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Each letter should correspond to one and only one unique phoneme and vice versa
Strict phonetic writing system is highly desirable. Such a system relieves the burden of remembering spelling of each word. When we encounter a name or a new word in a nonphonetic writing system, we need to know its spelling and pronunciation. By adopting purely phonetic writing system, problem of pronunciation dissolves automatically. For a writing system to be phonetic, it is essential that one letter should represent one phoneme only; vice versa one phoneme should correlate to one letter only. One to one correlation between phonemes and letters is the basic norm of phonetic writing system. Lack of one to one correlation between phoneme and letter results in ambiguity and is against the spirit of phonetic script. For example, in English, the letter C is sometimes used to represent k (plosive velar) and sometimes to represent s (fricative alveolar). The letters K and S are there for this purpose. Similarly the letters Q, W, X and Y of English language also break the norms of phonetic writing system. Such duality or duplication in representing phoneme is to be avoided in phonetic writing systems.
Writing system should be free from consideration which are truly extraneous
It is desirable to keep certain linguistic considerations separate from writing system when such considerations are truly extraneous to a pure phonetic writing system. Let writing system be used purely for recording spoken language faithfully and correctly. Since we can understand spoken language, we can understand the same when it is recorded in a phonetic writing system without any ambiguity. Punctuation marks, which add to the clarity of writing, are welcome.
Minimum number of letters required to represent all the phonemes of a given language fully and effectively
In phonetic writing system, the number of letters cannot be more than the number of phonemes of the language. It may be either equal or less. It can be equal to the number of phonemes of the language when each phoneme is assigned a separate letter. In some cases where certain phonemes are grouped, one common letter can be assigned for the group and diacritics can be used to differentiate between each member of the group. In many Indian languages, some consonants are aspirated to generate aspirated consonant sound. To indicate that a consonant is aspirated, a diacritic can be used for the aspirated vowels. Like many Indian languages, Kannada alphabet contains ten pairs of such consonants, each pair having an unaspirated consonant and an aspirated consonant P R, U W, Z b, d gh, l o, q qs, v x, z
Kannada language, there are 5 groups of consonants called vargeeya vyanjanas. Each group is called a varga and consists of 5 consonants. The diacritic anuswaara is used to represent the fifth consonant of the corresponding varga. The use of anuswaara in this way results in simplified writing without causing any ambiguity - PAP, AW, vAU,
PAZ, Ad, Al, UAq, PAv, A, PA, A, wA, UAg, CAv, EA, GAl NAPg. . Flow of writing should strictly follow the flow of speaking.
The direction of writing of a writing system should be completely unidirectional. Many languages use left to right writing in their writing systems. There are some languages that have bi-directional writing system. Arabic, Urdu, Farsi and Hebrew are examples of bi-directional languages. In Urdu language, the usual direction of writing is from right to left but when writing numbers the direction of writing changes left to right. When text from other languages, which use left to right system of writing, is embedded in Urdu, the direction of writing is from left to right. When writing is resumed further the direction of writing reverts to right to left.
Many south Asian languages use left to right system of writing. However in some languages the writing system is not strictly unidirectional. In Sanskrit, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali, Oriya, Singhalese and some other languages, writing does not strictly follow the order of phonemes of speech. Some examples: Sanskrit - l, u (ni, rvA); Bengali K, K, K, K ( (ke, kai, ko, kau); Malayalam - K, K, K, Kx, Kx, Kx (ke, kE, kai,
ko, kO, kau); Kannada - Ps, (kShObhe, strI). Here in l, the diacritic for the vowel is written first and then the consonant preceding the vowel. In u, the consonant r preceding the
consonant p is written after its following consonant and the vowel. In Bengali and Malayalam, diacritics for the first two vowels shown are written before the preceding consonant and for the remaining vowels shown above the diacritics are written partly before (pre-base glyph) and partly after (post-base glyph) the concerned consonant. The examples cited here are from Sanskrit, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada. But similar feathers are there in many scripts that are descendents of Brahmi script like Assamese, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Hindi, Oriya, Punjabi, Singhalese and Tamil. Order of pronouncing the phonemes should be followed strictly in a true phonemic writing system so
that reading what is written is simple and straightforward. Also programs for processing text like sorting, indexing and searching, OCR for printed text document recognition and retrieval, etc. can be coded straight forward. Such programs can be robust and less error prone.
Each letter should have equal weight in its visibility and size.
Many south Asian languages use syllabic writing systems. A consonant is joined with the following consonant/s till a following vowel occurs and the result is a conjunct consonant called as syllable. Generally, the number of consonants preceding the vowel may be 1 to 3. In Tamil language, the consonants of a syllable except the last one are shown to be devoid of vowel by a diacritic usually a dot above the letter and the last of consonant of the syllable is rightly written along with the diacritic of the vowel following. Thus the size of the characters remains same in Tamil. In Sanskrit and some more Indian languages, which are descendents of Brahmi script, each of the consonants of the syllable except the last one are clipped at the end and joined to the following consonant to get the conjunct consonant; this method of writing syllables makes reading less comfortable. Let us look at a few examples from Sanskrit: klruS, Axi, EzhSMq, Alr, puwrli. Clipping of letters this way makes reading not facile and coding of OCR character recognition and other programs is convoluted. In Kannada and Telugu languages, the following method is adopted in writing conjunct consonants: First consonant of the syllable is written in full along with diacritic of the vowel that occurs at the end of the syllable (!) and the following consonants of the syllable are written below this using shapes meant particularly for this purpose which may or may not be similar to normal letters of consonants necessitating a separate set of diacritics for consonants for the purpose. For example, here are a few such words: P, sP,
, vAv, wP, Q, Ps, , C, , P, , t. This method has some problems. Second and subsequent
consonants are small in size and makes reading them less comfortable. It is difficult to read text printed in small font size due to still smaller sizes of consonants written below others and also takes more line space. Displaying such syllables on digital display boards using pixel format takes more pixels resulting in larger size of display boards. It also makes coding of OCR text recognition programs complex and error prone.
In favor of reformation
Writing system should be strictly phonemic. English though widely used is not phonemic. Avoidable burden of differing spelling and pronunciation is a problem yet to be solved. Though Indian writing systems that are decedents of Brahmi Script are phonetic, much advantage can be gained if these scripts are based on phonemes and not on syllables. Reluctance and resistance are the stumbling blocks. Lame excuses are put forth. Sincere and rational effort to appreciate advantages and benefits of reformation of writing system is the need of the time. Efforts should be made towards finding ways and means of successfully bringing reformations in writing systems and popularizing the same.
Against reformation
Reformations, which appear to be rational and beneficial, do not get the popular support required. So widespread is the society using a language, any change to the existing system is practically unwieldy. Reformations render the whole treasure of existing books, databases, and repertoire of human knowledge obsolete in their present written form. Lot of effort and money may have to be spent to bring them in conformity with the reformation proposed.