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APPENDIX - II
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KARBI SCRIPT
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The discovery of the phonemes of a language
by phonemic analysis is the first step towards constructing
an alphabet for a language. The alphabet of an unwritten language
can be devised by giving the phonemes of the language one-to-one
representation in writing. In other words, each phoneme is represented
by a distinct symbol. Phenemics is a technique for reducing
languages to writing. The alphabets of many recently written
languages have been devised in this way.
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Two writing systems are
used to write Karbi. One is based on the Assamese alphabet and
the other, on the Roman alphabet. No two languages have the same
sound system and hence if the alphabet of a language is used to
write another language, that alphabet has to be modified to suit
the sound system of the latter. In the following, an attempt is
made to adapt the Assamese alphabet to write Karbi. The Assamese
alphabet cannot be sued as it is to write Karbi. It has to be
modified in order to write Karbi in an efficient way. The
modified form of the Assamese alphabet which is suggested here
to write Karbi is called the Karbi alphabet. Though the
Karbi alphabet is derived from the Assamese alphabet, the two
are not identical. This will be clear from the difference
between the two which are discussed later.
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Difference exist between
the two systems of writing which are in use now. The phonemes of
a language can form the basis to establish a uniform tradition
of writing in such contexts. Thus, the discovery of phonemes is
not only useful in devising an alphabet for an unwritten
language but it also helps in the standardization of the script.
The phonemes of Karbi are listed first. The Karbi alphabet is
presented then and it is followed by a brief discussion on the
differences between the Karbi alphabet on the one h and and the
Assamese alphabet and the existing Karbi alphabet which is based
on the Assamese alphabet on the other.
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Karbi Phonemes
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Vowels
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Front |
Central |
Back |
| High |
i |
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u |
| Mid |
e |
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o |
Low
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a
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