A Comprehensive Comparison of Lexemes in the ... - SIL International

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3.1.3 Modern orthography
Publications are now being produced in all of Tanna’s languages. The
orthographies are more phonemic than the older, English-based ones, making
them not only more readable but also more phonologically accurate. However,
having been developed by linguists working more or less independently from one
another, the modern orthographies vary somewhat from one another. Lindstrom’s
dictionary (1986), and recent publications in Lenakel such as the New Testament
(2007) use only to represent a mid central vowel. These orthographies are
based on the assumption that [a] becomes [ə] when unstressed, so only one
grapheme is necessary. Hammond’s recent work (2009) on the grammar of
Whitesands operates on the same assumption, but he uses to represent the
mid central vowel, instead of .
There may be historical evidence to support the decision to use only one
mid central vowel but there is ample synchronic evidence that the modern
languages of Tanna distinguish between [ɨ], [ə], and [a]. Complete orthographies
would be helpful in proving this, but presenting these would go beyond the scope
of this study. Table 3.1 presents some minimal pairs that suffice to prove the
distinction.
Table 3.1. Minimal pairs for [ɨ], [ə], and [a].
Language Vernacular Gloss
Kwamera [ˈtɨp w ɨk] ‘wall of a house’
[ˈtəp w ɨk] ‘my stomach’
Lanakel [nɨˈraiyan] ‘writing’
[nəˈraiyan] ‘cutting’
N Tanna [nɨˈpɨtən] ‘lightning’
[nɨˈp w ətən] ‘his body’
[eˈmɨtəp]
[eˈmətəp]
[ˈəlis]
[ˈalisˈalis]
‘I followed’
‘I jumped’
‘tie/fasten’
‘whip’
SW Tanna [nɨˈrukiɛn] ‘fetching’
[nəˈrukiɛn] ‘rooting (of pigs)’
[naˈrukiɛn] ‘throwing’
Vaha [nɨˈniyɛn] ‘telling’
[nəˈniyɛn] ‘singing’
[naˈniyɛn] ‘eating’