Konyak Orthography 
Orthography
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Till very recently this language was not put into writing.  Since 1951 there has been some activities in this field.  Before 1951 the only book written in Konyak (actually a translation into this language) was the Bible.  In 1951 an adult primer was published.  But the next to appear was only in 1963.  From the day the Nagaland state was found in 1963, encouragement was given to literary activities in the form of establishing the Directorate of Education, by the State Government to give the needed impetus and direction to literary activities and also it took responsibility to produce basic text books in various languages of the state.  For this purpose it appointed a language officer for each language.  Spoken in the state and they were given the responsibility to write text books to be used in all the schools of the state, and also various other teaching materials reprinted for teaching purpose.

Besides this department, not much work has been done by others.  Also, for the Konyaks, the literary rate is too low.  Except for a few important villages in the lower Konyak region, elsewhere literary activities are unheard of.  Therefore education is still in the beginning stages in this region.

The credit of putting this language into writing goes to the Baptist missionaries, as elsewhere, in this region.  They adopted Roman script for writing this language.  As Konyak has a few contrastive sounds which are not found in English (Roman), the roman script was not adequate.  Though the modifications required were of great order, only addition of one letter was effected.  So the present writing system as adipted for Konyak language has the following letters – a, b, c, d, e, g, h, I, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, s, t, u, w, and y.  The added letter is ü.

Inadequacies of this system and some suggestions to make it more effective are stated below:

1.  In the present writing system, tone, which is a significant feature is left unmarked.  It creates problems in reorganizing the tones in words in isolation and for non-native speakers.  So the tone has to be marked.  It is preferable to mark the tones as linearly as possible.  It facilitates speed of writing.  While the level tone (Konyak has three tones, level, raising and falling) can be left unmarked, rising tone may be marked by doubling the vowel on which the toneme occurs (eg. ni as nii) (as identical vowel sequences are not possible); and the falling tone may be marked by a micron, ‘-‘ placing it above the vowel which takes this toneme (eg. è as ē).

2.Looking at the above alphabet list and the phonemic system of this language, it becomes clear that in the present orthography there are four letters b, d, g and j which are not required, as they are allophones of voiceless stops – p, t, k, and c respectively. 

So b, d and j of the above four letters may be dropped while the fourth may be retained, as it is required to write velar nasal ŋ (ng).

3.In the present writing system to transcribe the phonemes /ɨ/, and /ə/, only one letter ü is used.  But it is not used consistently.  While /ɨ/ is written inconsistently as ü, I or by e.  Eg. :  püli/pili/peli ‘four’; lim/lem ‘three’;  nik/nük/nek ‘food’; cüng/ching ‘village’.  To avoid confusion it is better to use ü consistently for /ɨ/. 

Also /ə/ is transcribed at present by e or ü.  Eg. : pey/püy ‘come’; pen/pün  ‘ten’; mepu/müpu  ‘from’, and etc.  Here /ə/ may be consistently transcbed as ë.  Eg. : pën ‘ten’, mëpu ‘from’, etc.

4.  Konyak does not make distinction between alveolar s and palatal s.  Actually Konyak has only prepalatal fricative.  So it is sufficient to use only s and there is no need for sh.

5.In the case of palatal affricate /c/ , it is inconsistently transcribed either by c or by j.Frequently j is used before e, a and o, ɨ and also intervocally.  But this is not consistently adhered to. 

Also palatal affricate /c/ is frequently written as ch which is also not required, eg. :

          Ca/cha/ja     ‘one’

          Cüng/ching  ‘village’

          Jumshe                  ‘soon’, etc. 

Here it is better to restrict to c alone instead of using either ch or j;  which is not required.

6.  Glottal stop is not used strictly.  This may be restored.  It may be transcribed as h.  Though there is a glottal fricative, except in medical position, they do not contrast. 

          /ka?ta/ - kata/kahta ‘man’

/ŋo?/ - ngo/ngoh    ‘is’ 

Also the contrasting pairs are very few.  So in this case it is better to use h itself, (for glottal stop and glottal fricative).

7.  Diphthongs are inconsistently used.  Some times diphthongs are simplified, eg. :

          [təw]            ‘I’      …………….         Tò/tào/tüo

          ‘mahaw’      ‘cow’ …………….         Maho/mahao 

Here also consistently they may be used.

For the unambiguous representation the following letters are required –

                Phonme              Grapheme

i                           i                             

e                          e

ɨ                           ü

ə                           ë

a                           a

o                           o

u                           u

p                           p

ph                         ph

t                            t

c                           c

k                           k

kh                         kh

?                           h

m                          m

n                           n

ñ                           ny

ŋ                           ng

s                           s

h                           h

l                            l

w                          w

y                           y 

          Tones are marked for ‘rising’ by doubling of the vowel ; falling by using a macron ‘—‘ on the vowel ; and level tone is left unmarked.

          The following table gives the phonemes with their allophones of the Konyak language and their corresponding graphic representations in the current writing system of Konyak.

       Phoneme                        Allophone                     Grapheme

          i                                    [i]                                   I

          e                                   [e]                                  e

          ɨ                                    [ɨ]                                   u, i,

          ə                                   [ə]                                  u, e,

          a                                   [a]                                  a

                                               

                                               [a:]

           o                                   [o]                       

                                                                                    o

                                               [o:]                       

          u                                   [u]                                 u

                                               [u:]

          p                                   [p]                                 p,b

                                               [b]

          ph                                 [ph]                                ph

          t                                   [t]                                   t

                                              [t]

          c                                  [c]                                  ch,

                                              [j]                                   j

          k                                  [k]                                  k

                                              [g]                                  g

          kh                                [kh]                                 kh

          ?                                  [?]                                  h

          m                                 [m]                                 m

          n                                  [n]                                  n

          ñ                                  [ñ]                                  ny

          ŋ                                  [ŋ]                                  ng

          s                                  [s]                                  sh

          h                                  [h]                                  h ; Ø

          l                                   [l]                                   l

          w                                 [w]                                  u

          y                                 [y]                                   I

           Devanagari equivalents are given below for the benefit of those interested to write this language in Devanagari script.  

     Phoneme             Roman script                Devanagari script

          i                            i        

          e                           e                 

     ɨ                           ü

     ə                          ‘ë’

     a                          a

     o                          o

     u                          u

          p                           p

          ph                         ph

          t                            t

          c                           c

          k                           k

          kh                         kh

          ?                           h

          m                          m

          n                           n

          ñ                           ny

          ŋ                           ng

          s                           s

          h                           h

          l                            l

          w                          w

          y                           y