> I'm interested in pursuing John Koontz' discussion on characters
> used for some Algonquian, Caddoan, and Siouxan languages. Distilling
> from his recent posts, I've tried to come up with a list of
> requirements.
Some modifications or clarifications, for phonemic transcriptions only,
e.g., LATIN LETTER U represents u-umlaut in Kansa and Osage.
Siouan (changes):
LATIN LETTER E WITH OGONEK (delete - does not occur)
LATIN LETTER A WITH ACUTE
LATIN LETTER E WITH ACUTE
LATIN LETTER I WITH ACUTE
LATIN LETTER O WITH ACUTE (variant of u nasal, or collapse of u nasal and a
nasal)
LATIN LETTER U WITH ACUTE
LATIN LETTER A WITH OGONEK AND ACUTE
LATIN LETTER I WITH OGONEK AND ACUTE
LATIN LETTER O WITH OGONEK AND ACUTE (per above)
LATIN LETTER U WITH OGONEK AND ACUTE
LATIN LETTER EDH
LATIN LETTER GLOTTAL STOP
> Plus some sorts of symbols for pharyngeal consonants.
Actually, on reflection, these are only needed for phonetic transcriptions.
> Kiowa uses diacritics to mark tone on nasal and non-nasal vowels
> alike.
The sixth vowel is open o, I seem to recall, and aeiou(open o) are needed in
combination with (acute, grave, circumflex, ogonek, acute + ogonek, grave +
ogonek, circumflex + ogonek). For the related Tewa language add macron and
macron + ogonek, and I think that the sixth vowel is different.
> Other symbols which might be needed (with Siouan) are
LATIN LETTER SMALL H (raised)
LATIN LETTER SMALL N (raised)
LATIN LETTER SMALL ENG (raised)
LATIN LETTER SMALL GLOTTAL STOP (raised)
> Now, the most interesting question is: for which languages do these
> apply, and are some of them, as in the case of Cheyenne above, only
> used by linguists, while non-specialist writers use other conventions?
The Siouan stuff applies to all Siouan languages collectively, e.g., edh is
found only in Omaha-Ponca and Osage, o-ogonek is only in Osage and Kansa and
some schemes for Omaha-Ponca, etc.
The "Plains" Algonquian scheme takes into account the needs of Arapaho/Gros
Ventre and Blackfoot collectively.
All of these specifications are for current linguistic usage. I don't think
any of the Caddoan languages are really written regularly by the few
remaining speakers. Gros Ventre has only one or two really fluent speakers.
Lakota/Dakota/Nakoda is/are much more lively, and is/are written fairly
regularly in classroom situations. The schemes used popularly are mostly
based on the Riggs and/or Buechel orthographies, which do not use the
character so far discussed (except raised n and eng (actually eta), aka "the
engma"). For example s-caron might be s-overdot or s-acute. Many of the
popular systems do not write stop aspiration (because Riggs didn't hear it
and Buechel wrote it inconsistantly, using an opening apostrophe).
The only native scheme for Kiowa that I know of is Parker MacKenzie's
system, mostly used by himself and those he has taught.
> I'd be interested in helping to assemble an inventory of characters
> for such languages and in making fonts available to support the
> repertoire. The most important thing is to make the glyphs required
> by ordinary writers available, as I suppose linguists are well enough
> served by the SIL IPA and so forth. Should we discuss this further?
Andy Anderson of Ecological Linguistics has also been interested in this
(character sets for the Americas), albeit mostly from the linguistic
perspective. A major technical problem is the wide range of equipment in
use. A solution based on, e.g., TrueType or PostScript might not be widely
useful for some time.
Sociological and political problems: the lack in most cases of a single
recognized popular standard, and the apparent impossibility of achieving
one, even within a single reservation community. (You can't generalize
this carelessly - there are some very notable exceptions.)
Also, Plains cultures in general do not place a premium on written language,
so that written usage of any sort is primarily for the use of linguists and
other external groups. Native interest in writing does, in fact, occur, but
it is commonly based on the needs of the classroom, and probably expected to
be restricted to that context in the long run. There is also sometimes a
desire by more or less Anglicized members of a group to engage in
self-directed study of the (lost) language following Anglo modes, or
sometimes a desire on the part of such people, including sometimes speakers
of the language, to create archives of preserved material in the face of
impending community loss of the language.
So, it is important to find out who agrees on a given popular scheme, and
what they expect it will be used for. And to expect changes. This sort of
constraint makes it difficult to devise a specific general solution.
Families of parameterized solutions, maybe?
John Koontz koontz@bldr.nist.gov
All of the above reflects my personal opinions, and should not be attributed
to my employers or anyone else.