Difference between revisions of "Talk:Typological Features Template for Akan"

Revision as of 11:54, 3 March 2010

Hi Lilian,

Here something seems to have gone wrong with the representation of the third vowel. :)

Vowels  [o, 3, ), o] are only nasalised in the Fanti dialects.

--Justus Turamyomwe 11:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Akan templates - comments

Hello Lilian

Some comments on the templates you have just started:

General Akan

1. I'm surprised you use the expression "Fanti Twi" - Fantes wouldn't like it. Just Fante is more normal - other dialects are called Twi. Also I am surprised that you spell them Asanti and Fanti instead of Asante and Fante, and Akuapem.

2. Vowel inventory: there is some confusion between phonology and orthography here. The 7 "main vowels" are the orthographic representation, but there are in fact 9 or 10 vowels, depending on the dialect, which divide into 2 sets, one +ATR and one -ATR. In the orthography the mid +ATR and the high +ATR are collapsed, so that the letters e and o represent 2 contrastive vowels each. This should be clarified, because what the template is most interested in is the phonological contrasts. But the note that the orthography doesn't reflect all the contrasts is of course in order.

3. nasalization - hasn't appeared properly on the high vowels. Are you sure you are using a Unicode 8 font? I strongly suggest Doulos SIL, or Charis SIL. If you type the material in Word and paste it in it should work very well.

Asante template

1. You are using the wrong symbol for the high front -ATR vowel - see comments above.

2. The sentence on Vowel Harmony is very awkward and needs revision. Tongue Root Position is not a "system" - You need something like "The sequence of vowels within the word is governed by vowel harmony based on tongue root position. The vowels divide into two sets based on this feature..."

Keep up the good work.

--Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu 11:54, 3 March 2010 (UTC)