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From IPA to wildcards: A critical look at some African Latin orthographies
Tosco, Mauro
2021
Abstract
The article presents and discusses a few African Latin orthographies. The scope
of the work is set out in section 1, while section 2 discusses a few orthographies
featuring IPA symbols and diacritics. They were often the work of linguists and
missionaries and were conceived for mother-tongue alphabetization and in order
to translate and publish religious literature. They are scarcely useful in everyday
casual writing, and especially so on a keyboard (where only a restricted set of
symbols is to all practical purposes available). They are contrasted in section 3 with
the use of digraphs and, most of all, with “wildcards:” symbols of the Latin, basic
(unmodified) alphabet that are taken to use, often in an idiosyncratic manner, in
order to represent phonemes that do not have a direct, built-in representation. The
discussion is wrapped up in section 4, where the limits on the use of wildcards are
evidenced and the practical limitations of many African orthographies reiterated.
Publisher
EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste
Source
Mauro Tosco, "From IPA to wildcards: a critical look at some African Latin orthographies", in: Ilaria Micheli, Flavia Aiello, Maddalena Toscano, Amelia Pensabene (Edited by), "Language and Identity Theories and experiences in lexicography and linguistic policies in a global world", Trieste, EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2021, pp. 56-83
Languages
en
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internazionale
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