Standardization of Oromo: Orthographic and Lexical Perspectives
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Date
2021-06
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AAU
Abstract
This study describes the orthographic and lexical standardization of Oromo. Qualitative research
design was employed to describe the orthographic and lexical standardization of Oromo. Both
primary and secondary sources of data were used. Focus group discussions and an interview
were the primary sources of data; whereas the documents compiled by the standardization
committee of Oromo and the primary and secondary school textbooks were the secondary
sources of data. Even though there are a number of scholars who argue for and against the use of
Roman based script, this study argues that Roman based script (Qubee) should be continued to
write Oromo as a result of the linguistic, practical, acceptance and from the country's language
policy point of views. Despite its occurrence in the various texts of Oromo, and its inclusion as
an independent phoneme in the phonemic inventory of the language, the grapheme for the glottal
stop is still not devised. Hence, this study, strongly recommends that it has to be represented with
grapheme. Since the main reason for opting Roman based script is to mark the geminated
realization of grapheme, this study argues that the sounds represented by the digraphs have to be
marked when geminated. Though it requires experimental investigation, the graphamatic
representation of the ejectives <x> [t’], <q> [k’], <c> [tʃ’] and <ph> [p’] may affect the
maximum transfer of skills and may have a negative impact on the transfer of reading skills in
English and Oromo as the graphemes with which these phonemes are represented are not the
same in both languages. This pedagogical and transfer of reading skill challenges can be resolved
via replacing the existing graphemes <x>, <q>, <c> and <ph> by <t’>, <k’>, <c’> and <p’>
respectively. The geminated realization can better be marked via doubling ony the first letter to
be economical. The current alphabetic alignment of characters of the language is not systematic,
particularly with regard to the order of digraphs in the alphabet. Hence, the study suggests the
revisiting of the alphabetic order of the language.The finding also revealed that there are
variations when writing Oromo ordinals, compounds, abbreviations, lexical and other word
spacing related problems are the challenges of the standardization process of the language. The
study believes that variation is due to the lack of codification and coordination among the
stakeholders. Concerning the lexical elaboration strategy, both internal and external meanes are
extensively applied in both the documents of the standardization committee of Oromo and in the
textbooks to enrich the language. Semantic extension, derivation, compounding, blending,
abbreviations, borrowing and loan translation are among the means which are used to elaborate
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the language. Abbreviation and semantic extension are less productive in documents of the
standardization committee of Oromo than in the textbooks. Semantic extension and borrowing
and are more extensively used in the textbooks than in the documents of SCO. Meaning
extension, derivation, compounding, blending, borrowing and loan translation are the most
productive means of lexical elaboration in Oromo. All loanwords in Oromo are subject to
modification. Regarding source language preferences, English is the main source of loanwords of
Oromo as English is well developed to express scientific and technological concepts followed by
Amharic, Arabic, Italian, Swahili and French. Greek loanwords are almost none in Oromo
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Keywords
orthographic and lexical standardization of Oromo. Both primary and secondary sources of data were used