African Access to a Quality Bible Translation

In this paper I look at three case studies of large language communities in Africa where orthography development failed to have a good outcome for aspiring readers. Two evidences of orthographic adequacy for the user, comprehension and fluent decoding, often suggest remedies as we study the linguistic details of a language. We will examine these, because good orthography outcomes are rarely accidental. They are more often the result of timely intervention by knowledgeable experts who do the hard work required to devise a strong orthography.

If there is a strong connection between foundational linguistic analysis of a language and the comprehensibility of a written text, then indicators of orthography quality should include people’s ease of reading and comprehending the Bible, as an output. This is not a matter of intelligence or even reading ability on the part of an audience. It may be the writing systems themselves which don’t convey enough of the sound/meaning contrasts necessary for real communication; after all, written language is supposed to represent the sounds of speech for a given people group. Note the roadblocks to communication in these three examples. Such impediments to reading comprehension are much commoner than I ever expected, and I will propose solutions beyond the three case studies.