In sociolinguistics, digraphia refers to the use of more than one writing system for the same language. Synchronic digraphia is the coexistence of two or more writing systems for the same language, while diachronic digraphia or sequential digraphia is the replacement of one writing system by another for a particular language.
Hindustani, with an Urdu literary standard written in Urdu alphabet and a Hindi standard written in Devanagari, is one of the "textbook examples" of synchronic digraphia, cases where writing systems are used contemporaneously. An example of diachronic digraphia, where one writing system replaces another, occurs in the case of Turkish, for which the traditional Arabic writing system was replaced with a Latin-based system in 1928.
Digraphia has implications in language planning, language policy, and language ideology.
Terminology Etymology English digraphia, like French digraphie, etymologically derives from Greek di- δι- "twice" and -graphia -γραφία "writing".
Digraphia was modeled upon diglossia "the coexistence of two languages or dialects among a certain population", which derives from Greek diglossos δίγλωσσος "bilingual." Charles A. Ferguson, a founder of sociolinguistics, coined diglossia in 1959. Grivelet analyzes how the influence of diglossia on the unrelated notion of digraphia has "introduced some distortion in the process of defining digraphia," such as distinguishing "high" and "low" varieties.Grivelet (2001), p. 5. Peter Unseth notes one usage of "digraphia" that most closely parallels Ferguson's "diglossia," situations where a language uses different scripts for different domains; for instance, "shorthand in English, pinyin in Chinese for alphabetizing library files, etc. or several scripts which are replaced by Latin script during e-mail usage."Unseth (2005), p. 36.
History The Oxford English Dictionary, which does not yet include digraphia, enters two terms, digraph and digraphic.Oxford English Dictionary (2009). 2nd ed., v. 4.0. First, the linguistic term digraph is defined as, "A group of two letters expressing a simple sound of speech". This meaning applies to both two letters representing a single speech sound in orthography (e.g., English ng representing the velar nasal ) and a single grapheme with two letters in typographical ligature (e.g., the Old English Latin alphabet letter æ). Second, the graph theory term digraph (a portmanteau from directed graph) is defined as, "A graph in which each line has a direction associated with it; a finite, non-empty set of elements together with a set of ordered pairs of these elements." The two digraph terms were first recorded in 1788 and 1955, respectively. The OED2 defines two digraphic meanings, "Pertaining to or of the nature of a digraph" and "Written in two different characters or alphabets." It gives their earliest examples in 1873 and 1880 (which was used meaning "digraphia"). Isaac Hollister Hall, an American scholar of Oriental studies, described an Eteocypriot language publication as "bilingual (or digraphic, as both inscriptions are in the same language)."Hall, Isaac Hollister (1880). "The Cypriote Inscriptions". Scribner's Monthly, vol. 20, p. 205. Hall's article was antedated by Demetrios Pieridis's 1875 usage of digraphic instead of bilingual for an inscription written in both the Greek alphabet and Cypriot syllabary.
English digraphic and digraphia were contemporaneous with their corresponding terms in French linguistics. In 1877, Julius Oppert introduced digraphique to describe languages written in cuneiform syllabaries.Oppert, Jules (1877). [Review of] François Lenormant, Études sur quelques parties des syllabaires cunéiformes, Paris 1877; idem, Les syllabaires cunéiformes, Paris 1877. Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen 1877(45–46). 1409–1449. In 1893, Auguste Barth used French digraphisme for Cambodian inscriptions written in Khmer script and Brāhmī script.Bergaigne, Abel (1893). Inscriptions sanscrites du Cambodge [edited and commented by Auguste Barth]. Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale et autres bibliothèques 27(1). 293–588. In 1971, Robèrt Lafont coined digraphie regarding the sociolinguistics of French and Occitan.
Although the word "digraphia" is new, the practice is ancient. Darius the Great's (-486 BCE) Behistun Inscription was written in three cuneiform scripts for Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian.
Neologizers Four authors independently neologized English digraphia from diglossia.
The Songhay linguist Petr Zima (1974) first used "digraphia" to describe the Hausa language having two writing systems, Boko (Latin script) and Ajami script (Arabic script). Zima differentiated these paired situations. Digraphia: "Two types of written form of one language co-exist, based upon the usage of two distinct graphical systems (scripts) by the respective language community." Diorthographia: "Two types of written form of a particular language co-exist, using the same script, but they are based upon the usage of two distinct orthographies by the same language community."Zima (1974), p. 58. Usage of "diorthographia" is unusual. Compare dysgraphia meaning "a language disorder that affects a person's ability to write" and dysorthographia "a synonym for dyslexia".
The anthropologist James R. Jaquith (1976), who studied unconventional spelling in advertising, used "digraphia" to describe the practice of writing brand names in all caps (e.g., ARRID). He described digraphia as "the graphic analog of what linguists call diglossia", and defined it as "different versions of a written language exist simultaneously and in complementary distribution in a speech community."
The sociolinguist Ian R. H. Dale (1980) wrote a general survey of digraphia, defined as, "the use of two (or more) writing systems to represent varieties of a single language."
The sinologist and lexicographer John DeFrancis (1984) used digraphia, defined as "the use of two or more different systems of writing the same language," to translate Chinese shuangwenzhi ( "two-script system") of writing in Chinese characters and Pinyin. DeFrancis later explained, "I have been incorrectly credited with coining the term digraphia, which I indeed thought I had created as a parallel in writing to Charles Ferguson's diglossia in speech."DeFrancis, John (2006). Prospects for Chinese Writing Reform, Sino-Platonic Papers 171.
Hegyi coined and suggested the terms "bigraphism" and "multigraphism",Hegyi, O. 1979. Minority and restricted uses of the Arabic alphabet: the aljamiado phenomenon. Journal of the American Oriental Society Vol. 99, No. 2:262-269. but he only used them twice (p. 265; fn. 17, p. 268). However, he did not promote the use of either of these terms, nor follow up on his insights into the importance of studying "the use of two or more different writing systems for the same language... such cases have been more widespread than commonly assumed."
Usage Digraphia is an uncommon term in current English usage. For instance, the Corpus of Contemporary American English, which includes over 425,000,000 words, lists digraphia three times in "academic genre" contexts.
Stéphane Grivelet, who edited a special "Digraphia: Writing systems and society" issue of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language, explains.
Digraphia has some rare synonyms. Orthographic diglossia antedates digraphia, and was noted by Paul Wexler in 1971."Wexler, Paul (1971). "Diglossia, language standardization and purism." Lingua 27, 340. "Orthographic differences are not always a reflection of ethnocultural differences and multiple standards. Different scripts may be used by a single ethnic group for different purposes (e.g., secular versus religious literature), in which case we could speak of 'orthographic diglossia'." Bigraphism, bialphabetism, and biscriptality are infrequently used.
Some scholars avoid using the word "digraphia". Describing terminology for "script obsolescence," Stephen D. Houston, John Baines, and Jerrold Cooper say, "'Biscript' refers to a text in two different writing systems. 'Biliteracy' and 'triliteracy' label the concurrent use of two or three scripts."
Theoretical aspects Digraphia can be either "synchronic" (or "concurrent") or "diachronic" ("historical" or "sequential"),DeFrancis (1984), p. 60 uses concurrent and sequential. extending Ferdinand de Saussure's classic division between synchronic linguistics and diachronic linguistics. Dale first differentiated "diachronic (or historical) digraphia" ("more than one writing system used for a given language in successive periods of time") and "synchronic digraphia" ("more than one writing system used contemporaneously for the same language").Dale (1980), p. 6. Dale concluded that,
Some recent scholarship questions the practicality of this synchronic/diachronic distinction. Grivelet contends that, "digraphia is a single sociolinguistic process with two types of outcome (concurrent or sequential digraphia) and with specific features related to the causes and types of development of the various cases.Grivelet (2001), p. 6.
Peter Unseth lists and exemplifies four factors that can influence a language community's choice of a script. "To identify themselves with a group." In the 1940s, Mongolia replaced the traditional Mongolian script first briefly with the Mongolian Latin alphabet and then, under Soviet influence, with the Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet. From the 1980s, the Mongolian script was reintroduced into schools for its historical and cultural importance. "To distance themselves from a group." In the mid-19th century, the LDS Church developed and promoted the Deseret alphabet for English. Brigham Young publicly claimed it was more phonetically accurate than Latin script and would facilitate learning to read and write English. However, historian David Bigler says the Deseret alphabet "demonstrated cultural exclusivism, an important consideration. It also kept secrets from curious non-Mormons, [and] controlled what children would be allowed to read."Bigler, David (1998). Forgotten kingdom: the Mormon theocracy in the American West, 1847–1896, p. 56. Arthur Clark. Participation in developments on a broader scale. The choice of a script can influence a group's preparedness to interact with other regional or international groups. For instance, the Hmong language has numerous alternate writing systems. Hmong who live in Southeast Asia prefer the indigenous Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or the Pahawh Hmong semi-syllabary; Hmong expatriates who live in the United States prefer to romanize names differently, such as Latin Hmong instead of RPA Hmoob. "Linguistic considerations." Sometimes a foreign script is rejected because it is unsuitable for the phonetics of a language. Korean was first written in logographic Hanja Chinese characters, but king Sejong the Great promulgated the Korean alphabet, which is better suited for transcribing Korean phonology. In the present day, North Korea uses only the alphabet, which it calls Chosŏn'gŭl. South Korea uses both Hanja and the alphabet, which it calls Hangul. The different names of the alphabet reflect the different names of Korea.
Linguists who study language and gender have analyzed gender-differentiated speech varieties ("genderlects", usually spoken by women), and there are a few cases of scripts predominantly used by women. Japanese hiragana was initially a women's script, for instance, used by Murasaki Shikibu to write The Tale of Genji. Chinese Nüshu script (literally "women's writing”) is a simplification of characters that was traditionally used by women in Jiangyong County of Hunan province.Unseth (2005), p. 37.