From: Bassem Medawar (medawar@tasha.poly.edu))
Subject: Latin alphabet to write Lebanese dialect
Organization: University of Oslo
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 07:46:10 GMT

This article is a follow-up to articles posted to scl by Elie W., Naji, and
Mazen, on creating a Lebanese Latin alphabet.
 
First I must state my general purpose which is to allow us to write the 
Lebanese dialect in Latin alphabet and not to invent a written Lebanese 
language.
 
I propose that we restrict our alphabet to Latin alphabets and avoid any
other characters.  The reason is purely for the sake of readability.  
When new symbols are introduced, you have to learn them and if you don't 
know what they mean (such as if you are a newcomer to scl) Lebanese 
messages on scl become cryptic.
 
Restricting ourselves to Latin characters only means that some 
characters will not map to Latin and will need to be represented by two 
Latin characters such as the letter "kh" in khaled.  The advantages is 
that this is what we are already using whenever we write Lebanese in 
Latin alphabets.  There is almost nothing new to learn.  It is just a 
matter of codifying what is already the common usage.
 
The single most important disadvantage is ambiguity, but as Naji pointed 
out natural languages are ambiguous anyway.  It is left to the 
intelligence of the reader to disambiguate.  There are other ways to 
disambiguate, that is we can write Elie's example, ashum 
(shares) as "a s h u m" or "as.hum".  Here, the purpose of the dot is to
force a disassociation between the s and the h.  For optimal 
disambiguity, we could simply write ashum as 01122624 where 01 is the
first letter of the Arabic alphabet, alef, 12 is the 12th, sin, etc..  Of
course that would be very unreadable but very accurate.
 
Here is an example of how I could write the Arabic letters in Latin:
 
        Arabic          my proposal
 
1       alef            a
2       beh             b
3       teh             t
4       ceh             c
5       jim             j or g (both permissible)
6       hhah            hh
7       kha             kh
8       dal             d
9       zal             z
10      rah             r
11      zayn            z
12      sin             s
13      shin            sh
14      ssad            ss
15      ddadd           dd
16      ttah            tt
17      zzah            zz
18      aayn            aa
19      ghayn           gh
20      feh             f
21      kkaf            q or kk (both permissible)
22      kaf             k
23      lam             l
24      mim             m
25      noon            n
26      heh             h
27      waw             w
28      yeh             i or y (both permissible)
 
Latin alphabets not used above are (e, o, p, u, v, x)  The vowels
(e, o, and u) can be used to represent accents (no exact mapping).  Of the 
rest "p" and "v" can be retained for Lebanese words such as telvizion 
(as most Lebanese pronounce it) and proper names such as Pierre.  I 
don't see any use for the remaining letter "x" so we retain it for 
"future development" :-)
 
In designing this proposal, my prime directive has been readability, and
consequently, ease of use.  A newcomer need not learn a new alphabet and
can start reading immediately, before waiting for someone to explain to 
him/her how to read.  A newcomer will then start writing, imitating the 
style he/she just read.  Someone will then point him/her to the FAQ to 
learn how to improve his/her Lebanese/Latin writing by following the 
canonical alphabet.  It is as simple as that.
 
One last thing needs to be said: you write Lebanese as you speak it 
which means that two Lebanese will write the same word in two slightly 
different ways.  Both are correct.
 
 
Now to Elie's and Naji's proposals.  Since Elie has accepted Naji's
modifications, there is no point in me discussing Elie's alphabet.  So I 
focus on Naji's (which is a modification of Elie's).
 
 
 
    my  alphabet           Naji's              Representing
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~        ~~~~~~~~            ~~~~~~~~~~~~
          a                   '                "'"ana (I)
          b                   b                "b"ayt (house)
          t                   t                "t"annuura (skrit)
          j or g              j                "j"aruur (drawer)
          hh                  H                "h,"mar (donkey) emph. 
                                                            (Hmar)
          kh                  x                "x"ayme (tent)
          d                   d                "d"iib (wolf)
          r                   r                "r"akad (he ran)
          z                   z                "z"aytuun (olives)
          s                   s                "s"amke (a fish)
          sh                  sh               "s^"ams (sun)
          ss                  S                "s,"ayda (Sidon) emph.
          dd                  D                "d,"ayca (village) emph.
          tt                  T                "t,"arii' (road) emph.
          zz                  zh               "z,"olm (oppression) emph.
          aa                  A                "c"ayn (eye, fountain)
          gh                  gh               "g^"aym (cloud)
          f                   f                "f"ijle (a raddish)
          q                   K/q              "q"uum ta nqarqis^
                                               qamh, (a la Druze 
                                                       pronunciation)
          k                   k                "k"alb (dog)
          l                   l                "l"amba (lamp)
          n                   n                "n"ijme (a star)
          h                   h                "h"awa (wind)
          w                   w                "w"eede (valley)
          i or y              y                "y"alla (come on!)
          g                   g                garage
          p                   p                pardon
          v                   v                vitees
 
 
By comparing the two aphabets above, I see few differences.  Following
are the minor ones:
 
          ME                 NAJI
          j or g              j                "j"aruur (drawer)
          hh                  H                "h,"mar (donkey) emph. 
                                                             (Hmar)
          ss                  S                "s,"ayda (Sidon) emph.
          dd                  D                "d,"ayca (village) emph.
          tt                  T                "t,"arii' (road) emph.
          zz                  zh               "z,"olm (oppression) emph.
          aa                  A                "c"ayn (eye, fountain)
 
With regards to j and g, it seems to me you don't want every george to 
start writing his name as jeorje because you reserve the g for "g"arage.
With regards to doubling versus capitalizing, call it a matter of 
preference (see below).
 
Following are the major differences:
 
          ME                 NAJI
          a                   '                "'"ana (I)
	      kh                  x                "x"ayme (tent)
 
I can understand the need for the hamza as distinct from the alef, and I 
can accept it as the only "exotic" character, but the x doesn't wash (sorry).
 
Now to long vowels, while I did not include it above, you can obviously 
double any vowel above with one exception.  Doubled aa must be written 
as a.a or in some other form to disambiguate it from the aayn which you
write as "A".  Other proposed aayn representations include Elie's "c"
which is no good because it conflicts with ceh, the 4th letter of the 
Arabic alphabet, and Mazen's "3".
 
Your alphabet, Naji, includes two major rules: to capitalize (H, S, A,..) 
and to double (sh, gh,..).  You retain ambiguity with the doubles.  I 
propose to simplify, drop the capitalization rule and retain the double 
rule.  Ambiguity can be optionally eliminated.
 
I propose that my alphabet be merged with yours (allowing several 
possible representations for each character we disagree on).  We then
weed out from the alphabet contradictory features and announce it as
a proposed standard.  After a while of using it, noting which form for a 
letter is more popular and which one is not, we can agree on a slimmer
standard or put the conflicting issues to a vote.
 
bassem

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