Reading the Akshara Writing System

Nag, Sonali

doi:10.1002/9781119705116.ch17

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…In addition, Ethiopic and Indic scripts differ in orthographic complexity. Thus, the current review served as a preliminary attempt to unveil the complexities within the abugidic writing system, extending beyond previous reviews (e.g., Joshi et al, 2017;Moore et al, 2023;Nag, 2022).…”

Section: General Discussion and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, more research is needed to describe in depth the morphology‐orthography interface and its effect on word reading and reading comprehension among abugidic learners. With limited research on the role of morphological awareness in reading comprehension in Indic scripts (Nag, 2022), future research is needed to comprehensively and holistically examine the morphological structure involved in the acquisition of abugidic literacy (Kaye, 2007). Existing research on other orthographies with complex inflecting morphology, such as Arabic, has shown its importance in word reading and reading comprehension (e.g., Wattad & Abu Rabia, 2020).…”

Section: General Discussion and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Understanding literacy acquisition in Abugida orthographies can deepen our understanding of the universals and specifics of literacy development. Recent reviews (Joshi et al, 2017;Joshi & McBride, 2019a;Moore et al, 2023;Nag, 2022) mainly focused on Indic scripts (e.g., Tamil, Kannada). Other orthographies that use the abugidic writing system (e.g., Thai, Tibetan, Ge'ez) have not yet been considered despite an emerging research interest.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Bigger Picture of Early Literacy and Biliteracy Acquisition in Abugidas: Perspectives from Asian and African Languages

Lai,

Quinonez‐Beltran,

Joshi

2024

Reading Research Quarterly

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With the overwhelming “Anglocentric” or “alphabetocentric” science of reading, the current review aimed to add to the science of reading acquisition from the perspective of abugidic writing system, distinct from the well‐research alphabetic writing system in multiple dimensions of orthographic complexity, as proposed by Daniels and Share (2018), such as linguistic distance, spatial arrangement and non‐linearity, and omission of phonological elements. Abugidic writing system is featured with scripts where each base consonant symbol denotes a consonant with an inherent vowel (/a/) and has billions of users in south Asia (e.g., India, Nepal, Sri Lanka), southeast Asia (e.g., Thailand, Laos, Cambodia), east Asia (parts of China) and Africa (Ethiopia and Eritrea). The current review describes the orthographic feature of Indic (Brahmi‐derived) and Ethiopic (Ge‘ez) scripts within the abugidic writing system and synthesizes existing findings on the literacy acquisition patterns specific to each script. Further, we elaborate on the multilingual and biscriptal language and literacy environment featured with the abugida‐writing societies and discuss the theoretical implication for considering multilingualism and biscriptality as an inseparable sociolinguistic factor when understanding the literacy acquisition of the abugidic writing system in particular and literacy in general.

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Section: General Discussion and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: General Discussion and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A Bigger Picture of Early Literacy and Biliteracy Acquisition in Abugidas: Perspectives from Asian and African Languages

Lai,

Quinonez‐Beltran,

Joshi

2024

Reading Research Quarterly

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“…Malayalam is regarded as a shallow orthography but is unique with its visually complex orthographic representations. Various ligatures make changes to the base consonants, thereby increasing the number of unique akshara that must be learnt to master reading (Daniels & Share, 2018; Nag, 2022b). These qualifiers make the mastery of Malayalam orthographic units a challenging task.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Orthographic and phonological processing effects on the reading abilities of young children learning to read Malayalam alphasyllabary

Joy¹,

Venkatesh

Mathew³

et al. 2023

Journal Research in Reading

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Background: Learning to read is a complex process that involves phonological and orthographic processing abilities, broader language skills and cognitive processes across all writing systems. Although these components remain common, the pace of acquisition of phonological and orthographic processing and reading abilities differ across writing systems. Methods: This study aimed to understand the developmental pattern of reading and phonological processing, assess their interrelationship and study the predictors of reading ability among 175 children, learning to read Malayalam and attending Grades 1-3. They completed various reading (akshara reading, word and nonword reading) and phonological processing (rhyme recognition, syllable deletion, syllable segmentation, phoneme deletion, phoneme substitution, rapid naming and nonword repetition) tasks. Results: Grade and reading level-based analysis was performed to collate the results. Results revealed a significant overlap of phonological processing and reading abilities among children in Grades 2 and 3. Reading scores demonstrated a weak-to-moderate significant correlation with the phonological processing tasks. Although skilled readers performed significantly better on all phonological processing tasks, their scores did not reach ceiling. Syllable-level tasks were easier compared to phoneme-level tasks, and they significantly predicted the reading abilities of children.

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Effects of Mother Tongue Education and Multilingualism on Reading Skills in the Regional Language and English in India

Vogelzang,

Tsimpli,

Balasubramanian

et al. 2024

TESOL Quarterly

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In a highly multilingual country like India, challenges and opportunities arise in education and language policy. Although multilingualism is often associated with developmental advantages, Indian primary school children generally show low learning outcomes, specifically on literacy. Here we examine the influence of mother tongue education and multilingualism on the reading skills and reading comprehension of 1272 Indian primary school children from low SES homes. The children performed the ASER literacy task in both the regional, majority language and in English, which was followed by newly developed reading comprehension questions. The results show that minority language speakers from monolingual households—who do not receive mother tongue education—underperform compared to majority language speakers when reading in the majority language. When reading in English, growing up in a multilingual household improves children's performance. Finally, in sites which have a larger proportion of mother tongue‐educated children, children perform better in literacy in the regional language and worse in English. Overall, these results provide insight into the influence of mother tongue education and multilingualism on reading abilities and show that more support is needed for minority language speakers to develop literacy in the majority language, and for all children to develop literacy in English.

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Reading the Akshara Writing System

Cited by 4 publications

References 63 publications

A Bigger Picture of Early Literacy and Biliteracy Acquisition in Abugidas: Perspectives from Asian and African Languages

A Bigger Picture of Early Literacy and Biliteracy Acquisition in Abugidas: Perspectives from Asian and African Languages

Orthographic and phonological processing effects on the reading abilities of young children learning to read Malayalam alphasyllabary

Effects of Mother Tongue Education and Multilingualism on Reading Skills in the Regional Language and English in India

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