One orthography, four lects: the unified Berawan orthography

Berawan is an endangered Austronesian language family consisting of four lects, which are Batu Belah, Long Teru, Long Jegan, and Long Terawan. Their settlements are located in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. The impetus for a unified orthography came from the Berawan community, who desire to write t...

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Main Authors: Burkhardt, Jurgen Martin, Burkhardt, Jey Lingam, Ang, Lay Hoon
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: UNIMAS Publisher 2020
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/86981/1/One%20orthography.pdf
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author Burkhardt, Jurgen Martin
Burkhardt, Jey Lingam
Ang, Lay Hoon
author_facet Burkhardt, Jurgen Martin
Burkhardt, Jey Lingam
Ang, Lay Hoon
author_sort Burkhardt, Jurgen Martin
collection UPM
description Berawan is an endangered Austronesian language family consisting of four lects, which are Batu Belah, Long Teru, Long Jegan, and Long Terawan. Their settlements are located in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. The impetus for a unified orthography came from the Berawan community, who desire to write their lects consistently and reflecting the way they speak. The unified orthography was developed starting with a phonological analysis of the Berawan lects. This was followed by several orthography workshops and discussions with individual Berawan communities, culminating in a combined orthography workshop in which a unified orthography was agreed upon. The aim of the paper is to provide the groundwork for establishing the unifed orthography of the Berawan language family. A phonological comparison of the four Berawan varieties is included for this purpose. The phonological descriptions are taken from Burkhardt (2014). Smalley’s (1959, 1965) maxim of ‘maximal representation of speech’ and Rogers’s (2005) ‘shallow orthography’ approach are employed. On this basis, issues that arise for graphemic representation of Berawan phonemes are then discussed and the decisions made by the participants of the combined workshops are described. The paper also touches on issues encountered throughout the discussion. The issues that arose are primarily related to the differences in orthographic systems between the Berawan lects and the Malay language. The paper ends with a proposed unified Berawan orthography.
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spelling upm.eprints-869812022-01-10T08:14:59Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/86981/ One orthography, four lects: the unified Berawan orthography Burkhardt, Jurgen Martin Burkhardt, Jey Lingam Ang, Lay Hoon Berawan is an endangered Austronesian language family consisting of four lects, which are Batu Belah, Long Teru, Long Jegan, and Long Terawan. Their settlements are located in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. The impetus for a unified orthography came from the Berawan community, who desire to write their lects consistently and reflecting the way they speak. The unified orthography was developed starting with a phonological analysis of the Berawan lects. This was followed by several orthography workshops and discussions with individual Berawan communities, culminating in a combined orthography workshop in which a unified orthography was agreed upon. The aim of the paper is to provide the groundwork for establishing the unifed orthography of the Berawan language family. A phonological comparison of the four Berawan varieties is included for this purpose. The phonological descriptions are taken from Burkhardt (2014). Smalley’s (1959, 1965) maxim of ‘maximal representation of speech’ and Rogers’s (2005) ‘shallow orthography’ approach are employed. On this basis, issues that arise for graphemic representation of Berawan phonemes are then discussed and the decisions made by the participants of the combined workshops are described. The paper also touches on issues encountered throughout the discussion. The issues that arose are primarily related to the differences in orthographic systems between the Berawan lects and the Malay language. The paper ends with a proposed unified Berawan orthography. UNIMAS Publisher 2020-07-14 Article PeerReviewed text en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/86981/1/One%20orthography.pdf Burkhardt, Jurgen Martin and Burkhardt, Jey Lingam and Ang, Lay Hoon (2020) One orthography, four lects: the unified Berawan orthography. Journal of Borneo-Kalimantan, 6 (1). pp. 1-21. ISSN 2289-2583 https://publisher.unimas.my/ojs/index.php/BJK/article/view/2411 10.33736/jbk.2411.2020
spellingShingle Burkhardt, Jurgen Martin
Burkhardt, Jey Lingam
Ang, Lay Hoon
One orthography, four lects: the unified Berawan orthography
title One orthography, four lects: the unified Berawan orthography
title_full One orthography, four lects: the unified Berawan orthography
title_fullStr One orthography, four lects: the unified Berawan orthography
title_full_unstemmed One orthography, four lects: the unified Berawan orthography
title_short One orthography, four lects: the unified Berawan orthography
title_sort one orthography four lects the unified berawan orthography
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/86981/1/One%20orthography.pdf
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