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Naga Tuma
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The next ኬኘ revolution in Ethiopia

Post by Naga Tuma » 17 Mar 2023, 16:29

ፍደለ ኬኘ።

ኬኘ ትርጉሙ የኛ ማለት ነዉ።

Seriously, I have been experimenting with writing Afan Oromo using Ethiopic or Ge'ez or Sabaean script, commonly known as ፊደል, if I am not mistaken.

When I was young, I have tried multiple times to read በሪሳ, the first official newspaper in Ethiopia in Afan Oromo. It seemed not an easy read.

Later adaptation of the Latin script for Afan Oromo seemed an easy fit. I have even argued in favor of it years ago even though I am not a linguistic scholar. Yes, guilty as charged for arguing in favor of it without having become a linguistic scholar.

Years later, as I kept reading writings that use the Latin script, it occurred to me that many of the letters in Latin script looked like those in ፊደል። ወ መ ዐ ተ are some of the easiest examples to remember. After noticing that, I unwittingly uttered to myself ኣልሸሹም ዞር ኣሉ።

Just about a week or so ago as I was experimenting with writing Afan Oromo using ፊደል, I unwittingly uttered to myself this must be the language for which ፊደል was invented. After a short time of experimenting, I could write good enough. I could read good enough. I could read fast enough. I wondered how those who worked in the publication of በሪሳ felt using ፊደል።

What felt revealing was the structured short sentences I could write and the number of single letter words I could use. Some examples of single words are ዮ (if,) ቄ (garden,) ፊ (and,) ኬ (your,) and so on. Many people use these words as prefixes or suffixes. It is when I used them separately that simple sentence structures unfolded in front of my eyes and had me say that this must be the language for which ፊደል was invented. By the way, I have a feeling that a vast proportion of Afan Oromo words are two letter words when they are written using ፊደል።

Yes, my observation is very perfunctory. So, I wish that some serious linguistic scholars study the lengths of structured sentences in Afan Oromo using ፊደል and compare it with the lengths of sentences of other languages using ፊደል or other scripts. I really think a solid scientific paper can come out of such an effort. An Afan Oromo speaker with a dictionary that has more or less a complete list of words in the language and a computer scientist who can potentially automate some of the tedious works to compile and analyze the words can possibly get a solid scientific paper out of it. It could become a solid reference in linguistics and further research in the origin of languages, a vastly untapped area of scientific inquiry.

Axumezana
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Re: The next ኬኘ revolution in Ethiopia

Post by Axumezana » 17 Mar 2023, 18:28

I agree! Any change should be for a better not only to be different !

Naga Tuma
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Re: The next ኬኘ revolution in Ethiopia

Post by Naga Tuma » 19 Mar 2023, 18:12

Axumezena, I really wish that serious linguistic scholars who are native speakers take the time to study the better script that fits the language without using excuses.

I got a unique experience while trying to read sentences in Afan Oromo that I wrote in ፊደል። I had imagined that reading fast would be a challenge. So, I gave it a try to see how fast I can read. At one point, my eyes could see one or two or three words lined up ahead when I was reading a word in a sentence. I felt my reading literally fly faster than I have ever experienced reading English or Amharic sentences.

I think part of it is because many of the words I was reading were one or two letter words. The script felt a natural fit and made me sad that a lot of time was wasted not trying it and developing it if it is a natural fit. It reminded me about the origin of scripts as descriptive symbols.

Can someone else out there who speaks Afan Oromo try it and prove me wrong that one doesn't get the same kind of unique experience that I got about how fast one can read after a little training?

Naga Tuma
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Re: The next ኬኘ revolution in Ethiopia

Post by Naga Tuma » 22 Mar 2023, 14:48

Many years ago, I asked the following simple question: Who gets an A in Amharic in the Ethiopian School Leaving Certificate Examination, ESLCE? This is because I did not know anyone who had it.

A while later, I repeated the same question to a Tigrigna speaker. He explained that it is the Tigrigna speakers, especially the Tigrigna speakers from Eritrea. He explained that it is because Amharic has its roots in Tigrigna, more specifically Ge'ez. His explanation made sense.

Many years later, I heard a Tigrigna speaker say "two words" in Amharic. It was in a YouTube video. When I heard him, I thought he misspoke and that may be because Amharic is not his mother tongue. He sounded a ኮልታፋ። No sooner did I say that to myself than it occurred to me that he was actually grammatically correct and that how I expected it said might be wrong.

He said: በሉት እንጂ።

I would have said: በሉ እንጂ። I even remember a popular song in Amharic that goes በሉ እንጂ፣ በሉ እንጂ፣ በሉ እንጂ?

I asked myself which one is grammatically correct, በሉት እንጂ or በሉ እንጂ? Translate both to English: በሉት (a composite of two words) means say it where as በሉ means say. Can you use say in English without telling what it is to say? It is realizing this simple idea that led me to think that በሉት እንጂ is grammatically correct. The speaker that I initially thought was a ኮልታፋ can have his laugh about it now.

This is a very simple idea that helps refine grammar in our languages. It goes without saying that many things are easier to understand when they are simplified like that.

A very simple example for how to read Afan Oromo fast when it is written in ፊደል came to mind in this experiment. It is the following three words written in five letters: ሜ አስ ኮቱ። It means እባክህ/እባክሽ ወዲህ ና/ነይ in Amharic (eight or nine letters depending on gender identification) or please come here in English (fourteen letters.)

Once I started to read ሜ in the above simple statement, my eyes would already have a glance of the following two simple words in the sentence. So, my mind would read them faster than I can say them if I were to read them out loud. This is what I mean by my reading of structured sentences in Afan Oromo written using ፊደል feel faster than reading sentences in Amharic or English.

If this is the case, I can only imagine how faster teachers of the language could have developed its grammar and interest in its readership and research. I can also only imagine how many more people in Ethiopia would be interested over many years to learn Afan Oromo in addition to speaking other languages? In this forum, I noticed only two Afan Oromo words, ኬኘ and ህንጅሩ/እንጅሩ (proper one is ህን ጅሩ,) that speakers of other languages write sometimes.

DefendTheTruth
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Re: The next ኬኘ revolution in Ethiopia

Post by DefendTheTruth » 22 Mar 2023, 15:31

Let me put my አሻራ on this thread.

Writting Afan Oromo in latin script (I am not sure if this is the right term, to begin with) is not viable. It is only about time before this will get dropped, simply because this will be economically exorbitantly expensive.

The issue was raised and discussed on this forum before few years, if I remember well.

The world is going to, or already doing so, process information in electronic (digital) form. Information is captured and processed through an electronic device and then stored or transfered in the same media.

The media is a storage or a carrier, to translate into a layman's language. The more you store or transport (including its processing) the more the cost will be. (Think it in terms of processing capacity and holding the data to be processed.)

No one with a normal mind will ever opt to pay double for the same payload. The media (including the processing unit) is not for free, it costs, the more your payload is, the more it costs you, whether to store the item or transport it.

Both English (latin) script and and ፊደል cost the same amount of money per unit (which means 1 latin script character and ፊደል character cost the same in terms of the media that we are going to use, both to store and transport/transfer).

The more compact your representation is, the more economically viable the business will be. And the saying money governs the world bears its validity, in the world we live in.

No one is going to convince me Oromia is prepared to pay more than a double of that the Amhara region is going to pay to do the same business.

My real name is written in 3 ፊደል but with 6 letters if written in the so called Qubee. This can give you the idea of what I am talking about here.

The sooner people may start to think about it and craft a realistic and viable policy the better it will be for us all, in my view.

Naga Tuma
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Re: The next ኬኘ revolution in Ethiopia

Post by Naga Tuma » 22 Mar 2023, 16:25

DefendTheTruth,

That is one way to look at it. I haven't made the calculation in terms of data storage bytes.

It occurred to me from the possibility of አሻራ in the scripts themselves. If it is possible that አሻራ exists in ዋቀ፣ ያዌ፣ ጆሹዋ and other languages including one in the far east, for which language was ፊደል invented in the first place?

I do not know Chinese script. However, after this experiment and remembering the symbolic nature in the origin of scripts, I have been wondering about it.

I do not know the answers for these kinds of questions. However, I think that some research about them would find the answer.

DefendTheTruth
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Re: The next ኬኘ revolution in Ethiopia

Post by DefendTheTruth » 23 Mar 2023, 17:23

Naga Tuma,

I thought you were talking about information processing and its efficiency, when you wrote about how fast you could read three words with a single "look" (በአንድ እይታ). You were processing the information manually.

Reading is one form of processing, the other counterpart is writing it down, then saving, perhaps. There are other forms of information (data) processing, basically based on these two basic forms (reading and writing) of processing.

What I tried to add here is the natural benefit of information processing from the use of compact form of representation of the same.

Whoever invented the idea of coupling of what we call consonants and vowels into a single character, as oppossed to spelling out both together, like we do in English, must have been the inventor of modern day information processing efficiency.

Let's look at the example you raised in your post:

ዮ a single character word
To write this down in English we use "yo" (a two characters expression, perhaps a syllable, but not yet a word, in this case at least).
The Oromos of the so called Qubee Generation went a step further and invented yet another form of representation, which is "yoo", making it tripple the size of the single character word in ፊደል.

The whole message from my side is that such an arrangement will never be economically viable. If it is not economically viable, then its drop from use in the society is just a matter of time.

I am not an economist, but a system analyst, which means efficiency is at the core of my daily tasks. That is what I have tried to raise here. If someone wants to argue with me on this, then I will be glad to invite the person as my guest.

BTW. Information Scientists (computer scientists) don't say bite but Byte (commonly capitalized), which is simply a unit of measurement. In this case it is a unit of 8 Bits, Bytes are added up to become Kilobyte (2 to the power of 10), then Megabytes, then Gigabyte, Terabytes and so on.

The current coding standard (widely accepted) is called Unicode, which takes a length of 16 Bits to represent a single character.
ዮ takes 16 places, while yoo takes 48 places for the same purpose or job.

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