Volume 2008, Issue 192

The Tuareg today face three options for choosing a script: Arabic, Roman, and their own traditional Tifinagh (or Shifinagh). This article examines the sociolinguistic factors involved in the choice of script for writing the Tuareg language. The situation of the Tuareg and their language is first presented. Then some of the cultural influences exerted on the Tuareg society are outlined. The direct relationship of these conflicting influences on the choice of script for writing the Tuareg language is explained, with the final choice of script for writing Tuareg yet to be finalized in some regions.

This article describes a previously undescribed script from Laos. The script was used by a political leader as part of his resistance effort against the colonial French, used to symbolize his power more than to communicate factual content. The script is unique in the way it has separate symbols for syllable onsets and codas.

This article explores the development and spread of the N'ko script among Mande communities in West Africa. N'ko presents a rare example of an indigenous script that has successfully competed against other writing systems that are older, better financed, and propagated in religious and formal education. N'ko script is studied in relation to its role as one of the most popular and widespread indigenous scripts in contemporary West Africa. The social relevance of N'ko literacy is contrasted with colonial and national literacy education programs. N'ko's popularity is shown to result from the script's strong linguistic and cultural relevance to Mande communities through its faithful transcription of local languages and its corpus of publications on indigenous and foreign knowledge. The introduction of formal schooling in N'ko is analyzed as a significant recent shift in the literacy movement that presents new opportunities and challenges. The internationalization of the movement is shown to have strengthened support for N'ko literacy, with N'ko serving as an important contemporary symbol of Mande social identity, which the author terms its “social orthography.” However, N'ko's strong association with Mande identity also threatens to limit the literacy movement's future development.

This article focuses on the Eastern Cham of Vietnam, who have an ancient script descended from Sanskrit, the result of contact with Hindu grammarians in the second century. The author and her husband came to the Cham area in the 1960s and found the ancient script was prestigious but essentially useless since only the old men knew the script and it was not used for communication in the culture. The introduction of romanized primers for a headstart grade in Cham schools brought much opposition, which also renewed interest in the Cham script. In choosing the traditional script for their language in the 1970s, the Eastern Cham people revealed that their script is an important visible evidence of their distinctiveness as a unique people.

Soon after their arrival to Korea, Christian missionaries were confronted by decisions regarding how they would present written materials to the Korean people. While many Koreans used their indigenous script (Hangeul) for everyday purposes, higher status literacy materials were expected to be presented using Chinese characters (Hanja), a system unfamiliar to most but considered more prestigious by all. In deciding to publish the majority of their materials in the more accessible but lower-status script, the missionaries contributed to a revaluation of Hangeul as a fully legitimate means of written communication in a broader range of functional domains.

This article introduces the reader to the sociolinguistic issues surrounding the adoption of a writing system for sign languages. Initially, some background on sign language and Deaf culture is presented, followed by a discussion of several alternatives for writing sign languages and how these alternatives have been used and/or adopted. Sign languages in most parts of the world compete with spoken languages (languages that have established written traditions), resulting in diglossia. Though many scholars who work with the deaf community have tried to develop ways to write sign language(s), many Deaf do not feel the need for a writing system, either because they use video media or because they see writing as best done in the dominant language in their diglossic situation.

Using illustrations from recent Cherokee literacy practices, this article demonstrates that the linguistic anthropological concepts of indexicality and voice may profitably be used to analyze the communicative function of scripts, and literacy in general, as well as spoken language. In Cherokee, alternation patterns between the two scripts in current use are linked, through their vocal qualities and indexical functioning, to social categories of personhood and to the characterization of local social institutions.

Each of the three major script changes of the Azeri language in the twentieth century, from traditional Arabic to Latin, to Cyrillic, and back to Latin, reflected assertions of identity in the changing social and political realities. Each of these changes represented a decision related to the allegiance of the nation, sometimes voluntary and sometimes forced. Yet none of these changes were without both significant benefits and challenges to the cohesion of Azerbaijani identity.

Written development of Tibetan-related languages has seen an increase in recent years. When these languages are developed, the issue of script becomes very important. The Tibetan script has strong associations with the classical Tibetan language, and has been used primarily for writing Tibetan Buddhist religious works. As such, attitudes towards variation of its complex orthographic principles are quite conservative. In some regions (Tibet and Bhutan), the Tibetan orthography is clearly the preferable writing system for any written forms of these modern Tibetan languages. However, due to the conservative attitudes, adjusting the orthography to represent the reality of the modern languages can be a divisive exercise. In other regions where Tibetan-related languages are spoken (India, Nepal, and Pakistan), there are other scripts which may be considered in developing these modern Tibetan languages. Even in these situations the ethnolinguistic identity associated with the Tibetan script suggests that use of a modified Tibetan orthography is more acceptable than use of other scripts (though they may be more accessible). This article discusses some of the key issues involved in developing Tibetan languages in these multiscriptal environments, and gives examples from several such languages which are in varying stages of development.

The complexity and plurality of scripts and writing devices, such as auxiliary text or “ruby,” used in nonconventional writing in Japan are outlined, and various aspects, such as the use of loan scripts, are shown to parallel aspects of spoken language contact. The complexity of Japanese writing overall is attributed to “indirect” language contact with languages encountered predominantly in written form, especially Literary Chinese in the past and English nowadays, to which the concept of “total availability” that R. A. Miller (1967) uses to characterize neologism in Japan is applied. Specific choices of script are described in terms of cultural stereotypes and Jakobson's (1960) functions of language. Advertising and manga are identified as the major sources of many nonconventional practices that then spread into youth writing and even popular fiction. In each point, there is a parallel between choices in spoken language and in script choice.

The present article aims at analyzing script choice among the Miao in China from the perspective of sociolinguistic aspects of script choice presented by Unseth (2005). The history of script choice among the Miao in China presents a microcosm encompassing most of the relevant factors for script choice listed by Unseth, and this gives ample opportunities for studying this phenomenon in settings that share some common traits including geography, ethnic composition, historical development, and a political system. Factors explaining the relative success of the many scripts devised for various varieties of Miao are explored. The general decreasing use of Miao scripts during the last decades must also be viewed within the context of increasing assimilation and China's rapid changes.

Like so many societies that emerged from communism at the end of the twentieth century fortifying a local culture in order to extricate themselves from Moscow's influence, Turkmenistan replaced its script to symbolize a break from its Soviet past. The 1993–1995 plan to transition from Cyrillic to Latin anticipated Turkmenistan's new place in the international community. In exploring post-Soviet script change in Turkmenistan, this article illustrates the remarkable power of alphabets to denote, construct, and even memorialize a speech community's identity.