Сравнительная характеристика письменностей Тикамули и Джентича для языка сунувар

The significance of this topic is based on the fact that relations between Russia and Nepal in the educational area are strengthening, especially since last year. On December 22, 2020, as the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Nepal held a series of events dedicated to the Year of Alexander Nevsky, New Sumnima English School in Kathmandu was given his name. This name change ceremony is a crucial step in further development of these connections, including publishing of textbooks, dictionaries and other materials in Russian for Nepali students¹. A need in the opposite may emerge, like Sunuwar textbooks for Russian-speaking researchers who may face this language while collecting data about the language in order to create said educational materials.

Furthermore, as this language is also used in India, reseraching the peculiarities of this language may contribute to Russia’s relations with India, which are more versatile and have valuable prospects.

As there are many ethnic groups living in Nepal, such as Newar, Limbu, Rai and others, whose languages are different from its official language, a need to take them into account as well may emegre. This paper focuses on Sunuwar specifically because it has two writing systems at the moment, Tikamuli and Jenticha.

The main way of writing Sunuwar in Nepal is with the devanagari script, the same one used by Nepali. However, despite the influence and abundance of Nepali derivatives, Sunuwar is not related to it, because it belongs to the Kiranti language family of the larger Sino-Tibetan family, not the Indo-Aryan branch. Due to this a number of phonetic characteristics cannot be thoroughly adapted to writing, for example, the glottal stop, different phonotactics and r-l retroflex, which is also not found in Nepali. Apart from this, devanagari contains graphemes and diacritics for sounds not used in Sunuwar.

The aim of this research is to determine which of the writing systems suits the language better, mainly for Russian speakers working with Sunuwar. To answer the question, a comparative analysis of these writing systems was performed on the basis of the following criteria: correspondence to Sunuwar phonetics, convenience in reading and writing for Russian-speaking students.

The objectives are: to study the phonetic inventory of Sunuwar and Nepali, to juxtapose it with graphemes of the language, to prove its connection to a different family by comparing it to other related languages, rewrite sample sentences by native speakers, compose a table of advantages and disadvantages of each writing system/

The subject matter of this study is Sunuwar’s writing system. The scope of this study is limited to practical characteristics of both types of writing systems used to write Sunuwar.

For the practical part of the experiment a survey among students of IFL RUDN was conducted, revealing their attitude to both systems in aesthetic and convenience senses. They were asked questions about their general appearance, easiness in writing and reading. The reason why this particular institution was chosen is that our students come from various countries, which represent all language families: in this case, a wider range of perceptions of Sunuwar can be studied.

The experiment’s results are listed below.

To begin with, glottal stop, though rare in Sunuwar, cannot be adapted in Devanagari; instead, it is achieved by cutting the vowel अ /ə/ with a virama — अ्. It may look confusing or even unnatural for learners, as it bears an almost identical resemblance with a regular schwa, and reading it as a “stop” mark will take more attention and time to remember. A special symbol for this phonetic feature seems more logical. Furthermore, phonotactics of Sunuwar imply that the second consonant in a C1C2V1 syllable structure is usually a retroflex approximant /ɭ/ [Borchers, 2008, p. 41], unlike Nepali, where this sound does not exist. Finally, Devanagari itself has a number of letters which are useless in Sunuwar due to its lack of corresponding sounds. Without a doubt, this script is convenient for Nepali speakers, but in general, it is flawed and rather impractical.

Let us start with a brief overview of Nepali and Sunuwar phonetics. There are similarities as well as differences in their phonetic inventory. Vowel nasalisation occurs in both languages, in Devanagari script it is marked with a chandrabindu ꣲ diacritic. All five vowels can be nasalised, however phonemes /ã/, /ẽ/, /ĩ/ are more common. The /õ/ and /ũ/ sounds are quite rare, and it is interchangeable with /o/ and /u/ without affecting the word’s meaning. It is reported that nasalisation can depend on a regional dialect; according to Borchers, the written nasalised forms sometimes get ignored in modern spoken Sunuwar, and are pronounced without any nasalisation [Borchers, 2008, p. 28]. Just like Nepali, only two vowels have a long form, आ /ā/ and ऊ /ū/.

Sunuwar has fewer consonants than Nepali (22 opposed to 31). There are only five consonant pairs in aspiration, if we exclude the ones borrowed from Nepali and used in its derivatives, fewer retroflex consonants and fricatives. In addition, Sunuwar used to have a voiced bilabial implosive /ɓ/, however, this phoneme does not exist anymore.

One more unique element is the glottal stop. For example, day in Sunuwar can be written as नाअ्त /nāʔtə/, and since all seven days of the week contain this word — /tasnāʔtə/ or /naknāʔtə/ Monday, /dumsanāʔtə/ or /tipnāʔtə/ Wednesday² — and are not that rare to be excluded from everyday conversation topics, the use of a written glottal stop is essential. It may be argued that the glottal stop may be avoided, as there are other possible ways to write day in Sunuwar: न्हा:त, नाँहत or ना:त — तास् ना:त, दुम्स ना:त. However, Borchers notes some occasions when the glottal stop changes the meaning in verb infinitives: /dāʔcā/ ‘to love’ and /dāʔcā/ ‘to set fire to’ [Borchers, 2008, p. 40]

With main phonetic features mentioned, the next step is to introduce the two writing systems. As it has been stated before, the criteria for comparing them are appearance and accessibility for reading and writing.

Jenticha was created in 1942 by Krishna (in some sources Karna) Bahadur Jenticha. Its letters were based on other closely related Eastern Nepal languages' scripts, such as Limbu and Lepcha, and partly Latin. In Sikkim, the Jenticha script has already been implemented in mass media and textbooks, and is considered an official writing system.

Tikamuli, the second writing system, was created by Tikaram Mulicha in 2005 as an alternative and competitor to Jenticha. Nowadays Tikamuli is mainly researched and promoted by the Sunuwar Welfare Society in Kathmandu, its use is localised and has not spread outside of Nepal.

Jenticha is an alphabet with some abugida features. They include the chandrabindu, virama, three letter half-forms and the implied schwa sound after each consonant if no other vowel is placed after it. There is a separate letter for the long a in case a corresponding sound is needed, and a mark resembling a colon to emphasize the length of other vowels. Aspirated sounds with no separate letters, like छ chha, can be written as a diphthong, by adding ‘ha’ to their unaspirated pair cha with a virama, a mark used to reduce the schwa. We can see that the writing inventory interface of Jenticha paints a minimalistic picture: it only employs letters necessary for Sunuwar’s phonetic inventory, with the possibility to write derivatives with combinations. The only unusual Jenticha letter is the separate letter for the voiced glottal fricative ‘hha’, which in Devanagari is written like this: व्ह. I was not able to find word examples that contain this sound, however it may be useful in place of ‘ha’ in the case reviewed above, when the combinations involve voiced consonants, like झ jha.

On the contrary, Tikamuli is entirely an abugida, meaning that there are no independent characters for vowels, so its structure looks a lot more like that of Nepali. This condition alone might complicate reading for both alphabet users and Sunuwar speakers becoming familiar with alphabets, such as Russian. Besides this, it has a unique trait: aspirated consonants are formed by adding a tail to the right side of the unaspirated counterpart. It is less relevant for Sunuwar in particular though, as it has fewer pairs in aspiration. One more addition is the special mark for extra long vowels. It is quite surprising, because neither Borchers, nor Pandey mention this feature existing in Sunuwar, and regional dialects also do not seem to affect the pronunciation.

Both writing systems have a character for the glottal stop and a diacritic for the approximant /ɭ/. It is a vast improvement compared to Devanagari, where the former is not present, and the latter is expressed in writing either as the letter ‘r’ or ‘l’. The Jenticha trill mark, sangrums, looks like a circumflex placed below the letter after which the approximant is pronounced [Pandey, 2011, p. 5]. Tikamuli has a tail mark which is similar to the aspiration mark, but is a little more curved (Picture 8). Therefore, when looking through the texts, the learners are more likely to mix up the two diacritics in Tikamuli, which would make it more difficult to read and process than Jenticha.
Survey results have been taken into consideration as well.

Pictures 1 and 2 illustrate sample sentences in Sunuwar, written in Jenticha and Tikamuli. In the survey conducted, the respondents were offered to look at the sentences and choose either of these writing systems as better in certain aspects. It was discovered that Tikamuli can hypothetically be written faster due to its compact form, but more abugida features lead to a more complex structure for those whose native writing system is an alphabet. Regarding faster learning, the decision was unanimous: 100% picked Jenticha (picture 4). This system also outweighed its opponent in terms of simplicity in distinguishing characters from each other (picture 3). However, the question of the graphic system’s aesthetic and visual attractiveness was answered in favour of Tikamuli (picture 5), which was chosen by 62,5% of respondents.

As it has been mentioned before, Tikamuli uses many diacritics, so is more compact than Jenticha and takes up less space on paper. It can be observed in the picture 1: two identical sentences have different lengths depending on the writing system. Speaking about length, the survey suggested that writing the same exact sentence in both Jenticha and Tikamuli does not affect difficulty too much, although when the sentences’ length is relatively equal, Jenticha turned out to be preferred for writing to Tikamuli (pictures 6 and 7).

Table 4 compiles advantages and disadvantages of both systems analysed in the research.

Due to the limited number of sources it cannot be claimed that the results of this research are complete. Nevertheless, having estimated the theoretical and practical results, we have come to a conclusion that the Jenticha writing system suits Sunuwar better: its use in schools will be optimal for learning Russian as well as Sunuwar, which will provide for the development of relations between Russia and Nepal.
Additional materials: tables, drawings, pie charts

Word	Traditional Chinese	Old Burmese	Modern Japanese	Sunuwar	Sanskrit (for comparison)
one	壹 *ʔit	ac	ichi	kā	एकम् ekam
two	贰 *nij-s	nhac	ni	nisi	द्वे dve
three	叁 *srum	sumḥ	san	sā	त्रीणि trīṇi
four	肆 *s.lij-s	liy	shi	le	चत्वारि catvāri
five	伍 *C.ŋˁaʔ	ṅāḥ	go	ṅga	पञ्च pañca
six	陆 *k.ruk	khrok	roku	raku	षट ṣaṭ
seven	柒 *tsʰit	khu-nac	shichi	chani	सप्त sapta
eight	捌 *pˁret	rhac	hachi	sasi	अष्ट aṣṭa
nine	玖 *kuʔ	kuiḥ	ku, kyū	yã	नव nava
ten	拾 *t.ɡəp	kip	jū	gau	दश daśa

Table 2. Sunuwar phonetics [Borchers, 2011, p. 24]

Picture 1. Excerpts from the set of Sunuwar phrases adapted from Rāpacā [Pandey, 2011, p. 16], written in Jenticha and Tikamuli.

Picture 2. Name of the organisation “Sikkim Sunuwar Mukhiya Koinchbu” in Jenticha and Tikamuli respectively.

Tables 3.1 and 3.2.


Tables illustrating correspondence of symbols in Tikamuli, Jenticha and Devanagari. It also includes numbers.

Pictures 3, 4 and 5. Survey results.

Pictures 6 and 7. Survey results: Jenticha is marked blue, Tikamuli marked red.³

Picture 8. Syllable ‘bhla’ in Tikamuli. The first tail mark is the aspiration diacritic, the second one is the ɭ diacritic.