Ten Essential Elements of an Effective Orthography Workshop

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Ten Essential Elements of an Effective Orthography Workshop

Guest Post by Dr. Mary Morgan

An orthography is defined by Google as “the conventional spelling system of a language.”

But what do you do if you want materials in a language that does not yet have a conventional spelling system? Well, you have to create one. Although I’ve had several decades of language experience in Mexico and Niger, a few years ago I found myself in just this situation when I was asked to facilitate an orthography workshop in a small Asian country.

Due to cultural sensitivities about my work in this region and the fact that the exact location is not germane to the story, I have chosen to maintain geographical anonymity. But I will use this workshop to highlight ten essential elements in a workshop dedicated to developing an effective and acceptable way to write a language that has not been used in writing for very long…

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Now You Know...

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Now You Know...

Empathy is hard.

It’s not necessarily that humans are inherently self-absorbed—although that does describe an uncomfortable percentage of us—it’s just that life is complicated and challenging enough without having to step out of our own shoes and into someone else’s. This is why the current period of enforced empathy may prove in some ways to be a good thing—an opportunity, even.

For perhaps the first time in the history of the world, all of us are experiencing the same thing, at the same time.

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A River Too Difficult to Swim

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A River Too Difficult to Swim

When Dr. Susan Nyaga started school in rural Tharaka, Kenya, instruction was not offered in her mother tongue of Kitharaka, but in Kimenti, a neighboring language. Not only that, but the school added two more languages to the curriculum—English and Swahili—bringing the total number of languages she had to deal with to four. That’s a lot for any six-year-old to handle, and there was no structure in place to help her make that transition. Susan likens her experience to having a very narrow, weak bridge that she and her classmates had to use across a swelling river…

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From Comix to Comics

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From Comix to Comics

Dr. Fraser Bennett studied French in high school, but may have learned more from the stack of Astérix comics in the back of the classroom than from the actual instruction.

It’s not a condemnation of high school education, as much as an insight into the fact that if you want kids to learn, you’ve got to speak to them in a language that they know and understand. It is also indicative of the fact that there are many, many ways a person can come to have a love of languages.

It might be argued that a love of languages is in Fraser’s blood…

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Give a Gift That Keeps on Giving

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Give a Gift That Keeps on Giving

The first language we learn to speak gives us roots. It anchors us to a place and provides us with a sense of belonging—a community. It colors how we understand the world, and in many ways defines who we are for the rest of our lives.

What if your language was disappearing—if its very existence was threatened? What if your children were not being taught to read and write in your language, and there was very little written in it for you to try and teach them yourself? Or worse, what if others thought their language was superior and were trying to replace your language with their own?

Wouldn’t you want to do something about it?

SIL LEAD is doing something about it!

And you can help…

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A World Apart, A World Together

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A World Apart, A World Together

It is almost certain that your life and the life of SIL LEAD staff member Kuchhat Narayan Chaudhary have been very, very different.

You likely did not grow up in a small farming family in Gobardiha village in the Dang district of Nepal, and you probably never had to help with plowing and grass cutting after school, or with taking the family’s sheep and buffalo out to graze…

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A Global Education Crisis (and how to resolve it)

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A Global Education Crisis (and how to resolve it)

Humans are in trouble.

We’ve always had our problems, but the exponential acceleration of technology and information has at the same time accelerated the rate at which we, as a species, are hurtling toward a number of crises of our own creation: for example, the growing environmental crisis; and the global issue of expanding income disparity.

A recent World Bank Report on ending educational poverty highlights another growing crisis—the fact that in lower-income countries, as much as 90% of ten-year-old students cannot read a simple book…

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FOMO? Forget about it!

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FOMO? Forget about it!

Last week at the Digital Book World Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, SIL LEAD Executive Director Dr. Paul Frank spoke about what digital publishing has to offer languages without literature.

“Languages without literature… what are those?” you might ask, as you wonder what other glorious insights you might have missed by skipping another (admittedly hectic and overwhelming) conference.

Don’t worry – we’ve got you covered…

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