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 and the digraph symbol represented the same speech sound, i.e. the voiceless affricate as in batch (IPA [tʃ]), the starred form (*) being inconsistent Cl.3/4 → [umucila] → /u─mu─cila/’tail’ Cl.3/4 * → [umucila] → /u─mu─cila/’tail’ Secondly, the monograph symbol and the digraph symbol were not being used to distinguish short and long vowels, contrary to the syllable structure of Icibemba Cl.14 → [uβuci] → /u─bu─uci/’honey’ Cl.14 * → [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 instead of *< Mporokoso> → → [mpolokoso] → /Ø–mpolokoso/’a district in northern Zambia’; (2) The use of instead of *< Luwingu> → → [luβingu] → /Ø–luβingu/’a district in northern Zambia’.