Suo Spelling

One of the major changes in the Suo writing system related to the writing of certain vowels and consonants.

In studying the language, we could see that there were two types of “i” and of “u”, pronounced slightly differently. The vowels pronounced with the teeth closer together influenced the preceding consonant. For example, you would have bvi (close vowel) and bi (non-close vowel). This happened with multiple consonants: bv, gv, ts, dz, kf, etc.

As there were not really sounds like ‘e’ and ‘o’ in the language, the original proposal was to write the vowels differently, i/e and o/u, and not write the changes in the consonant. Thus, you would distinguish the examples above as “bi” (with close vowel, and thus “v” sound) and “be” (with non-close vowel, and thus no “v” sound). The older people seemed to accept this well in our workshops.

However, as people used the system, it became clear that things were more complicated. Not all people pronounced the vowels differently. In contexts where the consonant was not affected (like after “l”) they were not sure whether to write ‘i’ or ‘e’. They also clearly heard the distinctive “off glide” of these consonants. One student even said: “if you hear bvi, write ‘bi’, if you hear bi, write ‘be’”.  It seemed like the distinction between these vowels was being lost, and people were paying more attention to the changes in the consonant than to the vowels.

So, with the community, we decided to write just two vowels (always ‘i’ or ‘u’), but also write the consonant modification before it.

Here are some examples of the old and new writing:

Old New Meaning
mbe mbi dog
embi imbvi palm tree
eku ikfu ‘deer’
ko ku ‘palm rat’
ngolo ngulu ‘flame’
ngulo ngvulu ‘strength, power’.