Standardization et uniformisation de l'orthographe
The standardization and unification of the spelling of the national languages of Zaire (French: standardization et uniformisation de l'orthographe des langues nationales du Zaïre ) is a set of spelling rules and alphabetical criteria established by one of the committees of the first linguistic seminar of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic Congo ) from May 22 to 26, 1974 in Lubumbashi for the languages Kikongo , Lingala , Swahili and Tshiluba .
Rules and principles
Basic rules
- Whenever possible, the use of digraphs, trigraphs, etc. to represent a single tone should be avoided.
- Never use a single character for a group of sounds.
- Do not use several different characters to represent the same tone.
- The spelling of a language is primarily phonological, not phonetic; which is why the phonological, but not the phonetic, peculiarities of a language must be taken into account.
Basic principles
Several principles can be derived from these basic rules.
- The spelling (phonological) must be distinguished from the transcription (phonetic spelling).
- Each sound is represented by a single character.
regulate
Vowels
| Vowels | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| i | u | |||
| e | O | |||
| ɛ | ɔ | |||
| a | ||||
| Half vowels | ||||
| y | w | |||
Oral vowels
The letters a , e , ɛ , i , o , ɔ and u are used, but ɛ and ɔ are omitted from the five-vowel languages (Kikongo, Swahili, Tshiluba etc.).
Nasal vowels
The tilde is used to indicate nasal vowels in the languages in which they occur.
Half vowels
The letters y and w are used to directly identify the semi-vowels that follow the vowels (/ i /, / e /, / ɛ /) (in the case of 'y'), respectively, which come before the vowels (/ ɔ /, / o /, / u /) lie (at the 'w').
Consonants
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Laryngeal | Labiovelar | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nasal | m | n | ny |
ng ng ' |
||||||||||||
| Occlusive | p | b | t | d | k | G | kp | gb | ||||||||
| Fricative | f | v | s | z | sh | j | H | |||||||||
| Affricates | c | dj | ||||||||||||||
| Lateral | l | |||||||||||||||
| Vibrant | r | |||||||||||||||
The consonants are represented by individual letters or digraphs .
In languages where ⟨dj⟩ is not in opposition to ⟨j⟩, ⟨j⟩ is used instead of ⟨dj⟩. Especially for Swahili, the spelling ⟨ch⟩, which has long been introduced in other countries, is retained instead of ⟨c⟩. This means that this standard is largely compatible with the standard Swahili spelling.
Vowel quantity
| Vowel quantity | Notation |
|---|---|
| short vowel | e |
| long vowel | ee |
| ultra long vowel | eee |
The designation of the vowel quantity (long or short vowel) is recommended by doubling the vowel signs for long vowels. Ultra long vowels can be represented by a triple vowel mark.
volume
| volume | Notation |
|---|---|
| high tone | O |
| medium tone | O |
| Low tone | O |
| rising tone | ǒ |
| sinking tone | O |
The designation of the tones is recommended. The most common tone is written down without special labeling to make spelling easier. The following symbols are used:
- Acute for the high tone;
- Grave accent for the low tone;
- Circumflex for the falling tone;
- Hatschek for the rising tone;
- Vertical accent for the medium tone.
bibliography
- AB Edema, K. Nduku: Application du projet ORTHAF. The variants graphiques de l'IFA: a point de vue zaïrois . In: Danièle Latin et al. (Ed.): Inventaire des Usages de la Francophonie: nomenclatures et méthodologies . John Libbey, Montrouge, London, Rome 1993, ISBN 2-7420-0002-X , pp. 355-372 (French).
- Atibakwa Baboya Edema: L'orthographe des langues de la République démocratique du Congo: entre usages et norm . In: Cahiers du Rifal: Le traitement informatique des langues africaines . tape 23 , 2003, ISSN 1726-5363 , pp. 76–83 (French, ulb.ac.be [PDF; accessed September 6, 2019]).