Peter, Replies in text:

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
wrote:

> Don Osborn wrote:
> >
> > Peter, Do you have a reference for the "Africa Alphabet"? The

only

> > mention I have for it is in the proceedings of the Niamey

conference

> > at http://www.bisharat.net/Documents/Niamey78en.htm (in reference

to

> > Ugandan languages).
>
> There's at least two Peters in this thread ...

Thanks, I did realize that, but so far I've been able to keep track...

> I happen to have two pamphlets published by the folks who came up

with

> the Africa Alphabet in the 1930s (two editions), but I don't

remember

> where else I've seen it. I was annoyed that Bendor-Samuel didn't

put a

> table for it in WWS.

Is there a table in those? Would it be possible to scan & post? (or
send to me to post?

> It's discussed but not with a table in Tucker's chapter in Current
> Trends 7.

I don't have access to this now but may be able to visit a library
that would have it next month.

[ . . . ]

> > The Niamey "expert meeting" in 1978 was in effect part of a

series of

> > conferences that ensued (a partial list is at
> > http://www.bisharat.net/Documents/ ) dealing in large part with

how

> > to "harmonize transcriptions." Africa's borders of course divide
> > virtually every language community, and it made sense for there

to be

> > a comparing of notes and if possible common approaches among
> > different national literacy & applied linguistics authorities.
>
> I've tried to find examples of languages that straddle borders

between

> colonies that would have a standard French-based orthography and a
> standard English-based orthography in different countries, but

couldn't.

I'm not sure there ever was any standard French-based orthography for
African languages - that's after having been through a lot of
material, including materials specifically about languages (esp.
Fula), and other materials with lists of local terms and names such
as monographs and books on flora. Mainly people improvised, though
there are typical patterns relating to French phonetics and evidently
(for later publications) reference to earlier publications. These
improvisations seem to have evolved so that for instance what we
write in English as /ch/ and /j/ were sometimes seen as /ty/ and /dy/
in the later colonial period.

I'd be surprised if there was a standard English-based orthography
either, other than perhaps the alphabet you are referring to (mainly
in East Africa??). For instance in Nigeria, there is at least one
inconsistency in consonants (for the sound we write /ch/ in English,
Igbo uses /ch/ and Hausa /c/), and a stylistic difference in the
marking under the o in Igbo and Yoruba. (You may be familiar with
John Philips work on the Latin Hausa orthography.)

Since I haven't studied the history in detail I'm a bit hazy on this
but think that the impetus for harmonizing transcriptions came not so
much from encountering great differences - not a whole lot was
written (at least in Latin transcription) for most languages - but
because of some foresight as newly independent countries looked at
possible literacy work, how to record oral traditions, etc.

The Bamako 1966 meeting was very interesting in this regard, even
though not all of its specific conclusions re characters have been
retained. To their credit the former French colonies made reference
to the orthography in northern Nigeria used for Hausa (also a major
language in Niger) as well Fula (present in many countries of the
region), and in fact the latter was adopted as the basis for
orthographies in these languages. Later meetings were apparently in
the same spirit. If you don't find many differences in orthographies
of languages straddling the "Anglophone/Francophone" divide, that may
be in part a testament to the success of this process, at least in
this regard: more or less ad hoc transcriptions based on English or
French phonetics (or random choices on opposite sides of borders)
were more or less harmonized.

There are exceptions that may fit what you're looking for, and one is
Yoruba/Ife. I understand that this is basically the same language,
but Yoruba in Nigeria uses its own orthography that dates back to
Crowther if I'm not mistaken, and Ife in Benin uses an orthography of
a form similar to the rest of the region (influenced by Bamako '66
and subsequent conferences).

Hope this helps.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net