Writing Local Languages

Effective orthographies which represent speech maximally yet efficiently are pivotal in giving literacy to millions of people. Testing their effectiveness can inform users, literacy personnel, and linguists of the relative importance of certain features, and any difficulties readers may face with comprehension, spelling or reading fluency.

Purchase on amazon.com

What counts as a word in a newly written language is not a simple matter. This volume brings together ten new case studies from around the world that shed light on the complex process of determining word boundaries.   The Orthographic Word in Languages of the World 

Purchase on Amazon.Com

Orthography is how a language is expressed in written form. This link provides resources to help language workers and researchers devise a writing system for a previously unwritten language, or to help revise an existing orthography which is deficient in some way.  Orthography

This free, open source keyboarding platform allows anyone to develop a keyboard layout for their language. Keyman is available for many platforms, including Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux and the web.  Keyman 

This paper discusses a method of orthography development that has been widely used in Papua New Guinea.  Alphabet Design Workshops in Papua New Guinea: A Community-Based Approach to Orthography Development

An overview of participatory teaching of Bantu grammar & parts of speech to mother tongue speakers of Bantu languages.  Bridging the gap: Bantu grammar workshops as a means to support community- based language development 

This resource gives suggestions for planning, developing, illustrating, editing, translating and evaluating graded reading materials in mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) students’ first language (L1) and in other school languages.  Resource for developing graded reading materials for MTB-MLE

A guide for how to create Stage 1 stories for children who are just learning to read in their first language (L1).  Writing a Stage 1 story