End of Phase 1

End of Workshop Activities

Towards the end of the workshop, after most of the analysis has been completed, the workshop team should finalize spelling rules and practice applying these rules by revising one of the texts. If an alphabet book already exists for the language, the team should also plan to use one of the final sessions for updating this book.

Be sure to also all decision made during the workshop. If there is no record of the agreed-upon writing decisions, the language's development has no greater potential for success than before the workshop.

Predict Readability

Towards the end of the first RGC workshop, the linguist can predict, to a certain extent, the readability of the writing system. This prediction is based on time spent investigating extensive amounts of data and evaluating the functional load of various writing symbols, words and constructions.

A guide for estimating the functional load of (amount of meaning distinguished by) different words, symbols and constructions is included in the drop down below. If not enough distinction is made in the writing system, the facilitator must discuss with participants how reading could be negatively affected and propose some ways of distinguishing the relevant sounds in writing.

Estimating Functional Load

When investigating the grammar of the language, the linguist should keep a rough estimate of the number of minimal pairs that differ only by tone or vowel quality. The number of under-distinguished words - that is, words that differ in meaning and sound but have the same spelling - is one factor in evaluating the readability of the writing system.

It will be difficult to read minimal pairs not distinguished in the writing if....

10% of words in the same word category are in a minimal pair and/or
20% of words in different word categories are in a minimal pair

On the other hand, there should be little difficulty in reading, even without distinguishing such words in writing, if...

Less than 2% of words in the same word category are in a minimal pair and
Less than 5% of words in different word categories are in a minimal pair*

Many languages are somewhere in-between these percentages, so other factors are needed to considered to determine the readability of the writing system. Important factors to consider include the the language's number of phonemes, syllable patterns, tone melodies and grammatical distinctions.

Number of Phonemes (Consonants & Vowels):

The greater the number of consonants and vowels in the language, the less meaning will depend on any one symbol. Because meaning is being distributed across more symbols, it is less likely that under-respresented sounds such as tone or ATR contrasts need to be represented throughout the writing system.

Number of Syllable Types & Word Syllable Patterns:

The fewer number of syllable patterns in the language, the more likely it is that tones will need to be represented in the writing system. For example, a language such as ꞌBeli [blm] with only a CV syllable type and a CVCV word syllable pattern is much more likely to need tone represented in writing than a language such as Laarim [loh] with 4 syllable types and 10 word syllable patterns (all other factors being equal).

Number of Grammatical Distinctions that Differ Only by Tone:

The facilitator will also need to consider the functional load of grammatical constructions (such as case, pronominals, verb aspect, etc.) that differ only by tone. The greater the number of grammatical distinctions and the greater the frequency of each, the more important it is for such distinctions to be represented in writing. For example, it is likely that reading will be difficult if more than 5% or clauses in a given story under-represented grammatical distinctions.

Towards the end of the workshop, the facilitator should count the the number of dinstinctions that are not represented by the writing system, including...

The number of minimal pairs (for tone, vowel quality, etc.) in each word category
The number of mininal across word categories
The frequency of grammatical distinctions that differ only by tone**

If the number of any of these under-distinguished words/grammar distingctions is significant, discuss them with the participants and try to resolve them by finding ways to represent the distinctions in the writing system.

*These percentages are not based on academic research; they are merely a guess from Stirtz's experience working with a limited number of languages.

**This can be done by counting the number of clauses in a text that have a case, verb aspect, etc. that is only distinguished by tone. Then compare the number of occurences with the total number of clauses in the text.

Finalize Spelling Rules

The workshop team should use the final sessions of Phase 1 to finalize the spelling rules for consonants, vowels, tone, word breaks and sound changes at morpheme boundaries.* The facilitator should use this time bring up any readability issues for the team to discuss. As much as possible, the team should deal with these issues by making appropriate writing choices to resolve the issues.

Participants often make thoughtful consistent choices when seeing langauge data displayed in a systemative way at the end of various workshop sessions. But, sometimes, the participants will need to have inconsistencies pointed out to them, as in the example below.

While it is the linguist's repsonsibility to ensure that the participants have adequately understood all the issues involved in making writing decisions (such as readability, transferability to the national language, similarities with related languages, etc.), the actual decisions should be left to them (and, ultimately, the language communities the participants serve). If the speakers do not have the final say in writing decisions, they may not use the writing system, and then development work on the language is a waste of time.

Although a langauge group may make a writing decision that a linguist experienced in orthography design might consider unwise, it does not often effect the writing system so dramatically that it is unusable.

*See page "Orthography Resources" for guides on deciding symbols, word breaks and tone representations.

Pointing Out Inconsistencies

In the Caning [shj] language, there is neutralization of a voicing contrast for plosives in the word-final position. During the RGC workshop, participants wrote some words with a final a final <d> and other words with a final <t>, even though they all had the same final sound.* To help participants see the inconsistency of writing using different symbols to represent the same sound, the facilitator wrote a list of 20 words on the board that all had this final sound. He specifically chose some words that were commonly written with a final <d> and some that were commonly written with a final <t>. He asked each participant to write these words on a piece of paper and then collected the papers. The following day, the facilitator wrore the same group of words on the board again but in a different order. Once again, he asked participants to write down the group of words and then collected the papers.

The papers from each day were compared. Words that were written differently from one day to the next were pointed out, as well as words that were written differently by different participants. The facilitator observed that readers may be confused by this inconsistency. He encouraged them to choose one final letter to always use for this sound, unless they could arrive at a teachable system for distinguishing when to write <d> and when to write <t>.

*Stem-final plosives alternate according to suffixes, but that is a separate issue from the sound of plosives in word final position, which is what is discussed here.

Revise Alphabet Book (as applicable)

If the language already has an alphabet book, use one of the final sessions to revise it according to the spelling rules agreed-upon during the workshop. Choose 3 words for each letter that could easily be represented by a picture (if possible). If an alphabet sentence book exists, consider taking time to revise the spelling of this book as well.

Practice Writing

On the last day, list all the agreed-upon spelling rules on the board and check if the participants are still in agreement with these rules. If so, practice applying these rules by using them to revise one of the 8-10 texts that were studied during the workshop.

Assign participants more writing practice to complete before Phase 2. This could include revising the rest of the texts according to the agreed-upon spelling rules, collecting and interlinearizing 5 additional stories and drafting (or revising) other literacy materials. Refer to "Between Phases" for a full list of materials to complete before Phase 2.

Next Steps

Provide a report to administrators with the outcomes of Phase 1. If you can give a reasonably accurate prediction that language speakers will be able to achieve reading fluency with the aggreed-upon writing system, administrators may want to immediately begin planning further language development. If 1) you have covered the grammar most crucial for deciding the writing system, 2) there are no major issues in the writing system, and 3) the writing system is confirmed to be accepted by the community, there is no reason why language development should not proceed at full force.

If, however, there are unresolved issues for the writing system that you suspect will make reading fluency difficult, it is best to recommend 1) that only materials for testing reading fluency should be printed and 2) that further language development be paused until another RGC workshop can be held to resolve more of the writing issues.

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