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Vadi: Difference between revisions
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The excellent condition of the texts from the Scriptum were a veritable gold mine for understanding Vadi phonology and phonotactics and led to the conclusion that the phonemic inventory was underestimated. The texts from the Scriptum also eventually dispelled earlier views that Vadi phonotactics were simple. Rather, Vadi phonotactics were far more complex than earlier thought. | The excellent condition of the texts from the Scriptum were a veritable gold mine for understanding Vadi phonology and phonotactics and led to the conclusion that the phonemic inventory was underestimated. The texts from the Scriptum also eventually dispelled earlier views that Vadi phonotactics were simple. Rather, Vadi phonotactics were far more complex than earlier thought. | ||
The texts were written entirely in the | The texts were written entirely in the indigenous Minhast [[Minhast#Orthography|''Širkattarnaft'']]. While the ''Širkattarnaft'', an abugida, works quite well for the Minhast language, it has presented a major challenge to Vadists in determining the phonology and phonotactics of Vadi. It became immediately apparent that there were several spelling variants and inconsistencies, and numerous occurrences of digraphs appear in both litigants' texts. Many of the digraphs also combined one of the few surviving ideographs in the ''Širkattarnaft'' (e.g. the <min> character), with an ordinary character. | ||
Tashunka, who was working on Minhast dialectology at the time of the discovery of the Scriptum, was among the first scholars to examine the texts. He immediately realized, based on the aforementioned anomalies, that there were phonemes that were not accounted for in previous Vadists' works. Based on these anomalies, he posited additional phonemes in Vadi. From his analyses, he proposed that either the phoneme /β/ or /v/ was part of the phonemic inventory of Vadi, based on the digraph <bi><f> found in the Scriptum's texts. These digraphs coincided with the alternation of <ba> and <wa> in the Aħħur texts. So while the Aħħur texts' spelling for "Vadi" alternated erratically between <ba><di> or <wa><di>, the texts from the Scriptum consistently spelled "Vadi" as <bi><f><'a><di>. Similar correlations of the anomalies the Scriptum with the Aħħur materials led him to conclude there was also a /ð/, and another albeit indeterminate sibilant, perhaps /ɕ/. Several years after Tashunka returned to his work on Minhast dialectology, Iyyaħmi took up where Tashunka left off and determined that the sibilant was the apico-alveolar fricative /s̺/. | Tashunka, who was working on Minhast dialectology at the time of the discovery of the Scriptum, was among the first scholars to examine the texts. He immediately realized, based on the aforementioned anomalies, that there were phonemes that were not accounted for in previous Vadists' works. Based on these anomalies, he posited additional phonemes in Vadi. From his analyses, he proposed that either the phoneme /β/ or /v/ was part of the phonemic inventory of Vadi, based on the digraph <bi><f> found in the Scriptum's texts. These digraphs coincided with the alternation of <ba> and <wa> in the Aħħur texts. So while the Aħħur texts' spelling for "Vadi" alternated erratically between <ba><di> or <wa><di>, the texts from the Scriptum consistently spelled "Vadi" as <bi><f><'a><di>. Similar correlations of the anomalies the Scriptum with the Aħħur materials led him to conclude there was also a /ð/, and another albeit indeterminate sibilant, perhaps /ɕ/. Several years after Tashunka returned to his work on Minhast dialectology, Iyyaħmi took up where Tashunka left off and determined that the sibilant was the apico-alveolar fricative /s̺/. | ||