(This post has been rewritten to incorporate the scheme of spellings employed by Habung Donyi in his dictionary which are enclosed under parenthesis in red letters e.g, [abi].)
There are some groups of words in Apatani which sound quite distinct while speaking but we tend to write them with same spellings thus causing confusion while reading and writing. However, Habung Donyi has done some work on it while compiling his dictionary, the Apatani Dictionary: let’s write in Apatani. Inspite of the good effort, lot need to be done to make the the group of letters that represent the tone or sound of a syllable to be consistent. Such as, a sound of a syllable containing aspiration (sound of h) in between a consonant and a vowel (as in abhi) and in the end of a word (as in abih, opah etc); sound of double vowel such as ee, ie, oo etc., in a syllable have to be worked out.
Some of them are given below with hint on phonetics (based on my understanding) [(simplified form) capital letter(s) for stressed syllable e.g., /A-bi/ ]:
- abi:
/A-bi/ come on behalf of other; [abi]
/ab-bi/ movement [?]
/ab-bhi/ sufficient, complete [abee]
/ab-bih/ to make to something to swing [abih]
/a-bhi/ pant, skirt; [abhi]
/A-bie/ preferable to come (to a place, through a route etc) [bie as in barbie doll]; [abie]
** Look at above word ‘abi’, we tend to write word ‘abi’ which means (1) to come on behalf of other; (2) movement; (3) sufficient, complete; (4) to make to something to swing; (5) pant, skirt; (6) preferable to come (to a place, through a route etc)
Can we write the word ‘abi’, respectively, as shown by H. Donyi in his dictionary to avoid confusion while reading and writing? (may be we can discuss to make them more consistent for different words having similar sound unit as in aba (come tpgether), diiba (eat together), inba (go together) etc.)
Let’s look at some more similar words:
- aba:
/a-ba/ father [abba]
/A-ba/ come together [aba]
/AB-ha/ put load on something, put something in addition to something that already exist [aba]
- ami:
/a-MI/ cat [ami]
/am-mi/ tail [amie]
/a-MIE/ eye [amee]
- aku
/a-ku/ uncle (maternal) [akoo]
/A-ku/ come (past pp) [aku]
/A-kuh/ come from/through wrong direction [akku]
- alyi
/a-lyi/ (1) air, wind [allyi]
(2) arrow [allyih]
/A-lyi/ coming (here from some where (now)) [alyi]
/a-LYIE/ pig [alyee]
- miido
/MII-do/ doing [miido]
/mii-DO/ rain [miidoh]
- miine
/MII-ne/ did [miine]
/mii-neh/ (1) touch, (2) hurt [miinne]
- kapyo
/KA-pyo/ good to look [kapyo]
/KA-pyoh/ see/look first [?]
/kap-yoh/ first [kappyo*]
*in anglo apatani dictionary HD corrected ‘kapyoh’ into ‘kappyo’
Disclaimer: The content in this post and other posts in my blog space are purely based on my observation and understanding of the Tanii language, difference in views from other authors and their works that one may come across in this post and in the other posts of the blog shall by no means be misconstrued as an act of discredit to any author and their works. Besides, I employ common-place Apatani for spelling things in the blog so readers discretion are sought. Readers are encouraged to follow spelling patterns used in Apatani Dictionary by Habung Donyi.
