Blin Orthography: A History and an Assessment

Paul D. Fallon

University of Mary Washington

1. Introduction  (1)

Blin (2) is a Central Cushitic language spoken by an estimated 90,000 in Eritrea, concentrated in the‘ Anseba region around Keren. Blin speakers comprise roughly 2% of the Eritrean population, and Blin is one of nine national languages in Eritrea. Most speakers are bilingual in the Semitic languages Tigrinya or Tigre, and many know Amharic, Arabic, and/or English as well. Abbebe (2001) is an excellent assessment of Blin language vitality and sociolinguistics. The language policy of the Eritrean government is to encourage mother-tongue education fornative speakers of each of its nine ethnolinguistic groups through primary school (Chefena, Kroon and Walters 1999). When this was implemented for the Blin in 1997, the government provided Blin curricular materials in the language using a new Roman-based alphabet. This overturned a 110-yeartradition of writing Blin in Ethiopic script. This paper will focus on the history of writing in Blin, and examine the linguistic and sociolinguistic factors of each writing system. For more on language planning in Blin in general, see Fallon (2006).Before proceeding, I will adopt the following definitions from Daniels (2001). An alphabet is aw riting system “in which each character stands for a consonant or a vowel” (44). A syllabary is a system “in which each character stands for a syllable” (43), in contrast to the system used in Ethiopian Semitic languages, an abugida, “in which each character stands for a consonant accompanied by aparti cular vowel, usually /a/, and other vowels (or no vowel) are indicated by consistent additions to the consonant symbols” (44). An example of the first two characters in the Blin abugida are given in(1), in which each order (or vowel peak of the syllable) is listed across, and each combining consonan tis listed in a column. The sixth order is ambiguous between a coda consonant and onset plus / /.(1)1 2 3 4 5 6 7u i a eoh= h hu hi ha he h/h hol= l lu li la le l/l loIn the examples, it is fairly easy to discern a consistent base shape for each character, to which modifying strokes are added. For example, the second order (/-u/) adds a short horizontal stroke to the right of the middle of the character, while the seventh order (/-o/) adds a small loop to the right. In other cases, however, as in the third order, the character may be modified to accommodate the vowe lstroke, as in the vertical stroke for /hi, ha, he/.1An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Fourth Cushitic-Omotic Conference held in Leiden in 2002.This research was supported in part by a Howard University New Faculty Grant, and a Howard Faculty Research grant. I am indebted to Sulus Beyed and the Ministry of Education in Asmara for their cooperation. I am also grateful to Kiflemariam Hamde for providing some articles, especially Kiflemariam (1996). Of course, the view sherein are my own, as are any mistakes.2The spelling here is the native speaker preference in English, by both supporters of Romanization and the abugida, as well as the spelling of the language in the new Roman orthography. In the academic literature, the language is also spelled Bilin, Bilen, B lin, etc.© 2006 Paul D. Fallon. Selected Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, ed. OlaobaF. Arasanyin and Michael A. Pemberton, 93-98. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
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2. Blin in Abugida The earliest published form of Blin may be found in Sapeto (1857), a Catholic mission report which contains a multilingual vocabulary list. The Blin (also called Bogos, after the region) is given in both Ethiopic abugida and an Italianized Romanization. A few examples, along with the two modern orthographies, are given below:(2)Dio ‘God’(jar) Giar(modern /dar/(jar)) Capello ‘hair’( jbok)  Sciaibok(modern /b k/ (shébék))Naso ‘nose’ (k’onba)  Qomba(modern /k’umba, k mba/ (qumba)) Tre ‘three’( sk a) Sekua( modern /sex a/ (sekhwa))As with any first effort, the results were mixed, and obviously there was L1 interference in perceptionin several cases, while in others, the sounds were captured accurately in the abugida but transliterated incorrectly, as in the labialized velar fricative in the last example for Sapeto’s ‘three’ .The first substantive use of abugida for Blin was in Reinisch’s (1882a) translation of the Gospel of Mark, with slight modifications for sounds unique to Blin; for a critique of this translation, see Kiflemariam (1986). This was followed by valuable scholarly work in the form of Reinisch’s grammar(1882b). Texts in Reinisch (1883) are mostly in transcription, but in abugida there is the story of Joseph from Genesis and twenty chapters of stories of Jesus, both with facing German translation .Reinisch’s (1887) dictionary is in transcription, but related Tigre and G z (Ge‘ez or Gz) forms are given in the source script. The last two sources in this period are Conti Rossini (1907), which includes19 pages of untra nslated texts of Blin history and songs or dance-poems. Capomazza (1911) contains aversion of Conti Rossini’s first tale, along with an Italian translation.The first text initiated by a native speaker is the Catholic catechism translated from Tigrinya byFr. Wolde- Yohannes Habtemariam (1939), highly praised by Kiflemariam  Hamde (1986) for its good Blin and phonetic accuracy. Many other religious materials were translated in the 1970s, 1980s, and1990s, including the four Gospels (from G z, Amharic, and English), prayer books, the Mass, and special services such as Palm Sunday. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a group of native Blin speakers, many of them students in Asmara, began working towards standardization of the orthography, the compilation of a dictionary, and primers to teach the language to Tigrinya speakers and children growing up in the diaspora. Foremost among these intellectuals is Kiflemariam  Hamdé, whose 1986 paper contains a wealth of material, including sociolinguistic analysis, brief grammatical sketch, and a collection of two multi-stanza poems. Kiflemariam’s (1996) paper is a brief annotated bibliography of the development ofBlin orthography during this time. In 1992  Kiflemariam and Paulos produced the first monolingual dictionary of Blin using abugida, a work of 5,000 words, along with English glosses. In the diaspora, Bogos (1992) produced a brief volume of love poems. In Eritrea, the Committee for Developing Blin Language and Culture (1997) produced a well-regarded volume on various Blin customs which Sulus(1999) describes as an “inspiring” volume that “embraces attractive cultural and traditional values an dpractices”, and is kept in the home of “practically everyone who speaks Blin at home or abroad”. There have also been a few proposals for minor orthographic changes and refinements. More recently, Daniel Yacob (2004), in collaboration with Blin speaker Tekie Alibeket, has pushed the Blin  versionof the  abugida into the computer age with computer encoding now accepted in Unicode 4.1. We turn next to an assessment of this writing system. UNESCO has proposed the principal that “if possible, the writing of a local language should agree with that of the regional, national, or official language, so as to facilitate transition from one to the other” (1972:704 [1953]). Tigrinya, the unofficial language of the Eritrean government3is spoken by3There is no national language of Eritrea. Its three working languages are Tigrinya, Arabic, and English, the language of higher education. Chefena, Kroon, and Walters (1999:486) point out that Tigrinya is “a symbolic official language in Eritrea; it represents the state of Eritrea in the sense that its revitalisation is associated with the success of the national liberation struggle, which accommodated Tigrigna linguistic nationalism.”94
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approximately 50% of the population, and it is written in the Ethiopic abugida. The use of the Blin abugida therefore follows UNESCO's general principal. There are, of course, a few characters in the Tigrinya abugida not native to Blin, and a few Blin sounds such as the plain and labialized velar nasa lsand velar fricatives which have had to be introduced to accommodate Blin phonology in writing. Those few Tigrinya speakers who wish to learn Blin will have little orthographic difficulty. More importantly, Blin who must learn the national language would have an easier time learning the 35basic characters (each in seven orders, one for each following vowel), along with the six modified character bases for labialized sounds, for a total of 275 character shapes (Mulugeta 2001).In addition, the only Blin dictionary is written in abugida, providing easy standardization. Virtually everything written in Blin before 1996 was written in abugida, and thus there is over a century of tradition in writing Blin that way. Finally, another argument in favor of the Blin  abugida is that it economically represents in one character < > frequent Blin sounds such as the labialized velarfricative /x/, which is a common inflectional ending.Nevertheless, some of the shortcomings of this sytem have been pointed out. The same criticismof the abugida for Amharic (Bender, Head and Cowley 1976, Bloor 1995, Getatchew 1996) also applyto the Blin abugida. First, the sixth order is potentially ambiguous between a consonant and consonant plus /- / combination. While Blin syllable structure was an aid to disambiguate certain sequences, language change has created novel consonant clusters in the language, as represented by the name of the language itself, which was usually transliterated from /b lin/. With a newer syncope rule, the more typical pronunciation (and hence Romanization) is with an onset cluster: / blin / (Fallon 2001). Again,as in Amharic or Tigrinya, there is no overt way of representing gemination of consonants, which can form minimal pairs, as pointed out by Sulus (1999):(3) awet ‘where’awwet ‘above’ qwali‘see!’qwalli ‘I didn’t see’ defena ‘bury this! (pl.)’ defenna ‘to bury’ As  Zeraghiorghis (1999:16) notes, this ambiguity creates greater homonymy of certain words in the abugida, which are disambiguated in the Roman orthography:(4)‘to hide or banish’ <sherebbna>‘carpentry’<sherrebna>‘mat making’<sherebna>There have been proposals for disambiguating diacritics in abugida, but they are not widely used. Another argument against the abugida is the claim that it is harder to learn than an alphabet. Kiflemariam and Paulos’ system, for example, contains 186 symbols for Blin, versus the Romana lphabet for Blin, which, as we shall see, contains 25 letters (plus digraphs and tri graphs). However, I have seen no citation in the literature that abugidas make literacy more difficult than alphabets. A more compelling objection to the abugida is a sociolinguistic one. Zeraghiorghis (1999) point edout that Muslim Blin refuse to accept the abugida to write Blin because they associate it with the Christian religion. (Most speakers of Tigrinya are Christian, and their liturgical language is usually G z, which is also written in abugida). Eritrea is roughly 50% Christian and 50% Muslim. The Blin are 30-50% Christian, and 50-70% Muslim, though those most interested in the language seem to bepre dominantly Christian. Chefena et al. (1999:483) also note that the abugida is received “with less enthusiasm by some Tigre speakers on religious and socio cultural grounds rather than because of its phonological inadequacy”.3. Blin in the Roman Alphabet Upon its independence in 1993, Eritrea’s constitution provided for a policy of mother-tongue education in primary school for each of its nine ethnic groups, from three major language families: the Semitic languages Tigrinya (50%), Tigre (31.4%) and Rashaida (Hijazi) Arabic (0.5%); Cushitic languages Saho (5%), Afar (5%), Beja (2.5%), Blin (2.1)%; and Nilo-Saharan languages Kunama (2%)95
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and Nara (1.5%) (percentage figures from U.S. Department of State 2005). A policy decision by the Erirean government required all non-Semitic languages to use a Roman-based alphabet. The use of such an alphabet is said to make an easier transition to English-language education, which is used exclusively in secondary and higher education. The alphabet also represents a compromise between those who associate the Arabic script with Islam and the abugida with Christianity (Zeraghiorghis1999). Nevertheless, this decision was a blow to those who had invested much intellectual energyr efining the representation of Blin in abugida. However, according to a relatively small survey of 100Blin from different walks of life, the Roman script was preferred by 64%, the abugida by 28%, andArabic script by 8% (Zeraghiorghis 1999).After a few years of delay in implementing a primary curriculum for Blin, in part because of alack of trained personnel, in 1996 the Eritrean Ministry of Education formed the Blin panel in the Department of General Education. In 1996-1997 a dialect survey was conducted (Daniel and Sullus1997) in order to determine intelligibility between various dialects, and the report concluded that there was a high degree of mutual intelligibility to permit one set of curricular materials, but that care should be taken to include dialect terms from the two main dialects. The following year, a pilot program withsix teachers and 230 children began mother tongue instruction in Blin in the village of Ajerbeb. Sulus(1999) reports that in elementary schools in Blin areas in which instruction was in Tigrinya or Arabic, the pass rate was 60%, with a substantial dropout rate. In Ajerbeb, however, 83% of the children passed, and only 2% dropped out. This was rightly deemed a success, and instruction quickly expanded in 1998-1999, when Blin was used as the medium of instruction in 27 primary schools, abou thalf of which are run by the Catholic Church. Language, math, and science texts are available ingrades 1-5, along with civics and geography for upper elementary students. The Blin alphabet contains 25 letters, two of which involve diacritics: <ñ> is for the velar nasal / /(unlike the palatal nasal in Spanish) and <é> represents the high central vowel / /. The 25 letters used are a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, o, q, r, s, t, u, w, x, y, é. The values of these are related to the IPA except for:(5) <c> = [ ], as in Somali<j> = [d], as in English<x> = [ ], as in Somali<y> = [j], as in English<ñ> = [ ] (unique)<é> = [ ] (unique) There are 9 digraphs, which are used to represent labials, ejectives, and fricatives:(6) labialization: ñw [ ], kw [k], qw [k], gw [ ]ejection: ch [t ], qh [k], th [t]frication: kh [x], sh []The letter <h> is an independent letter representing the glottal fricative /h/, but as the second element in diacritics, it repesents ejection after stops, except for after <k>, when it represents a velar fricative, and, as in English, after /s/ it represents the alveopalatal fricative / /. Again, with possible English influence, the digraph <ch> represents /t/, but bears no regular relation to <c> / /. There are two trigraphs, derived compositionally: the labialized velar fricative: <khw> [x] and the labialized vel arejective: <qhw> [k].The canonical alphabetical order appears to have undergone some flux during its brief development. In the Eritrean Ministry of Education (n.d.) chart “The Alphabets”, most but not all digraphs and trig raphs are placed at the end, after single letters:(7) a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, ñw, o, q, r, s, t, u, w, x, y, é, ñ, ch, kh, qh,sh, th, kw, qw, khw, qhw, gw.The order of the “Blina Xaleget” (alphabet in the first grade primer Eritrean Ministry of Education1997b) is:96
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(8) vowels: e, u, i, a, é, oconsonants: b, c, d, f, g, h,j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z, ñ, ñw, th, ch, sh, kh, kw, hw,qw, gw.The revised order (Sulus p.c.) does not treat digraphs as separate letters, as in traditional Spanish <ll>,but integrates them fully into alphabetical order letter by letter, not phoneme by phoneme: a, b, c, ch,d, e, é, f, g, gw, etc. Transcription is overall close to surface phonemics, not morphophonemics. For example, as mentioned above, Blin at least traditionally did not permit branching onsets. Through a syncope rule, most unstressed vowels between a stop and liquid are syncopated, thereby creating onset consonant clusters. The language reflects this possible restructuring: /b ln/[blin] <Blin> ‘Blin’. Occasionally, however, an earlier spelling like <suñw> ‘name’, reflecting the pronunciation /su /, is changed to something like <séñw> /s /, which reflects a factoring away of the process of labial spread, by which labialized consonants spread rounding to adjacent vowels (Fallon 2001).4. Conclusion Digraphia, according to DeFrancis, is “the use of two or more different systems of writing the sam elanguage” (1984:59; see Grivelet 2001 for current work). Dale (1980) notes that during the transition period between writing systems, “a period of synchronic digraphia may be expected”. Indeed, although there is a half-hour daily Blin radio show, its announcers read their scripts in abugida. Only the teachers and educational personnel, and children under 13 are truly familiar with this writing system. Thus in practice, Blin is in a digraphic situation. In addition, Blin abroad, especially in Scandanavia and Britain (e.g. Mowes 2003), use the abugida, in part to better integrate their children into the general culture of the Tigrinya-dominated Eritrean diaspora. Dale also observes that “if a new script is introduced for purposes of efficiency or modernization, the older script may continue for some time in more traditional uses.” Thus we might expect the Catholic mass, services, and Gospels to resist being cast in the Roman alphabet, for some time, especially since new transliterations take time. Furthermore, due to lack of resources, the Ministry of Education has not yet produced a Roman script dictionary, which would help standardize spelling, and give added authority to the new script. The current situation is therefore balanced between an older system using abugida with over a century of tradition, and with a standard dictionary, and a newer, Roman script with official backing, being taught in elementary schools, but still lacking alexicographic standard and many adult users.Cases of digraphia are particularly interesting since “they indicate situations of competition between forces, no one of which has been able to prevail against the others” (Dale 1980). Another generation will help determine whether Blin develops synchronic digraphia, or whether it was simply diachronic digraphia, a period of transition. But the most important thing, however, is that the language is being taught, and literacy is being promoted. It remains to be seen whether native speakers will begin developing post literacy materials and literary works in the new script, or whether they willcontinue the modest corpus in abugida. ReferencesAbbebe Kifleyesus. 2001. Bilin: Speaker status strength and weakness. Africa 56:1.69-89.Bender, Marvin L.,  Syndney W. Head, and Roger Cowley. 1976. The Ethiopian writing system. In Language In Ethiopia, ed. by M.L. Bender, J.D. Bowen, R.L. Cooper, and C.A. Ferguson, 120-29. London: Oxford University Press. Bloor, Thomas. 1995. The Ethiopic writing system: A profile. Journal of the Simplified Spelling Society 2.30-36.Bogos Goitom. 1992. Enkeli. [Love poems]. Uppsala: Nyna Tryckeri. Capomazza, Ilario. 1911. Un testo bileno. Revista Degli Studi Orientali 4.1049-56.Chefena Hailemariam, Sjaak Kroon, and Joel Walters. 1999. Multilingualism and nation building: Language and education in Eritrea. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 20.475-93.97
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Committee for Developing Blin Language and Culture in Keren. 1997. Gerbesha: On Blin and culture. Asmara: Sabur Printing House. Conti Rossini, Carlo. 1907. Racconti e canti bileni. Actes du XIVeCongrès International des Orientalistes, Alger1905, Vol. 2, 331-94. Paris: Ernest Leroux. Dale, Ian R. 1980. Digraphia. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 26.5-13.Daniel Teclemariam, and Sullus Beyed. 1997. Blin dialect survey. Report by the Blin Language Panel. Asmara:The Eritrean Ministry of Education .Daniels, Peter T. 2001. Writing systems. The handbook of linguistics, ed. by Mark Aronoff and Janie Rees-Miller,43-80. Oxford: Blackwell. DeFrancis, John. 1984. Digraphia. Word 35.59-66.Eritrean Ministry of Education. 1997a. Bilen: Our spelling book: An orthography of the Blen language. TestVersion A. Asmara. Eritrean Ministry of Education. 1997b. Blina gab selfa mé-ébéd. Xétam selfukhw. [Bilin Language. First Grade.First Edition.] Asmara: Publishing Unit of the Department of General Education. Eritrean Ministry of Education. N.d. The alphabets. Asmara .Fallon, Paul D. 2001. Some segmental processes in Bilin. Proceedings of the 27th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society Special Session on Afro asiatic Linguistics (March 22-25, 2001), ed. by Andrew Simpson,49-60. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Fallon, Paul D. 2006. Language development in Eritrea: The case of Blin. Paper presented at the Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (GURT 2006). Washington, DC, 5 March 2006.Getatchew Haile. 1996. Ethiopic writing. In The world’s writing systems, ed. by Peter Daniels and William Bright, 569-76. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. Grivelet, Stéphane (Ed) 2001. Digraphia: Writing systems and society. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 150.Kiflemariam Hamdé. 1986. Bilin language project: The origin and development of Bilin. Asmara: Asmara University, Institute of African Studies. Asmara University. Unpublished Research Paper. Kiflemariam Hamde. 1996. Recent developments in Blin writing (1975-1994). Timsa ’ Mengst’ke/ Adveniat Regnum Tuum 64:2.80-84.Kiflemariam Hamde and Paulos Zeremariam (eds.) 1992. Blina k’olata /endba (/englised d w ste). [Blin dictionary (with English translations).] N.p.: Nina Tryckeri.  Mowes Ghebre Adem. 2003. Blina m har s na. [Learning Blin. Book 1]. London. Mulugeta  Girmay  Melles. 2001. Tigrinya reader and grammar. Springfield, VA: Dunwoody Press .Reinisch, Leo (Ed.) 1882a.  Wengel  Marqos: Gospel of Mark in  Bilin or  Bogos language. Trans. by Stefanos .Vienna: British & Foreign Bible Society. Reinisch, Leo. 1882b. Die Bilin- Sprache in Nordost -Afrika. Sitzungsberichte  Der  Kaiserlichen Akademie  Der Wissenschaft,  Philosophisch-Historisch  Klasse, 94.2:583-718. Vienna: Gerold Sohn. Reinisch, Leo. 1883. Texte  Der  Bilin- Sprache. Leipzig: Griebens. Reinisch, Leo. 1887. Wörterbuch  Der Bilin -Sprache. Vienna. Sapeto, Giuseppe. 1857. Viaggio e  Missione Cattolico  Fra i   Mensâ, i Bogos i gli Habab. Rome: Propaganda Fide. Sulus Beyed Awed. 1999. The Blin language: Prospects and challenges in introducing Blin as a medium of instruction. London: University of London School of Oriental and African Studies MA Thesis. UNESCO. 1953. The use of vernacular languages in education: The report of the UNESCO meeting of specialists,1951. Paris. Extract of Pp. 45-75 reprinted in Readings in the Sociology of Language, ed. by Joshua Fishman,688-716. The Hague: Mouton, 1972.U.S. Department of State. 2005. Background note: Eritrea. <http://www. state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2854.htm>.Wolde- Yohannes Habtemariam. 1939. Awni  mehadxwn a. [Who created us?]. The Vatican. Second Edition,1982. Asmara: Francescana Printing Press. Yacob, Daniel. 2004. Revision of the N1846 Proposal to add Extended Ethiopic to the BMP of the UCS. 16April 2004. <ra.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/n2747.pdf>.Zeraghiorghis  Mengistu. 1999. Blin language development in vocabulary and orthography: Case study of the Blin radio program and adoption of the Latin script. Asmara: University of Asmara Department of English Thesis,11 May 1999.98
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Selected Proceedings of the 36thAnnual Conference on African Linguistics: Shifting the Center of Africanism  inLanguage Politics and Economic Globalization edited by Olaoba  F. Arasanyin and Michael A. Pemberton Cascadilla Proceedings Project Somerville, MA 2006Copyright information Selected Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference on African Linguistics :Shifting the Center of Africanism in Language Politics and Economic Globalization© 2006 Cascadilla Proceedings Project, Somerville, MA. All rights reserved ISBN 1-57473-414-8 library binding A copyright notice for each paper is located at the bottom of the first page of the paper. Reprints for course packs can be authorized by Cascadilla Proceedings Project. Ordering information Orders for the library binding edition are handled by Cascadilla  Press.To place an order, go to www.lingref.com  or contact: Cascadilla Press, P.O. Box 440355, Somerville, MA 02144, USAphone: 1-617-776-2370, fax: 1-617-776-2271, e-mail: sales@cascadilla.com Web access and citation information This entire proceedings can also be viewed on the web at www.lingref.com.  Each paper has a unique document #which can be added to citations to facilitate access. The document # should not replace the full citation. This paper can be cited as:Fallon, Paul D. 2006. Blin Orthography: A History and an Assessment. In Selected Proceedings of the 36thAnnual Conference on African Linguistics, ed. Olaoba F. Arasanyin and Michael A. Pemberton, 93-98.Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.or:Fallon, Paul D. 2006. Blin Orthography: A History and an Assessment. In Selected Proceedings of the 36thAnnual Conference on African Linguistics, ed. Olaoba F. Arasanyin and Michael A. Pemberton, 93-98.Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. www.lingref.com,  document #1411.