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Featural Writing System
In a featural writing system, the shapes of the symbols (such as letters) are not arbitrary but encode distinctive feature, phonological features of the phonemes that they represent. The term featural was introduced by Geoffrey Sampson to describe the Hangul, Korean alphabet and Pitman shorthand. Joe Martin introduced the term featural notation to describe writing systems that include symbols to represent individual features rather than phonemes. He asserts that "alphabets have no symbols for anything smaller than a phoneme". A ''featural'' script represents finer detail than an alphabet. Here, symbols do not represent whole phonemes, but rather the elements (features) that make up the phonemes, such as voice (phonetics), voicing or its place of articulation. In the Korean alphabet, the featural symbols are combined into alphabetic letters, and these letters are in turn joined into syllabic blocks, so the system combines three levels of phonological representation. Some schola ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Distinctive Feature
In linguistics, a distinctive feature is the most basic unit of phonology, phonological structure that distinguishes one Phone (phonetics), sound from another within a language. For example, the feature [+Voice (phonetics), voice] ''distinguishes'' the two bilabial plosives: [p] and [b] (i.e., it makes the two plosives ''distinct'' from one another). There are many different ways of defining and arranging features into ''feature systems'': some deal with only one language while others are developed to apply to all languages. Distinctive features are grouped into categories according to the natural classes of segment (linguistics), segments they describe: major class features, laryngeal features, manner features, and place features. These feature categories in turn are further specified on the basis of the phonetics, phonetic properties of the segments in question. Since the inception of the phonological analysis of distinctive features in the 1950s, features traditionally have be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Athabaskan Languages
Athabaskan ( ; also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large branch of the Na-Dene languages, Na-Dene language family of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific Coast and Southern (or Apachean). Kari and Potter (2010:10) place the total territory of the 53 Athabaskan languages at . Chipewyan language, Chipewyan is spoken over the largest area of any North American native language, while Navajo language, Navajo is spoken by the largest number of people of any native language north of Mexico. The word ''Athabaskan'' is an Anglicisation, anglicized version of a Cree language name for Lake Athabasca ( '[where] there are reeds one after another') in Canada. Cree is one of the Algonquian languages and therefore not itself an Athabaskan language. The name was assigned by Albert Gallatin in his 1836 (written 1826) classification of the languages of North America. He acknowledged ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Bantu Languages
The Southern Bantu or siNtu languages are a large group of Bantu languages, largely validated in Janson (1991/92).Tore Janson (1991-92) "Southern Bantu and Makua", ''Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika'' (''SUGIA'') Vol. 12/13: 63-106, Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Cologn/ref> They are nearly synonymous with Guthrie's '' Guthrie classification of Bantu languages, Bantu zone S'', apart from the debated exclusion of Shona and inclusion of Makhuwa. They include all of the major Bantu languages of South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, and Mozambique, with outliers such as Lozi in Zambia and Namibia, and Ngoni in Zambia, Tanzania and Malawi. Languages Language groups are followed by their code in the Guthrie classification. Makhuwa languages are included in this tree. *Southern Bantu languages ** Makua (P30) *** Makhuwa *** Koti *** Sakati (Nathembo) *** Lomwe *** Chuwabu *** Moniga ** Chopi (S60) *** Chopi *** Guitonga **Nguni languages (S40) ***Zunda **** Xhosa **** Zulu ****Ndeb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ditema Tsa Dinoko
Ditema tsa Dinoko (), also known as isiBheqe soHlamvu (), and sometimes known as Xiyinhlanharhu xa Mipfawulo or Xifungho xa Manungu in Tsonga language, xiTsonga and Luṱhofunḓeraru lwa Mibvumo or Vhuga ha Madungo in Venda language, tshiVenḓa , is a featural syllable-based writing system constructed writing system, created for the Southern Bantu, ''siNtu languages'' (Southern Bantu languages, Ntu Languages). It was developed from the preeminent ideographic traditions of Southern Africa, including ''litema'' mural art of Lesotho, the related Southern Ndebele people, isiNdebele tradition of Ndebele house painting, ''ukugwala'' ("to write", "to draw", "to paint traditional ideographic mural art"), and other symbolic crafts, like the regional beadwork containing ideograms and Morphogram, morphograms, which in Zulu language, isiZulu tradition are called ''amabheqe''. no proposal has been made to encode the script in Unicode. The script is designed for the phonologies of the ''s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bantu Languages
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The total number of Bantu languages is estimated at between 440 and 680 distinct languages, depending on the definition of Dialect#Dialect or language, "language" versus "dialect"."Guthrie (1967–71) names some 440 Bantu 'varieties', Grimes (2000) has 501 (minus a few 'extinct' or 'almost extinct'), Bastin ''et al.'' (1999) have 542, Maho (this volume) has some 660, and Mann ''et al.'' (1987) have ''c.'' 680." Derek Nurse, 2006, "Bantu Languages", in the ''Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'', p. 2:Ethnologue report for Southern Bantoid" lists a total of 535 languages. The count includes 13 Mbam languages, which are not always included under "Narrow Bantu". ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mandombe
Mandombe or Mandombé is a script proposed in 1978 in Mbanza-Ngungu in the Bas-Congo province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by Wabeladio Payi, who related that it was revealed to him in a dream by Simon Kimbangu, of the Kimbanguist Church. Mandombe is based on the "sacred shapes" and intended for writing African languages such as Kikongo, as well as the four national languages of the Congo, Kikongo ya leta, Lingala, Tshiluba and Swahili, though it does not have enough vowels to write Lingala fully. It is taught in Kimbanguist church schools in Angola, the Republic of the Congo, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is also promoted by the Kimbanguist ''Centre de l’Écriture Négro-Africaine'' (CENA). The Mandombe Academy at CENA is currently working on transcribing other African languages in the script. It has been classified as the third most viable indigenous script of recent indigenous west African scripts, behind only the Vai syllabary and the N'Ko ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SignWriting
Sutton SignWriting, or simply SignWriting, is a system of written sign languages. It is highly featural and visually iconic: the shapes of the characters are abstract pictures of the hands, face, and body; and unlike most written words, which follow a primarily linear arrangement, SignWriting is structured two-dimensionally. It was developed in 1974 by Valerie Sutton, a dancer who had, two years earlier, developed DanceWriting. Some newer standardized forms are known as the International Sign Writing Alphabet (ISWA). History As Sutton was teaching DanceWriting to the Royal Danish Ballet, Lars von der Lieth, who was doing research on signed language at the University of Copenhagen, thought it would be useful to use a similar notation for the recording of sign languages. Sutton based SignWriting on DanceWriting, and finally expanded the system to the complete repertoire of MovementWriting. However, only SignWriting and DanceWriting have been widely used. SignWriting wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quikscript
Quikscript (also known as the Read Alphabet and Second Shaw) is a constructed alphabet intended to replace traditional English orthography. It is a revised version of the Shavian alphabet, designed to be written more quickly by hand than its predecessor and make it more universal. Origins and history Read organized a lengthy public testing phase of Shavian by some 500 users from around the world who spoke different dialects of English. Once he had analyzed the results of those tests, Read decided to revise Shavian to incorporate a number of improvements to make it both easier and faster to write. He called the revised alphabet "Quikscript". In 1966, he published the Quikscript manual which set out the alphabet's rationale, and briefly discussed different possible methods of alphabet reform. The manual provides comprehensive instructions regarding the use of the alphabet along with reading samples. Description Each Quikscript letter represents a single English phoneme. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shavian Alphabet
The Shavian alphabet ( ; also known as the Shaw alphabet) is a Constructed writing system, constructed alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonemic orthography for the English language to replace the inefficiencies and difficulties of English orthography, conventional spelling using the English alphabet, Latin alphabet. It was posthumously funded by and named after Irish people, Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw and designed by Ronald Kingsley Read. Shaw set three main criteria for the new alphabet. It should be: # at least 40 letters; # as Phonemic orthography, phonetic as possible (that is, letters should have a 1:1 correspondence to phonemes); # distinct from the Latin script, Latin alphabet to avoid the impression that the new spellings were simply misspellings. Letters The Shavian alphabet consists of three types of letters: tall (with an ascender), deep (with a descender) and short. All vowels but the consonant–vowel ligature ''yew'' are short. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deseret Alphabet
The Deseret alphabet (; Deseret: or ) is a phoneme, phonemic English-language spelling reform developed between 1847 and 1854 by the board of regents of the University of Deseret under the leadership of Brigham Young, the second President of the Church (LDS Church), president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). George D. Watt is reported to have been the most actively involved in the development of the script's novel characters, which were used to replace those of Isaac Pitman's English Phonotypic Alphabet, English phonotypic alphabet. He was also the "New Alphabet's" first serious user. The script gets its name from the word Deseret (Book of Mormon), ''deseret'', a ''hapax legomenon'' in the Book of Mormon, which is said to mean "honeybee" in the only verse it is used in. The Deseret alphabet was an outgrowth of the Restorationism, Restorationist ideal (ethics), idealism and utopianism of Young and the early LDS Church. Young and the Mormon pioneer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
