BANTOANON STANDARD ORTHOGRAPHY
(Heather Kilgour Crossley)
May 2015
BANTOANON STANDARD ORTHOGRAPHY: There are 5 vowel symbols and 28 consonant symbols, including those from loan words. There is also some symbolization of glottal stop and stress when required to make the meaning clear e.g. minimal pairs.
1. Vowels: Bantoanon has three vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/, which are represented in the Standard Orthography by five symbols, i, e, a, o, u. In multiple syllable words the vowel /u/ is represented by the symbol ‘o’ in final syllable except in borrowed words where it is retained where it occurs. The vowel /i/ is represented by the symbol ‘e’ in final position, except in borrowed words where e is retained where it occurs.
Sequences of Vowels: Sequences of two vowels occur in Bantoanon and these are pronounced with a glottal stop between them, but it is not marked, except in a vowel sequence word final. Vowel sequences in borrowed words are pronounced and written as in the source language.
Vowels in Reduplicated Syllables: In words with two reduplicated syllables the vowel /u/ is represented by the symbol ‘o’ in both syllables.
Vowels in Single syllable words: The word kung ‘if’ is written with /u/ like Tagalog, but in other single syllable words /u/ is represented by ‘o’.
2. Consonants: There are 28 consonants in Bantoanon (Asi) which are symbolized as follows: b, k, d, dy, g, h, l, m, n, ny, ng, p, r, s, sy, t, ty, w, y plus the symbols used in borrowed words, which include those representing labialization and palatalization: c, ch, f, j, ñ, qu, ts, v, z.
Glottal stop: Glottal stop is represented by a hyphen word medial (-) when contiguous with a consonant. (see #2) A word final glottal stop is represented by a grave accent (`) on the vowel when the meaning of the word is ambiguous in the context i.e. minimal pairs. When stress and word final glottal stop co-occur they are symbolized by a circumflex (^) i.e.
acute accent for stress (‘) + grave accent for glottal stop (`) = circumflex (^)
3. Stress: Stress does not usually need to be marked in the language, only when the meaning of a word is ambiguous in the context i.e. minimal pairs. And when required it is marked with an acute accent on the vowel (‘) in non-penultimate syllables.
4. Words: All grammatical words are written separately except for the particle ey ‘already’ or ‘emphasis’ which is treated as a word final enclitic. When this enclitic is joined to a word with a final vowel it is reduced to y only, without an apostrophe. And when the word ends with an ‘i’ it retains its full form ey. The spelling of a word prior to adding the enclitic remains the same.
Apostrophe: Apostrophe is written when grammatical words are shortened or changed and a vowel is deleted. It may be marked between a sequence of words or on a single shortened form of a word.
5. Hyphens: Hyphen is used to symbolize glottal stop word medially (see #2), when forming compound words and when affixing words with verbalizing directional prefixes.
6. Morphophonemic Change: Morphemic change and variant dialectical pronunciations are written.
