigns. Clement analyzes ruptures and continuities of language politics throughout decades, cautiously warning that Turkmen national identity was never a stable construct and meant different things in various political contexts. Analyzing the journey of Turkmen language from Arabic script to Latin, Cyrillic, and back to Latin, Clement reveals ideas and political forces behind the changes. Theoretically, Clement's work is influenced by Joshua Fishman and Pierre Bourdieu. Whereas Fishman was inspirational to study how "languages around the world have undergone transformation and amendments" (10), Bourdieu's ideas made Clement look at how actors appropriated language practices and what role it played for their individual social standing.1 Clement's work follows a classic narrative of Soviet Central Asian transformation, relying on works by Adrienne Edgar and Adeeb Khalid for its argument about pre- and early Soviet modernization attempts by Turkmen reformists and the Soviet [End Page 645] state, but Clement's analysis goes beyond the early Soviet period, covering the Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev periods, the period of Soviet collapse, and the independence period until 2014.2 Clement starts with writing the Turkmen reformist intellectuals into the history of late imperial Central Asia. She argues that so-far-ignored Turkmen Jadid reformers also existed in what later became Turkmenistan: Turkmen reformers were acting in the name of a Turkmen people and modernity, albeit in conversation of other Turkic reformers. Apart from their call to a specific Turkmen awakening, however, their vision of modernization was in accordance with general tendencies: they hoped to achieve cultural, social, and political modernization through education and by raising the prestige of learning. Just like other Turkic modernists, Turkmen Jadidists propagated the Arabic script reform to suit the Turkic language, making propositions for specific solutions to Turkmen vowel representation to allow more accessible learning. Importantly, that was when new-method schools integrated bilingualism by introducing Russian into its curriculum and argued for the education of women. The early Soviet period was also marked by debates among Turkmen cultural elites, in conversation with other Turkic Muslim reform leaders, regarding literacy, script, and language reform. Important were the debates regarding orthographic standardization. Given the diversity of dialects, this was not an easy task. Among various Turkmen tribes, two of which were dominant, it was not easy to decide which word should be used in school textbooks. Another question that arose was whether new words such as revolution or the proletariat should be borrowed or created based on Turkic or Persian. Already in this period some reformers advocated a turn to Latin script, first inspired by Azerbaijani intellectuals, to modernize and internationalize Muslim writing. Although Turkmen leaders did not want to Latinize their script, they were not as vigorously opposed to it as were, for example, Tatar leaders. Clement sheds light on some internal disagreements regarding grammar and orthography among the Turkmen but also in conversation with other Soviet Turks at Turkological congresses. These conversations did not "naturally" lead to Latinization of Turkic languages, since there were varying arguments regarding representation of speech in text, so that in 1930 it was ordered by decree. Around this time, Moscow and Leningrad linguists became important in regard to language reform, although Clement does not specify the nature of cooperation. [End Page 646] Starting in 1935, language planning in Turkmenistan became a Moscowled endeavor. Russian was prioritized over other languages; if previously, linguists were looking for words that were new to Turkmen from other Turkic or Persian languages (such as yoksul for proletariat), they now sought Russian words (such as soviet) that would "enrich" Turkmen. The change in priorities from Turkic/Persian to...

Orthography of books and their authors at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century

During development of the Standard Lithuanian language at the end of the 19th century, the dialectal basis was chosen first, and the orthography varied yet for another twenty years. This article analyses the dual orthography – of books and personal orthography of their authors. The study is designed to find out whether the books published during that period reflect the orthographic model chosen by their authors; what factors, in addition to the author’s choice, may have influenced the orthography of the books.The influence of printers on the orthography of books during that period was smaller than before, as many authors did the proofreading themselves. Thus, printers were able to change the orthography in cases where books were printed without the author’s knowledge or consent, such as prayer books. If the author chose unusual, rare, or even self-invented characters, a limited inventory of prints could be a serious obstacle to keep their orthography in the book. As the case of Jonas Basanavičius shows, even when the author offered to finance the acquisition of the necessary prints, this was not necessarily done.At the end of the 19th century, books were published as supplements to periodicals. The editors of newspapers Ūkininkas and Tėvynės sargas adapted the orthography of such books to their periodicals. Under the terms of the press ban, it was often important for authors just to print a book, and the spelling model was chosen by the publisher. However, authors such as Basanavičius, who considered themselves the creators of the standard language, took care to present their chosen or created model of orthography in their books as well.As the cases of Liudvika Didžiulienė, Dominykas Tumėnas and Basanavičius show, two orthographic standards emerged during the research period: correspondence was written one way and books were printed another. Hence, it is not always possible to judge the orthographic model chosen by the authors in books published at the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century.

The edge and the middle ground of authenticity. Notes on textual criticism of F. Dostoevsky’s works

The article considers the practicality and prospects of using obsolete spelling and punctuation contemporaneous with the period when the literary work was created in scholarly editions of Russian classics, for maximum conformity of the published text to the author’s intentions. In this regard, Barsht analyzes compatibility of such experimentations with the norms of contemporary Russian grammar with 19th-c. orthographic standards. The author examines the cultural role of scholarly editions, which supply authoritative versions of texts for reprints, translations, and textbooks for secondary schools and institutions of higher education. Another topic is the pragmatic function of punctuation marks, whose purpose changed dramatically in the early 20th c. From the viewpoint of textual criticism, the article also discusses the need for such a translation of a literary classic into the modern Russian language that is accurate and precise, and avoids violation of the author’s intentions. The questions are raised in response to the publication of vol. 8 of the Complete works by F. M. Dostoevsky in 35 vols. (The Idiot [Idiot]).

Medieval Spanish (12th-15th centuries) named entity recognition and attribute annotation system based on contextual information.

The recognition of named entities in Spanish medieval texts presents great complexity, involving specific challenges: First, the complex morphosyntactic characteristics in proper‐noun use in medieval texts. Second, the lack of strict orthographic standards. Finally, diachronic and geographical variations in Spanish from the 12th to 15th century. In this period, named entities usually appear as complex text structure. For example, it was frequent to add nicknames and information about the persons role in society and geographic origin. To tackle this complexity, named entity recognition and classification system has been implemented. The system uses contextual cues based on semantics to detect entities and assign a type. Given the occurrence of entities with attached attributes, entity contexts are also parsed to determine entity‐type‐specific dependencies for these attributes. Moreover, it uses a variant generator to handle the diachronic evolution of Spanish medieval terms from a phonetic and morphosyntactic viewpoint. The tool iteratively enriches its proper lexica, dictionaries, and gazetteers. The system was evaluated on a corpus of over 3,000 manually annotated entities of different types and periods, obtaining F1 scores between 0.74 and 0.87. Attribute annotation was evaluated for a person and role name attributes with an overall F1 of 0.75.

Wielka litera w tekstach urzędowych. Wybrane problemy związane ze stosowaniem kryterium znaczeniowego.

This paper discusses the orthographic standard of the modern Polish language as regards capitalisation. On selected examples, we point to the fact that the general nature of orthographic rules governing capitalisation makes them ignore numerous phenomena characteristic of the economic and legal sphere. The absence of an up-to-date and diverse sample material illustrating the individual rules, in turn, hampers making prescriptive decisions with regard to the spelling of specifi c expressions from the domain of the latest offi cial Polish language. As a consequence, the mismatch between codifi cation and usage increases, which is exemplifi ed in the analytical part of the paper. The conducted research leads to the conclusion that such standardisation of the spelling of specialist varieties of Polish as satisfi es the needs of its users is an urgent matter.

Variability of the language norm in the functioning of toponyms: Problems and contradictions

The article examines the linguistic content of the language norm related to the spelling of geographic proper names. As the basic notion, the authors use Ludmila Verbitskaya’s definition of the norm recognizing orthographic standards as a particular case of a language norm. The significance of a research in this area is due, firstly, to specificities of spelling norms, and secondly, difficulties of proper name codification. The orthographic norms are characterized by a significantly higher degree of strictness in comparison with other types of linguistic standards, hence, the avoidance of toponymic orthographic doublets creating problems in place-name identification. Normally, place names are not present in popular orthographic dictionaries and other non-specialized lexicographic sources. Not infrequently, the spelling of a particular locality in a codified form can only be found either on geographical maps and atlases or in gazetteers and registries of geographical names of a particular region. As a result, the spelling norm becomes established in the the native speakers’ linguistic competence primarily through the assimilation and application of the corresponding rules. It was revealed that the most significant contradictions in the implementation of the spelling norm take place when choosing an upper- or lowercase letter in compound proper names, as well as when representing the elements of compounds (separately, as one word or hyphenated). The resultss of the present research can be used in revision of orthography of both existing and newly formed place names to make them concordant with the principles of linguistic ecology

Dynamic tendencies in natural Slovak orthography

Abstract Nowadays we can observe changes in the use of literary Slovak, or, to be more precise, in the orthographic standard. These changes result from the language practice associated with promoting natural Slovak language. Natural Slovak language develops in oral and written form. The current codification of the literary language must deal with the emergence of different language usages in different spheres of communication.

Sobre o uso da maiúscula por alunos de português língua de herança na Suíça. Um estudo de caso

O presente artigo centra-se sobre um estudo de caso desenvolvido em 2017 comum a amostra de falantes de Português Língua de Herança, residentes em Zurique (Suíça), e tem como objetivo refletir sobre os desvios na representação gráfica da maiúscula por parte de alunos lusodescendentes bilingues. Partindo da hipótese empírica que a causa destes desvios consiste na transferência (linguística) do Alemão para o Português, o procedimento de intervenção implementado no grupo de informantes em estudo baseou-se numa sequência de dois exercícios em momentos avaliativos diferenciados, permitindo, desta forma, proceder à recolha e análise de dados, com vista a aferir a classe e subclasse de palavras que registam a percentagem mais elevada de ocorrências desviantes e perceber se a reflexão metalinguística contribui (ou não) para o uso da maiúscula convergente com a norma ortográfica do Português Europeu padrão.

Cameroon Pidgin English: A comprehensive grammar by Miriam Ayafor and Melanie J. Green

Reviewed by: Cameroon Pidgin English: A comprehensive grammar by Miriam Ayafor and Melanie J. Green Kofi Yakpo Cameroon Pidgin English: A comprehensive grammar. By Miriam Ayafor and Melanie J. Green. (London Oriental and African language library 20.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2017. Pp. xxi, 314. ISBN 9789027262400. $54. Cameroon Pidgin English, by Miriam Ayafor and Melanie Green, is the latest and, as the subtitle 'A comprehensive grammar' suggests, most extensive work yet on the African English-lexifier creole language Cameroon Pidgin English (CPE). CPE is the second-largest English-lexifier contact language in the world after Nigerian Pidgin, and it belongs to a chain of closely related, mutually intelligible varieties spoken in the West African littoral zone in The Gambia (Aku), Sierra Leone (Krio), Ghana (Ghanaian Pidgin English), Equatorial Guinea (Pichi), and Nigeria (Nigerian Pidgin, also referred to as Naijá). Both authors are well placed for the task of describing CPE. A, a native speaker of CPE, has done significant work on the language (e.g. Ayafor 2008), and G is an Africanist linguist who has conducted work on Hausa (e.g. Green 1997). The linguistic examples and texts in the grammar are almost without exception extracted from a 240,000-word corpus compiled by the authors themselves, which is, to my knowledge, the largest publicly accessible corpus of any African English-lexifier contact language so far (Green, Ayafor, & Ozón 2016). Two introductory chapters provide a state of the art and a typological and sociohistorical overview of the language. Subsequent chapters cover phonetics, phonology, and orthography (Ch. 3), the lexicon (Ch. 4), the noun phrase and pronouns (Chs. 3–6), and tense, mood, modality, aspect, and negation (Ch. 7). An overview of basic clause types (Ch. 8) is followed by a description of more complex structures, including serial verb and light verb constructions (Ch. 9) and combined clauses (Ch. 10). A final chapter (Ch. 11) deals with aspects of information structure, including topic and focus. Cameroon Pidgin English covers all of the central aspects of the language, including in-depth treatments of topics that have occupied creolists for decades, like serial verb constructions and tense and aspect. There are some aspects, however, that could have been addressed differently, and I focus here on three of these, namely the orthography, the treatment of tone, and glossing. The often contentious nature of the graphization of oral languages has received some attention in the literature, including the specific case of creoles (see Deuber & Hinrichs 2007). CPE is no exception in this regard. Suggestions for the orthographic standardization of CPE have alternated between more etymological (hence English-oriented) and more phonemic systems (see Sala 2009 for an overview). As in other cases, the wide range of opinions within a small group of experts and the general absence of polity-driven codification are therefore at least partly responsible for the absence of a widely accepted orthography of CPE. The orthography used in this book therefore represents one of various individual graphization initiatives (see Ayafor 1996 for a precursor). The authors state their wish to adopt a transcription system that is 'as accessible as possible to CPE speakers' (43). This is, however, contradicted by the opaque nature of some of the graphization choices made. Although the authors' system employs distinctions in line with earlier phonemic approaches to graphization (e.g. de Féral 1989), it also introduces some idiosyncratic distinctions (e.g. dey /dè/ '3sg.sbj' vs. de /dé/ 'day' vs. deiy /dé/ 'locative copula; there' and wey /wé/ 'way' vs. weiy /wé/ 'relativizer'). In other instances, the system is (partly) etymological in relying on standard English orthographic principles for representing the distinction between the high /o/ (e.g. gote /gót/ 'goat', stone /stón/ 'stone') and the low /ɔ/ (e.g. jos // 'just'). This, in turn, leads to inconsistencies between monosyllabic words, such as noe /nó/ 'negator' and foe /fó/ 'associative preposition', and polysyllabic words containing the same vowel where the spelling is phonemic, such as folo /fólò/ 'accompany' (which should be foeloe, if consistent) or kola /kólà/ 'kola nut' (which should be koela). Further complications are introduced by the use of graphemic [End Page 562] distinctions where...

Writing Gojri: Linguistic and sociolinguistic constraints on a standardized orthography for the Gujars of South Asia

This study presents descriptions of the phonology and morphology of the two major dialects of Gojri spoken in Pakistan, and compares them with the Gojri spoken in Punch District of Indian-administered Kashmir. In light of this comparative data and the implications for Gojri-to- Urdu literacy, it evaluates various orthographic conventions currently used by leading writers and institutions. It explores Urdu-based spellings which are linguistically sound and otherwise conducive to transitional literacy, and which lend themselves to orthographic standardization across the east-west dialect continuum. It also includes an extended treatment of the challenge of representing Gojri tone.

Old Chinese in the Excavated Late Archaic Script: Problems of Working with Competing Ideas in Reconstruction

Excavated bamboo or wooden manuscripts dating from the 5th to 3rd centuries BCE have now become important new sources of data for Old Chinese phonology. The ways these sources are interpreted are necessarily based on methodological assumptions for Old Chinese reconstruction. So when debated issues in the latter are involved, disparate observations about the same materials turn out to manifest differences in the methodologies themselves. The study of Old Chinese through excavated manuscripts seems to become further complicated by considerations of the nature of the 'pre-Qin' archaic script and the provenances of the manuscripts. In response to these problems, as argued in this article, it is essential to recognize that the writings from the ancient Chu and Qin regions, notwithstanding the impressive range of graphic variability reaffirm the logographic nature of the Chinese writing system. The imperial 'script-unification' of the Qin dynasty was primarily an orthographic standardization in accordance with the norms of the old Qin region, whereby distinct regional variants were purged and preexisting internal variants were diminished. This by no means implicated such a drastic change in the writing system as a syllabary transforming to a logography. It is therefore necessary that the principles of OC reconstruction should be applied consistently to both the excavated archaic-script writings and transmitted early Chinese textual sources. It should be maintained first of all that the xiesheng (shared-phonophorics) and Shijing (the Book of Odes) rhymes in principle converge on a single phonological system, even though the actual history of the former is most probably older than the latter. This leads us to suppose about the OC vowel system that the Rounded Vowel Hypothesis does not hold, and that excavated texts have not yielded any data suggesting otherwise. Instead, this article suggests an alternative analysis of Middle Chinese (MC) - w - xiesheng series which had been received until that time; the regional variants thereof can complement each other as evidence for the Old Chinese phonology. When elements of dialects are found sporadically in the late archaic script, whether in Chu or Qin manuscripts, one may reasonably suspect that they reflect dialect-borrowings layered within the Old Chinese language. Abstract:

The Means and End(s) of Spelling Reform in the Victorian Press

The Means and End(s) of Spelling Reform in the Victorian Press A. Robin Hoffman (bio) In March of 1847, Thomas De Quincey was granted many column inches in the Edinburgh Magazine to sum up his frustration with the growing tide of critics, teachers, and other parties calling for spelling reform. Laypeople and professionals alike had noted the endless exceptions to rules of pronunciation and spelling and accordingly had suggested changes ranging from minor adjustments in phonetic consistency to complete overhauls of the alphabet. Linguistic scholars also lamented the ways that the evolution of spelling obscured words' etymological histories and relationships. Observing these debates, De Quincey declared that "it is work for a separate dictionary in quarto to record all the proposed revolutions in [English] spelling," adding sarcastically that "even in the last century, and in the present, what a list of eminent rebels against the spelling-book might be called up to answer for their wickedness . . . if anybody would be kind enough to make it a felony!"1 De Quincey's allusion to a "separate dictionary" is an acknowledgement that Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language had, since its first publication in 1755, been the authoritative reference that provided both friends and foes of spelling reform with a center of gravity for their discussion, along with endless examples for illustrating their points.2 But De Quincey's outrage was most likely prompted by a more recent controversy: the national debates over whether to adopt Isaac Pitman's Stenographic Sound-Hand, which had been published just a decade earlier, as the orthographic standard. Stenographic alphabets and variations had been introduced in an attempt to ease the difficulties of reading, writing, and teaching English. But Pitman's system was ingeniously founded upon a phonetic rendering of speech. As the Practical Teacher recalled, "Very early in his phonography labours Sir Isaac advocated the phonetic principle, 'a sign for a sound,' by which he rightly contended that the absurd anomalies of English orthography could be removed."3 The [End Page 737] commercial success of that system, coupled with a personal commitment to the cause of education, prompted Pitman to go further by advocating more general spelling reform: he pushed for everyone, including printers and teachers, to adopt a consistently phonetic orthography. He was soon joined in this effort by others, especially Alexander J. Ellis, author of A Plea for Phonetic Spelling (1848). This tract was routinely cited in debates about spelling reform for the next several decades.4 De Quincey's screed suggests that by the late 1840s, pressure for reform had gathered enough strength that individuals in the literary community felt compelled to weigh in. After detailing the ways in which illustrious authors ranging from Milton to Pope had been attacked by Pitman, Ellis, and their sympathizers for spelling that was inconsistent, phonetically irrational, or otherwise wayward, De Quincey concludes "that the whole world lies in heresy or schism on the subject of orthography."5 Nevertheless, Queen Victoria declined to condemn spelling reform. In fact, she knighted Isaac Pitman in 1894 in recognition of his tireless efforts to render English orthography more manageable, accessible, and, above all, teachable. The honor accorded to Pitman obscures the complete failure of Victorian-era attempts at spelling reform. The task only grew more imposing as educational reform kept pace throughout the century. At least one Spelling Reform Association was founded in 1869, anticipating the much better-known and better-organized English Spelling Reform Association formed in 1876. A year later, Parliament passed the Elementary Education Act of 1870, the first in a series of laws that provided for government-run schools and prohibited child labor, gradually transforming primary education into the "work" of childhood.6 The challenge of educating every British citizen prompted the school boards and Parliament, as well as individual pedagogues and parents (not to mention students), to seek economy and efficiency wherever possible and to confront the limitations of existing strategies and technologies. The most popular argument for spelling reform, most commonly understood as a shift to phonetic spelling, was that it would save time currently being wasted on teaching spelling, by either abbreviating the period that students spent in national...

Dynamics of orthographic standardization in Jamaican Creole and Nigerian Pidgin

ABSTRACT: Jamaican Creole and Nigerian Pidgin, both English‐derived contact languages that coexist with standard English (StE) in their respective settings, are traditionally oral languages for which no orthographic standard has yet been established. Aided by a significant increase in written usage in computer‐mediated communication (CMC), the past decade has seen tendencies towards grass‐roots standardization in the orthography of these two languages. In this paper we (1) identify the dynamics of orthographic standardization for each of the varieties using corpora of CMC data (in particular e‐mails and discussion forums posts), (2) discuss the differential results for the two varieties based on the different sociolinguistic situations of Jamaica and Nigeria, and (3) point to possible consequences for language planning in the two countries. We conclude that, without any state‐driven initiative toward the standardization of Pidgin/Creole orthography, the gap between the orthographic systems usually recommended by linguists, or “experts” (cf. Sebba, 1998a), and the practices that are being established by “users” is likely to widen further.

The dialogic emergence of culture Ed. by Dennis Tedlock and Bruce Mannheim (review)

432 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 74, NUMBER 2 (1998) through a corpus of 105 orthographic rulebooks outside the official Duden tradition published between 1855 and 1994, roughly sketching the impact of orthographic conferences on the transition from works with geographically or professionally limited currency to national orthographic standards. The work runs parallel to S's 1994 Systematische Bibliographie der deutschen Rechtschreibbücher, (Egelsbach, Frankfurt, & Washington, DC: Hänsel-Hohenhausen ) which establishes the relative chronology of these works. After outlining the plan of her book in the Einführung (1-5), S situates the study of orthographic rulebooks within the field of dictionary studies , 'Wörterbuchforschung', placing it within the relatively new subfield of 'Metalexikographie', or theoretical dictionary studies—as opposed to 'Lexikographie ' in a narrowed sense, referring to practical dictionary studies or dictionary creation (10)—in Ch. 1 (6-15). Ch. 2 (16-29) presents classification models of other authors as a counterpoint to S's own classification scheme for rulebooks, which unfortunately is not present in this work—readers are expected to have S's Systematische Bibliographie at hand and to draw their own comparisons. The most useful element ofthis chapter is the half-page section 2.2.3, 'Charakteristische Bausteine Orthographischer Regelbücher' (29), which defines the orthographic rulebook according to its essential elements: a substantial rules section ('Rechtschreibregelapparat') followed by a word list ('Wörterverzeichnis'). Ch. 3 (30-48) outlines the chronology and availability of S's source materials, though here again, her bibliography must be consulted in order to locate her sources. After briefly commenting on the intended audience for orthographic rulebooks m Ch. 4 (49-52), S launches into historical description, which constitutes the bulk ofthe work. Ch. 5 (53-60) sketches the German orthographic situation from the early nineteenth century through early attempts at unified standardization. Ch. 6 (61-89) takes a closer look at the municipal rulebooks of Hannover, Leipzig , and Berlin. Brief histories of two orthographic conferences (1876 and 1901) and their effects on orthographic standardization as reflected in various subsequent municipal and state rulebooks form the substance of Ch. 7 (90-96), Ch. 8 (97-128), and Ch. 9 (129-57). An aside into the reduction of multiple spellings in Ch. 10 (162-77) in rulebooks for official business (jurisprudence, post office) is followed by Ch. 11 (178-230), which covers the state rulebooks for Baden, Saxony, and Württemberg. Ch. 12 (23 1-32) introduces the continuation of the rulebook tradition in Switzerland (Ch. 13, 233-69) and Austria (Ch. 14, 270-95), where the tradition continues up to the present day. In four appendices (296-333) S presents comparative overviews of selected lemmata for various editions of a rulebook ( 1 and 2), for two rulebooks published in the same year (3), and of the rules section ofselected rulebooks (4). The work concludes with a bibliography (334-73) and indices (374-77). That this work is intended as a companion volume to S's bibliography explains its very broad scope. Yet in trying to say at least something about every rulebook the book dabbles along, forsaking theorizing , the clear outlining oftrends, and consistent comparative analysis of rulebook content or format for an unbalanced positivist description of unimportant details and presentations of data tables and issues of terminological debate without subsequent analysis or proposed resolutions. As a result the reader is left with a confused sense of why these works deserve our attention and what developments are to be witnessed in them. A clearer focus limited to certain elements mentioned or hinted at in the work—such as the comparison of rules sections as given in Appendix 4; a close examination of one development, e.g. the reduction of multiple spellings as begun in Ch. 10; or a longitudinal study of changes reflected in the Prussian rulebook (new editions from 1880 to 1969)—might have given the work greater coherence and made trends and the impact of the conferences clearer to the reader. Given that S has obviously put in much time gaining intimate familiarity with these materials, I hope that this will be her next step. [Désirée Baron, University of Regensburg.] The dialogic emergence of culture. Ed. by Dennis Tedlock...

Orthographic Standardization for Trinidad and Tobago

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Rechtschreibnormierung für Trinidad und Tobago: Sprachliche und sozialpolitische Überlegungen in einer englischsprachigen Kreolgesellschaft Die Akzeptanz von Kreolsprachen wächst in immer mehr Anwendungsbereichen und Funktionen. Man hat daher begonnen, Möglichkeiten für die Normierung ihrer Orthografie zu untersuchen. Der Aufsatz schlagt eine Normrechtschreibung für die englische Kreolsprache von Trinidad und Tobago vor. Hiermit werden zwei Ziele verfolgt: den Bedurfnissen der dortigen Gesellschaft zu entsprechen, die immer mehr auf Kreolisch schreibt, und ein normgebendes Wörterbuch der Sprache zu erstellen. Einer knappen Ubersicht über die Kreolsprachen der Karibik folgt ein kurzer Überblick über die geschichtliche Entwicklung der Sprache einschließlich der Rechtschreibung auf Trinidad und Tobago. Drei Rechtschreib-modelle - ein phonemisches, ein historisch-etymologisches und ein modifiziertes englisches -werden erörtert. Es wird ein "Kontinuummodell" vorgeschlagen. RESUMO Ortografia normigo por Trinidado kaj Tobago: Lingvaj kaj socipolitikaj konsideroj en anglalingva kreola komunumo Kreskas la akcepteblo de kreolaj lingvoj en ciam pli da medioj kaj funkcioj. Sekve oni komencas ekzameni vojojn al normigo de iliaj ortografiaj konvencioj. La artikolo proponas normigitan ortografion por la indiĝena angla kreolo de la karibaj insuloj Trinidado kaj Tobago. La motivoj estas du: plenumi la bezonojn de la loka socio, kiu pli kaj pli ofte skribas kreole, kaj pretigi norman vortlibron de la lingvo. Mallongan trarigardon de karibaj indiĝenaj kreoloj sekvas resumo de la historia evoluo de la lingvaĵo de Trinidado kaj Tobago, inkluzive la skribajn konvenciojn. La aiitoro priskribas kaj pritaksas tri ortografiajn modelojn - foneman, historian-etimologian, kaj modifitan anglan - kaj apogas "kontinuan" modelon.