PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICAL ORTHOGRAPHY

FOR AFRICAN LANGUAGES-I.

BY CARL MEINHOF

HE more the number of Africans who can read and write their

TH

mother tongue increases, and the more books, newspapers, and magazines are printed in Africa, the more pressing becomes the necessity of introducing a good, legible system of writing these languages wherever it is lacking. For this reason the Institute has begun to occupy itself with the production of such a system of orthography, and it therefore seems opportune to consider more closely the method and scope of this undertaking before making detailed proposals for a practical orthography.

THE LEPSIUS STANDARD ALPHABET. Although we are feeling the necessity for a good orthography so acutely to-day, the need for one is old. More than seventy years ago the missionary societies of England, America, and the Continent which were concerned with the education of Natives in various parts of the world agreed in expressing the desire to entrust to an expert the production of such an orthography, not only for Africa but for all the languages of the world. The services of C. R. Lepsius, the well-known Egyptologist and author of a Nubian grammar, were obtained, and he carried out the task as well as it could have been done at that time. His book The Standard Alphabet1 first appeared in 1855, followed by a second edition in 1863, and was much used in missionary circles, particularly in Africa. As the work did not meet with the universal success which was anticipated, we must consider what was the reason, in order that we may recognize mistakes that have already been made and avoid making them again in the future.

ORTHOGRAPHY AND PHONETICS. In the year 1855 nothing was as yet known of real experimental phonetics, and the only method avail

1 C. R. Lepsius, Standard Alphabet for reducing unwritten languages and foreign graphic systems to a uniform orthography in European letters. Second edition, London and Berlin, 1863.

able was a simple study of one's own vocal organs or those of others. In addition to this, the limited means of travel made the study of foreign languages incomparably more difficult than it is to-day. Since that time the Abbé Rousselot has laid the basis of the science of experimental phonetics, and a number of distinguished scientists have continued to work in the same field. In consequence it is now recognized that the earlier conception of the nature of many sounds is insufficient for our purpose. Experiment has convinced us that there are many more sounds than Lepsius imagined: that, for example, it is not only necessary to distinguish between voiced and voiceless sounds, but that there are varying grades and degrees in the voicing of sounds and also varying degrees of aspiration. In consequence many modern phoneticians have completely abandoned expressing the results of their researches by means of letters. They are, in fact, convinced that a phonetic script is necessary for the scientific investigation of sounds, but that such a method of writing is at all times more or less arbitrary and conventional. Orthography remains a purely mnemo-technic aid to remembrance of the spoken word, in which, as a rule, the particularly characteristic sounds are taken out of the abundance of examples that occur in a language, and letters employed to represent them. This fixing of orthography, however, is not the task of the phonetician, but of the linguist.

Although the Lepsius alphabet no longer suffices for the phonetician, it has rendered valuable service to the linguist, and the latter will in future always have to enlist the services of the phonetician in questions of orthography, though the problem is essentially linguistic and not phonetic.

ORTHOGRAPHY AND ETYMOLOGY. In the orthography of European languages two different principles are interwoven. The one is the purely phonetic principle, according to which words are written exactly as they are spoken, while the other is the etymological principle, by which words are written so that their derivation may be recognized. In purely phonetic spelling, e.g. French sã, it is impossible to know whether sang, cent, sens, sent, or s'en is meant. In the same way the Germans write Rad, although the d is not voiced at the end of a word, in order that the word may be recognized as the

singular of Räder. In English also the historical spelling has, as a rule, been retained, while the living language to-day makes use of quite different sounds, e.g. f instead of gh in enough. The advocates of a wholly phonetic orthography would like to reduce such etymological spelling or abolish it altogether, and have already met with considerable success, notably in Czech, with its good, phonetic orthography. Those who would retain the etymological spelling lay stress on the fact that the latter is in many cases essential for the understanding of the meaning of a word, and that this is the important factor in reading. As in Africa we are mainly concerned with modern languages, one would imagine that a strictly phonetic orthography could be employed. But this is not the case, for here also there are numerous contractions of words and sounds which are fully alive in the consciousness of the speakers. It requires careful consideration whether in a particular case the sound that is heard shall be written purely phonetically or according to what is present in the consciousness of the speaker.

This is of particular importance where initial and final vowels of words merge into one another in current speech. Furthermore, the division of connected speech into words is a matter of etymology and grammar, not of phonetics, for experiment shows us that a division between words such as we make in writing is, as a rule, not noticeable in speech. On this account also the grammarian and the etymologist have an equal right with the phonetician to be heard in questions of orthography.

INDIVIDUAL SPEECH AND COMMON SPEECH. All over the world it can be observed that every town and every village has its own dialect: in fact, that even each family and each individual speaks differently. We all know our acquaintances by the way they speak. A rigidly phonetic orthography could, therefore, only indicate the pronunciation of a village or even of an individual. A considerable amount of inquiry on these lines has been undertaken and is of great importance in the comparative study of dialects for example. But here we are dealing with another matter, we are dealing with the production of an orthography for much more extensive use, viz. the writing of common speech. All individual and local characteristics must there

fore be relegated to the background, and only that which is understood by a great majority can be taken into consideration. This orthography cannot be strictly phonetic, because a symbol so selected, e.g. 1, might be pronounced differently in different local dialects: it might be more or less palatal, or more or less approaching the tremulant sound r. The orthography selected will therefore record the average of the different pronunciations, or what is considered the best pronunciation, and endeavour to use the signs simplest for writing. WRITING AND SPEECH. Writing and speech are not identical although they have similar functions. Speech is directed to the ear and man accustoms himself to it in his intercourse with other human beings, without exactly knowing how, so that many believe erroneously that speech is inborn. Writing, which we learnt at school and not through our intercourse with other human beings, is directed to the eye, and is in this way used for the communication of thought. At first reading aloud is required in order to achieve the transition from acoustic to visual perception. This is why all beginners read aloud. But we adults have accustomed ourselves to read only with the eye, without speaking, so that a new process takes place which is quite different from speaking and hearing. What we now read is not a series of sounds, which convey to us ideas of objects and situations, but written or printed symbols. These sounds are only imperfectly represented even by the best phonetic script. What is a complete whole when heard is when read divided into words and letters, which only indicate a part of the living process. Even the best writing is therefore only an imperfect means of reproducing living speech and the most careful orthography will have its defects. These must, however, be avoided in such a way that misunderstanding and confusion are precluded.

UNIFORMITY. Lepsius hoped to introduce one orthography for all the languages of the world, so that any one who knew this alphabet would be able to read any language correctly. This idea was only possible because Lepsius believed he knew practically every sound. We know to-day that the number of sounds actually used is far larger than he thought and that there are infinite further possibilities. For practical purposes, however, it is not necessary to have a uniform orthography for all the languages of the world. Sounds which occur

in one language are lacking in others, sound differences which are important in one language are negligible in another-every language must, therefore, evolve a suitable method of orthography for itself.

The principles on which this is to be done can be uniform, but not the methods of orthography. It is not possible to write German, English, French, and Polish with the same practical orthography, and yet these languages are much more closely related than the languages of Africa. We cannot, therefore, seek for a uniform orthography for the languages of Africa, but we must seek for the general principles which can be applied everywhere.

PRACTICAL AND SCIENTIFIC ORTHOGRAPHY. For purposes of comparative philology and other scientific work a uniform orthography for different languages, if possible for all languages, is required. The International Conference in Copenhagen in April 1925 occupied itself with the problem of such an orthography. The conclusions of the Conference are available in print. It took for granted, among other things, that an orthography for scientific purposes must be systematic, i.e. that the same symbol must always have the same meaning, e.g. a diacritic above a letter or a dot underneath, because it is only in this way possible to indicate the great variety of sounds that exist. Practical orthography, however, with which we are here concerned, has quite different objects. It is not intended for the comparison of different languages but only for the use of one language. Here many of the distinctions made in the scientific orthography will become unnecessary. The Native, for whom the orthography is intended, will always speak the sounds of his mother tongue correctly, provided he knows definitely which sound is represented by each symbol. The Church Missionary Society in 1863 very rightly drew attention to this difference between a practical and a scientific orthography in Lepsius' Standard Alphabet, second edition, p. 12.

"This Alphabet is available for two very different classes of readers, the European student and the uncritical Native. For the former, whether traveller, missionary, or philologist, the whole apparatus of diacritical marks will be needed, and more especially for such works as Grammars, Praxes, Dictionaries, etc., where the object is technical and linguistic. For the latter, many of the diacritical marks may be dispensed with, or will gradually drop