Background

Over the years, there has been growing support for using the Balanced Approach to teaching literacy in early grade classrooms. The Balanced Approach lays sufficient emphasis on the immersion of a child in a diverse and print-rich environment, but also advocates explicit and systematic instructions in decoding the script. “Decoding” refers to the processes by which a child recognises the sound-symbol relationships of a script and uses this knowledge to fluently read and spell.

To decode, a child requires an inherent knowledge of the script being learnt. For example, effective decoders of the English script know that there are three different sounds of the alphabet c: /k/ as in cake;  and /s/ as in cement. More importantly, it is essential for teachers of reading and writing to have a good understanding of the nature of the script and to to effectively use this understanding for the benefit of learners.

This blog will provide a brief overview on the nature of scripts, before moving on to a more detailed discussion on the nature of Indian scripts and the implications for pedagogy.

Types of Scripts: Some theorists have classified the writing systems of the world into as many as six different groups (Daniels & Bright 1996:4).  How do these groups vary from each other? The variability lies in how the sounds of the language are mapped on to the graphic units of the script. While a brief definition of all these six groups can be found in the appendix, within this article, we would be discussing the alphabetic, syllabary and the alphasyllabic script.

For example, in some scripts, each symbol of the writing system represents a syllable.  A syllable is a unit that has at least one vowel (vocalic) sound in it, with or without surrounding consonants. For example, “cat” is a word that has only one vocalic sound /a/ in it, and therefore it is a one syllable word. However, the word “table” has two vocalic sounds, and therefore, two syllables, ta and ble. The word “a”, has one vocalic sound (and no surrounding consonants), and this, too, is a syllable.

Now, in some scripts, each syllable is represented by one symbol in the writing system. So, the word “cat” would be represented by a single symbol, while the word “table” would have two symbols; and the word “cat-er-pil-lar” would have four symbols. Japanese Kana is an example of a script where each symbol represents one complete syllable.

Clearly, this is not how the English script works. There are three different symbols, the letters c-a-t to represent a single syllable word. So, how are sounds being mapped onto symbols in the English script? It turns out that in English, the symbols represent the smallest units of sound (phonemes), which cannot be further subdivided. For example, the one syllable word, “cat”, can be divided into three phonemes, /k/, /a/, /t/. These sounds cannot be subdivided any further into smaller sounds. Each phoneme is represented by a symbol while writing. To learn to read and write the English script, a child has to be able to break a word down into its smallest sounds, and then know which symbols to use to represent those sounds.

How do most Indian scripts, such as those used by the major Northern and Southern Indian languages, fit into this classification? Let us look at an example and see how the sounds map onto the symbols.

The Hindi word “कमल” has three different symbols, क, म and ल. The first symbol, क, represents a syllable, because it has the vocalic sound “uh”, attached to the /k/ sound. The second symbol, म also represents a syllable, because it also has the “uh” sound attached to the /m/ sound. What about the last symbol, ल? It turns out, that at the end of the word, “कमल”, the symbol “ल” does not represent a complete syllable. It does not have the “uh” sound attached to /l/ sound. Now, what kind of sound is this symbol representing, if it does not represent a syllable? A phoneme. The sound /l/ cannot be subdivided; it is the smallest unit of sound.

Scripts such as those used by most Indian languages are therefore referred to as “alphasyllabic” in nature. The alphasyllabic scripts consists of properties of both the alphabetic script and the syllabary. Here, the written symbol is mapped onto the syllable in many cases, and at other times onto phonemes. The symbols representing consonant sounds within the Devanagari script have an inherent vocalic sound /ə/, turning them into syllables instead of phonemes. At the same time, many symbols in the language are representative of a phoneme. For example न् , after using a “halant” loses its vocalic sound  and represents a phoneme.

Writing Systems, Orthographies and Scripts

In this section, two new terms will be introduced, “writing systems” and “orthographies”. What we have been discussing as “scripts” in the previous section, are actually different kinds of “writing systems”.

So far, we have discussed three different kinds of writing systems – one which maps sounds onto symbols that represent a complete syllable (syllabary); one which maps sounds onto symbols that representing the smallest units of sounds (alphabetic systems); and a third that maps sounds onto symbols that sometimes represent syllables, and at other times represent phonemes (alphasyllabic systems).

Within a particular writing system, we could have different kinds of “orthographies”. The orthography of a script lays down the rules and standards according to which a language is going to be encoded into a script. For example, both English and German have the same writing system – an alphabetic one that maps sounds onto phonemes. They even use the same script: Roman. But they have different orthographies, which is why an English speaker cannot easily read the German script, or vice-versa. This is because, the symbol-sound mapping, the grammar, syntax and so on, .  are quite different for both!

Most Indian languages use the same writing system – alphasyllabic. Some languages use very different scripts – Hindi and Kannada, for example. But what about Hindi and Marathi? They use the same script – Devanagiri. But the orthographic rules could be quite different for the two languages!

Thus, languages that use the same writing systems (syllabaries, alphabetic etc.), could use a common or different scripts, and have very different orthographies.

Let’s look at a few characteristics of orthographies, comparing English to those of many Indian scripts.

Shallow Versus Opaque Orthographies

Orthographies are said to be shallow/transparent or opaque. Many Indian scripts have a shallow orthography. Shallow orthographies have a high degree of correlation between the symbol and sound. That is, what is seen is what’s to be read. For example, reading कमल is fairly transparent to a child who is familiar with the units क, म and ल , because each of these symbols will represent only one of two sounds – either the consonant with the attached “uh” sound, or just consonant sound. On the other hand, the English script has an opaque orthography because a letter may correspond to more than one phoneme. For example the letter “a” in has different sounds in the words “cat” and “cake”. Knowledge of the letters and their sounds may not be enough to read words. The child needs to also be familiar with the rules that dictate the pronunciation of letters within particular words. The shallow nature of Indian scripts may be helpful to children as they learn to read.

Extensive Versus Contained

Orthographies can be contained or extensive. The English language is said to be a contained orthography as it consists of 26 graphic units. The Devanagari script, on the other hand, is a fairly extensive orthography. The basic varnamala has approximately 49 different symbols. In addition, it has maatras (secondary vowel diacritics - 14-16 symbols), which, when combined with the aksharas (letters) in the varnamala, give rise to the “barakhadi”. It also has unique symbols for different samyuktaksharas (conjunct consonant symbols).

If you move from Devanagiri to other Indian scripts such as Kannada, the number of symbols increases further. The extensive nature of many Indian scripts introduces children to many, many different symbols, making it difficult for children to acquire the script.

Spatially Complex

Most Indian scripts are spatially complex. By that, we mean that the maatras placed above, below, and to the sides creates a complexity in the script’s appearance. For example, the word “खिलौना” has maatras placed to the left, top, and right of the moolaakshara, while the word, “खुशबू” has maatras that go below the line. To confuse matters further, the script is not always read from left to right. For example in the word मिलाप, the first sound that is pronounced is “म”, however in the script the vowel symbol appears to the left of this symbol! Here is another example of this. In the word, “दर्द”, the /r/ sound is read in between the two symbols placed side by side, even though it appears on top of the second symbol. This also makes many Indian scripts challenging for young readers to learn.

Implications for Pedagogy

An understanding of the script helps a teacher be better prepared with strategies needed to teach different scripts. Over the years, extensive research on the English script has created rich resources for teaching and learning the script through a phonetically sound pedagogy. However, there is still a huge gap in similar forms of research and resources for teaching Indian scripts.

The longitudinal research project Literacy Research in Indian Languages (LiRIL) (Menon et al., 2017) highlighted some challenges that young children have with learning to read the Marathi and Kannada scripts. As discussed earlier, the fact that most Indian languages use scripts that have a shallow orthography may make learning the script relatively easier. However, the combined characteristics of an extensive orthography and spatial complexity also makes these scripts hard to master.

Currently, in a large number of classrooms, children are expected to master the extensive orthographies of Indian scripts in a little over a year – the complexity of this task for young learners can only be imagined! Nag (2007) has pointed out that it may take four or five years for children to master the entire Kannada script. A similar timeline (with some variations) might be appropriate for the complete/fluent acquisition of most Indian scripts.

The curricular design needs to take the complexity of the script, such as the sheer number of graphic units, the conjunction of maatras and consonants, and the visual and spatial complexity of aksharas into account. It should be taught systematically and explicitly, using a balanced approach. An example of how this can be done can be found in the approach  followed by organisations such as Organisation for Early Literacy Promotion (OELP) in Ajmer (Jayaram, 2008)

To summarize:

1. There are several different kinds of writing systems across the world.
2. One way in which these systems vary is in the level of sound that is encoded in the written symbols. Syllabaries encode sound at the level of syllables; alphabetic systems encode them at the level of phonemes; while alphasyllabaries move between the syllabic and phonemic levels.
3. English uses an alphabetic script, while many Indian languages use alphasyllabic scripts.
4. While alphasyllabic scripts are easier to read in terms of their shallow orthographies, they also use a more extensive and spatially complex set of symbols.
5. Learning to decode must always happen in the context of a balanced curriculum that attends to meaning and to “akshar gyaan” (knowledge of the script) simultaneously.

Appendix

Types of Writing Systems

• Logographic systems: Here, the graphic elements stand for a word or for a morpheme.
• Syllabary, where every graphic unit stands for one syllable, normally a CV-type of syllable; Japanese kana, Linear B and are syllabaries
• Abjad (Daniels & Bright 1996), where consonants are represented but vowels are not, even if there is the possibility to add diacritic vocalic signs to disambiguate. This system is typically adopted by Semitic languages, which share the characteristic to possess triconsonantic lexical roots, e.g. from Arabic ḏbḥ → ḏabaḥah ‘he sacrified’, ḏabaḥta ‘you-m. sacrified’, ḏabbaḥa ‘he slaughtered’, etc.
• Abugida-It is a syllabary where the graphic elements standing for the consonants and the ones standing for the vowels are recognisable, e.g. Indian devanāgarī, Ethiopian Ge‘ez script.
• Alphabet, where ideally all the phonemes of a language are noted by separate elements.
• Featural writing (e.g. Korean hangŭl), an alphabet where the shapes of the graphic signs correlate with phonemic distinctive features.

References:

Baroni, A. (2011). Alphabetic vs. non-alphabetic writing: Linguistic fit and natural tendencies. Italian Journal of Linguistics/Rivista di Linguistica, 23(2), 127-159.

Salomon, R. G. (2000). Typological observations on the Indic script group and its relationship to other alphasyllabaries.

Vaid, J., & Gupta, A. (2002). Exploring word recognition in a semi-alphabetic script: The case of Devanagari.

Nag, S. (2007). Early reading in Kannada: The pace of acquisition of orthographic knowledge and phonemic awareness. Journal of Research in Reading, 30(1), 7-22.

Yopp, H. K., & Yopp, R. H. (2000). Supporting phonemic awareness development in the classroom. The Reading Teacher, 54(2), 130-143.

Perfetti, C. A. (2003). The universal grammar of reading. Scientific studies of reading, 7(1), 3-24

Wals Online - Chapter Writing Systems http://wals.info/chapter/141

Daniels, Peter T. & William Bright, eds. 1996. The World's Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press.

Jayaram, K. (2008). Early Literacy Project-Explorations and Reflections Part 1: Theoretical Perspectives. Contemporary Education Dialogue, 5(2), 133-174.

Jayaram, K. (2008). Early Literacy Project-Explorations and Reflections Part 2: Interventions in Hindi Classrooms. Contemporary Education Dialogue, 5(2), 175-212.