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X-Posted from "Hausa language, literature and culture" <H-HAUSA@H-NET.MSU.EDU> From: "John Philips, Hirosaki University" <philips@MAIL.H-NET.MSU.EDU> ------------ Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 07:50:49 -0400 From: "Don Osborn" <dzo@bisharat.net> Subject: RE: New Hausa Blogs . . . Sannu Abdalla, This is very interesting, thank you. I note that the bloggers (and a lot of Hausa content online) do not use the full Hausa orthography (i.e., with the hooked characters). What in your opinion are the main reasons? On the technical side I know that Blogspot supports utf-8 (I was putting a limited amount of Fulfulde content online 3 years ago). Fonts with the necessary characters probably exist on the computers the bloggers (and certainly BBC etc.) are using - sometimes users are not aware of this. Keyboard layouts (in effect a layout with key shortcuts) can be installed but that requires a bit more attention. I'm thinking it would be interesting to have a Hausa language utility along the lines of what you see here on Aflat.org for Gikuyu: http://aflat.org/?q=node/8 . This utility in effect "corrects" Gikuyu text by recognizing words and adding the two diacritic characters (i and u with tilda). One could theoretically do the same for Hausa text - the principle is basically the same. On the user side: Is there a concern that many computer systems available to Hausaphone users will not handle Unicode? I don't know the situation on the ground in northern Nigeria for instance, but would assume that the majority of systems would not have display issues. Five years ago a colleague was able to read a Hausa test page on Bisharat.net in a Niamey cybercafé with no problem. On the author side: Is it just a matter of choice? Is this becoming a sort of new unofficial standard? Some years ago the technology was much more limited and one would see text in French, Spanish, German, etc. without accents. That state of affairs was redressed once the technology caught up with the languages. My thinking is that the situation is analogous with Hausa and other African languages except that as the technology catches up, there is not the same institutional support for "standard" use - actually the opposite if you look at international sites like BBC Hausa. Anyway, it would be interesting to hear your feedback. Don ---------- Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 14:15:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Abdalla Uba Adamu <auadamu@yahoo.com> Don, Attempting to use the full Hausa orthography online is simply time consuming because the implosive consonants are not on the "surface" of the keyboard. For instance, I have AfroRoman font set, but to use the implosives requires complicated key strokes using a combination of alt, and codes from the num keypad. Not many people have the time (remember, internet access for many people is via a commercial cafe) or the necessary skills to keep "downloading" the implosives all the time via the Insert, Symbols, routine (assuming, of course they compose their postings offline in something like MS Word). It may be even more difficult to to download the individual consonants while online. Indeed to make it easier for non-technical users to use the Hausa implosive consonants in normal writing, I created abdalla.ttf Hausa font in which I simply remapped the SIL Hausa font (which in its initial version does not have Hausa implosive capitals), by bringing them out to the "surface" of the keyboard and killing some characters not usually used in Hausa writing ({,[,},},~, and |). This font is commonly used in northern Nigerian "business centers" (typing shops). I agree that the font set with the implosives are on the computers the bloggers are using. They are also in the Arial Unicode font. However, this also suffers from the same complications as AfroRoman -- the key num codes for each implosive. For these reasons, I tend to concur with Smith (1978:xix) when he states, “On grounds of economy and convenience I have used ordinary letters instead of the symbols frequently used to represent implosive b's, d's, and k's when Hausa is written in the roman script. This practice can be defended on the ground that those familiar with Hausa speech will immediately recognize the implosive consonants, while others unacquainted with the Hausa language will not find such directions useful.” This is of course not an elegant solution, although I am happy to note that academic writing in northern Nigerian Hausa is heavily based on the conventional implosives orthography -- thanks to the easy availability of abdalla.ttf (based on Times New Roman) which makes it possible to access the implosives without the complicated key strokes. Recently I was in Niamey to participate in a workshop on indigenous writing across the borders (Nigeria and Niger) and I noted that the Hausa books published by Albasa GTZ (e.g. “Bayan Wuya” by Ms. Salmu Hassan) have a combination of Arial and abdalla.ttf -- using the Arial font as default, and then substituting the implosives from abdalla.ttf. This practice, again not elegant, is adopted by the Hausa newspapers in northern Nigeria (e.g. Aminiya, Hausa Leadership, Al-Mizan) especially for the headlines. Reference Smith, Michael Garfield. 1978. The Affairs of Daura. Berkeley: University of California Press. -- Wannan wasik'ar i-mel ce daga H-Hausa, inda za'a cigaba da hira game da harshe da al'adu da tarihi da sauran lamura na Hausawa da mak'wabtansu.
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