The long march to Unicode: a digital approach to variability in Icibemba orthography

Abstract

The study examined the orthography of Icibemba, a Bantu language spoken in Zambia and Congo─Kinshasa. The findings recommended adopting Unicode standards wherever different letters (graphemes) represented the same speech sound (allophone). For example, the monograph symbol <c> and the digraph symbol <ch> represented the same speech sound, i.e. the voiceless affricate <ch> as in batch (IPA [tʃ]), the starred form (*) being inconsistent Cl.3/4 <umucila>→ [umucila] → /u─mu─cila/’tail’ Cl.3/4 *<umuchila> → [umucila] → /u─mu─cila/’tail’ Secondly, the monograph symbol <V > and the digraph symbol <VV> were not being used to distinguish short and long vowels, contrary to the syllable structure of Icibemba Cl.14 <ubuuci> → [uβuci] → /u─bu─uci/’honey’ Cl.14 *<ubuchi> → [uβuci] → /u─bu─uci/’honey’ Thirdly, certain graphemes represented allophones in an irregular manner by ignoring the existence of more suitable options dictated by the particular structural environment. Examples included (1) The use of <r> instead of <l> *< Mporokoso> → <Mpolokoso> → [mpolokoso] → /Ø–mpolokoso/’a district in northern Zambia’; (2) The use of <w> instead of <b> *< Luwingu> → <Lubingu> → [luβingu] → /Ø–luβingu/’a district in northern Zambia’.