Aksharas, alphasyllabaries, abugidas, alphabets and orthographic depth: Reflections on Rimzhim, Katz and Fowler (2014)

Investigating the Asymmetrical Roles of Syllabic and Phonemic Awareness in Akshara Processing

“…The emerging perspective is that akshara, which have been referred to as alphasyllabaries (along with Korean Hangul), abugida (along with Ethiopian Fidel), sub-syllabic, semi-syllabic, and semi-alphabetic writing systems, are neither alphabetic nor syllabic. Rather, the orthographic underpinnings of processing akshara are unique in a variety of ways (Share & Daniels, 2016). In this paper, we examine one of those postulated differences: the asymmetrical dual nature of syllabic and phonemic sensitivity, and how that sensitivity is different across the first few years of reading acquisition in Kannada and Telugu, two Brahmi-derived orthographies used primarily in two states of South India.…”

The processing cost for reading misaligned words is script-specific: evidence from Hindi and Kannada/Hindi readers

“…Studies manipulating scriptspecific orthographic features would provide greater insight into the role of visual script similarity in cross-linguistic orthographic activation (Share and Daniels 2016). Further psycholinguistic research on the role of orthography in word recognition would also benefit from examining implications revealed by sociolinguistic and cultural studies on the complex and ever-changing status of different written forms of language in relation to power or modes of belonging (e.g., Ahmad 2012, andHasnain andRajyashree 2004, with reference to the fraught relationship between Hindi and Urdu).…”

“…These languages, while belonging to distinct language families (Indo-European and Dravidian, respectively), are represented in writing using very similar orthographic design principles: both are highly transparent orthographies which employ the akshara or CV orthographic syllable as the basic unit of writing (Share and Daniels 2016), and both use extensive inventories of graphemes to indicate primary versus secondary, or ligatured, forms of vowels as well as consonants (see Karanth 2006;Nag 2014;Vaid and Gupta 2002). That is, in both scripts, there are different layers of complexity of representation of the orthographic syllables, a basic level, in which the akshara represent vowels alone or consonants with an inherent schwa, an intermediate level in which akshara represent consonant and vowel ligature combinations, and a complex level in which akshara represent conjunct consonants and vowel combinations.…”

Reading Research and Practice: Indian Perspective

“…The Indic writing system uses Devanagari script and the basic unit of writing is akshara, which is fairly transparent (having a regular akshara‐sound correspondence) and is used across most of South and Southeast Asia (Nag & Perfetti, ; Share & Daniels, ). The emerging perspective is that akshara, which has been referred to as an alphasyllabary, is neither alphabetic nor syllabic.…”

“…The emerging perspective is that akshara, which has been referred to as an alphasyllabary, is neither alphabetic nor syllabic. Rather, the orthographic underpinnings of processing akshara are unique in a variety of ways (Share & Daniels, ). There are 22 official languages in India across different states; speakers of these languages may be in the millions (e.g., Bengali, spoken in West Bengal, is sixth in the world for number of speakers).…”