Vadi: Difference between revisions

The Scriptum corpora were written entirely in the indigenous Minhast ''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. There are certain characters representing Minhast phonemes, e.g. /x/, that never occur in the texts.  Several spelling variants and inconsistencies in the earliest dated texts are wildly aberrant from both within the texts and that of later documents.  The extreme spelling discrepancies and anomalies, which steadily occurred less frequently in later texts, indicate that the litigants' had started out with a minimal knowledge of the ''Širkattarnaft'' (Iyyaħmi, 2015, pp. 72–92).  Compelling evidence that the litigants' literacy was acquired late in their lives comes from compelling external sources in the form of contemporaneous notes, diaries, and other records by Minhast translators hired by the litigants.  Such an account is written of the earliest known letter, written by the litigant Sorvin.  It is dated to the administration of Prefect Heyaktuman (1856-1861) and the letter was translated by a Dog Speaker by the name of Uyyur to be sent to the prefect.  Uyyur wrote in his diary regarding the letter: ''"Sapim redad takmišširkatikmampi, šūmim irriyērum addua nuħhasušnirkattirikmaru.  Bakran hatā' wam Minhast takistišpintanusillišattarikmuš?  Kirimtirakt sukkurgammahan"'', "These men do not know how to write, they even write the same word in several different ways.  Why don't they just learn Minhast (instead)?  Our language is better (than theirs) anyway."''