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The akshara languages:

What do they tell us about children’s literacy learning?

Sonali Nag

University of York, UK and The Promise Foundation, India

The symbol units of many writing systems of South Asia are called the akshara. While the akshara in languages like Bengali, Hindi, Kannada and Tamil may look very different from each other, they all share core characteristics because of a common ancestry which links them to the ancient Brahmi script. The akshara represent sounds at the level of both the phoneme and the syllable simultaneously giving the writing system its name - alphasyllabary. The connections between written symbols and spoken sounds have been called orthography-to-phonology and phonology-to-orthography mappings. Of particular interest to this chapter are the cognitive processes involved in learning about the akshara and how this may impact development within the phonological domain. In addition, there is preliminary evidence of how the alphasyllabic nature of the akshara uniquely shapes the reciprocal mappings across the two domains of orthography and phonology, and how this in turn shapes the literacy acquisition process. The chapter gives a detailed description of the psycholinguistic and orthographic characteristics of the akshara, trends in research pertaining to reading and spelling development in akshara languages and the implications of these findings for literacy development in the akshara languages.

The akshara languages:

What do they tell us about children’s literacy learning?

The Brahmi writing system is one of the world’s ancient scripts, first emerging around 500

BCE. The akshara is at the core of the ancient Brahmi. Many languages of the Indian sub-

continent and several languages from South East Asia as well as Central Asia have the

Brahmi script as their writing system. Historical records suggest that it was itinerant traders

and ambassadors of religion, particularly Buddhism, who fuelled the adopting of a script in

these regions, often also bringing about other far reaching social and cultural changes within

the linguistic communities. Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam,

Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu in India, Sinhala in Sri Lanka, Tibetan in Central Asia, Thai,

Burmese, Khmer, Bugis and Javanese in South East Asia are examples of languages whose

writing systems trace their roots back to the Brahmi. These (and other) languages took the

Brahmi akshara and transformed it visually to create an aesthetic diversity in symbols that is

quite unmatched in the world of writing systems. Figure 1 shows the distinct visual features

of three Brahmi-derived scripts – Hindi, Bengali and Kannada. The legacy of those early

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adaptations of Brahmi is a set of contemporary akshara languages with symbol sets that are

varied in appearance but which never the less share a common core of psycholinguistic

features.

Figure 1: A selection of symbols from three contemporary akshara languages

In the last two decades, and more particularly in the last five years, we have seen a growing

body of research on the processes involved in literacy learning in the akshara languages. The

findings in this chapter draw upon recent surveys with children in Grades 1 to 6 in Bengali

and Kannada language schools, and individual case studies in Hindi. We will focus on

orthographic processing, how the akshara symbol set is learnt and how this knowledge shapes

spelling and reading in the language. To provide a fuller picture of the cognitive processes

involved in literacy learning in the akshara languages we will also look at phonological

processing and the mappings between the two domains of orthography and phonology.

Conceptual Framework

It is well-established that learning to read draws upon oral language skills. The phonological

domain of language which is related to its sounds structure is a key dimension for literacy

learning. The stream of spoken language can be artificially segmented into individual sounds

called phonological units. The syllable and the phoneme are examples of phonological units.

In the word ‘caterpillar’ for example there are 4 syllables (ca-ter-pill-ar) and 8 phonemes

(k-a-t-er-p-i-l-ar) while the word ‘clown’ is a one syllable word with 4 phonemes (k-l-ow-n).

Children as young as age two are known to be sensitive to the syllabic units in a word.

Awareness of the small phonemic units emerges over time and we now believe, is shaped by

Hindi

Bengali

Kannada

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literacy experience (Castles & Coltheart, 2004; Morais & Kolinsky, 2005). Of particular

interest to this chapter are the psycholinguistic processes involved in learning about the

akshara and how this may impact development within the phonological domain.

Writing systems are referred to as orthographies and all aspects of learning about the

structure and mechanics of the writing system contribute to the development of competence

in the orthographic domain. Writing systems differ in the phonological unit that their

symbols represent and thus we can expect that the orthographic domain is shaped by the

nature of the writing system that a child is learning to use (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005).

Syllabaries are writing systems that represent sound at the level of syllables. The North

American syllabary Cherokee, for example, represents the syllable sound /ka/ with the

symbol Ꭷ, /ne/ as Ꮑ and /nu/ as Ꮔ. Alphabetic languages represent sounds at the level of

phonemes. Thus the syllable /nu/ is represented by the two letter symbols of English, ‘n’ and

‘u’. In contrast to the syllabaries and the alphabetic languages, akshara writing systems

represent sounds at the level of both the syllable and the phoneme simultaneously and are

thus called alphasyllabaries or abugidas (Bright, 1996; Daniels, 1996). In this chapter we

will look at the ways in which the alphasyllabic aspects of the akshara are learned.

The cognitive representation of the symbols in a writing system is called the orthographic

representation while the representation of the segmented sound units is called phonological

representation. If the initial stages of learning to read and spell are largely concerned with

making connections between written symbols and spoken sounds, then we could say that a

fundamental aspect of reading and spelling involves the efficient use of these orthographic

and phonological representations, in order to forge efficient connections between them. The

connections between symbols and sounds have been called orthography-to-phonology and

phonology-to-orthography mappings. We will see later in this chapter how the alphasyllabic

nature of the akshara uniquely shapes the reciprocal mappings across the two domains of

orthography and phonology, and how this in turn shapes the literacy acquisition process.

There is a third cognitive domain of interest to literacy researchers which, for want of space,

has not been included in this chapter. This is the semantic domain which includes the

linguistic features related to morphology, vocabulary and syntax. The semantic domain has

far reaching effects on the levels to which literacy will develop, particularly reading

comprehension and related text-based skills.

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A description about the akshara, its teaching and learning

Akshara as a symbol block

The akshara writing systems, as mentioned above, share several characteristics with a

syllabary but also have alphabet-like features. As in a syllabary, each akshara symbol can

represent a syllable unit. Thus the Hindi akshara MüÉ, ÌMü, MÑü represent the syllable units /ka:/,

/ki/, /ku/ 1 and the Bengali akshara Yç, åY, åYç represent /pa:/, /pe/ and /po/. When learning

to read in these languages children are taught to recite a basic list of akshara. Each language

has a name for this basic symbol register: for example, the aksharamala, varnamala,

bornomala, kagunita. Aksharamala literally means ‘the garland of akshara’ and in the

recitation of the aksharamala the child does a roll-call of the many syllables that they

represent. More importantly, for each of these akshara it is also possible to pull apart smaller

visual units within the syllable. Thus the Hindi akshara MÑü (/ku/) can be deconstructed into

the tinier sound units of Mç + Ñ (/k/ + /u/). These smaller consonant and vowel units within

/ku/ are equivalent to the sounds that the letters ‘k’ and ‘u’ in the English alphabet represent.

The akshara is therefore a symbol block which is quite unlike the discrete letter symbol in

English. Each akshara symbol block represents sound roughly at the level of a syllable and is

constructed from distinct marks that represent phoneme level sounds. It is because the

akshara unit roughly corresponds to syllables but can be pulled apart to reveal markers for the

individual phonemes that the writing system has also been referred to as semi-syllabic and

semi-alphabetic.

The phoneme marker is a defining feature of the alphasyllabary. On the surface there would

appear to be similarities between a syllabary and the alphasyllabary, both representing sounds

at the syllable level. The syllabaries however represent sound only at one level and do not

carry distinct marks for the individual phoneme sounds within the syllable as do the

alpasyllabaries. Thus while the Cherokee symbols of Ꮑ and Ꮔ (/ne/ and /nu/) represent

syllable level sounds, they cannot be deconstructed. The equivalent in Hindi ( lÉå and lÉÑ ) can

each be further deconstructed into lÉç + å and lÉç + Ñ . Note that the two akshara symbols in

1 The phoneme symbols used are from the International Phonetic Association, 1999. The / /

symbols indicate the speech sounds of one or a set of akshara.

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this example have a common base for the shared consonant phoneme of /n/ and a different

mark for the vowel phonemes of /e/ and /u/.

In early literacy classrooms the symbol block is the focus of instruction. Schools however

differ in the extent to which they draw children’s attention to the phoneme markers within the

symbol blocks. In a selection of schools in the Southern Indian state of Karnataka, we found

the akshara were taught as wholes; children recited the syllables that the akshara represent

and spent a significant amount of time copy-writing each symbol block (Nag, 2007). In

another survey in the Eastern Indian city of Kolkata, akshara teaching practice was quite

different. Here, the akshara were taught by explicitly breaking up the symbols blocks to

reveal their phonemic parts (Nag & Sircar, 2008). It is reasonable to expect that the ways the

akshara are taught will influence the child’s approach to the akshara such that some will view

these as global at the level of the whole symbol and others will be more analytical and able to

abstract knowledge of the phonemic units within the symbol blocks.

Representing phonemes in the akshara

The representation of phonemic units in the akshara is made possible by the fact that there

are two sets of symbols for all phonemes: a primary symbol and a secondary form. For

example, the primary and secondary symbol for the consonant /k/ in Kannada are Pï and Ì.

There are clear rules that inform the choice of whether a primary or secondary symbol is to

be used to spell a word. These rules refer to, but are not limited by, the position of the

phoneme in a word. For consonants, the secondary form is used when they are in the non-

initial position in a consonant cluster (CCV or CCCV, where C = consonant and V = vowel).

For all other consonants in a word, the primary form is used. Among vowels the primary

symbol is used when the vowel is at the beginning of a word or when the vowel itself

represents a full meaning unit (a separate morpheme as for example the word ‘I’ in English).

The secondary form of the vowel is called the matra in Hindi. This second vowel form is

used when the vowel follows a consonant in a syllable. For example the primary and

secondary forms for /a:/ in Hindi are AÉ and É. The primary form is used in words like AÉ

(aa, /a:/, come) and AÉqÉ (aam, /a:m/, mango) and the second form in the word UÉqÉ (Ram,

/ra:m/, a boy’s name).

The frequency of use of a particular form differs between consonants and vowels. With

consonants the primary form is more common in writing. For vowels in contrast, the

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secondary form is significantly more common. Despite this difference, literacy instruction in

the akshara languages typically follows a fixed sequence: the primary symbols are introduced

first, the secondary forms later.

Types of akshara

The akshara system typically comprises three distinct types of symbols. The first are the

consonants with an inherent vowel (/Ca/), the second are consonants with other vowels

(/CV/) and the third are the consonant clusters (/CCV/), with more than two consonants also

possible in the cluster. When consonants are realized in spoken form with the short vowel

/a/, the standard is to represent the consonant with the /a/ implicit within the consonant

symbol (hence inherent vowel). In all other cases of CV akshara, the consonant symbol is

written together with a distinct vowel marker joined or ligatured to the base consonant. In the

consonant clusters, the consonants and accompanying vowel are stacked together in one

symbol block. The extent to which the segments that are stacked together retain their

individual visual identity can differ within a language. In Bengali for example, there are

some clusters where the individual consonants remain identifiable when stacked together,

making it simpler to decipher (Y + _ = YÀ (/pɔ/ + /lɔ/ = /plɔ/)). There are other symbols

where the cluster has a completely new visual identity requiring additional symbol-learning

(Tö + Ì[ý = yÔ (/tɔ/ + /rɔ/ = /trɔ/)). The three types of akshara listed in this section have also

been classified as a) CV akshara with inherent vowels (CwIV), b) CV akshara with ligature

rules for vowels (CVwL) and c) consonant clusters (CCV, CCCV) (Nag, 2007).

Akshara literacy instruction has been strongly influenced by these three types of symbols.

Children have traditionally been taught one akshara type at a time. The primary vowels and

consonants with the inherent vowel are introduced first, consonants with the other vowels are

taught approximately a year later followed by instruction about a selection of frequently used

CCV akshara. This scheme of instruction is reflected in the phases of mastery of the symbol

set: the Ca symbols are mastered first, the CV symbols next and the CCV last, though the

learning of an akshara type does not necessarily have to depend on mastery of an earlier

taught set. High frequency CV and CCV akshara for example may be learned earlier because

of repeated exposure. Such patterns of akshara learning have important implications for the

nature of literacy attainment in children. We will see in the later section on spelling and

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reading that literacy development is closely associated with such aspects of akshara

knowledge.

A fourth type of symbol is also available in the akshara system. This is the consonant symbol

without any inherent or attached vowel. The consonant carries a marker that denotes a vowel

suppressor called halant or virama in Hindi. Since these symbols for the phonemic

consonant are rarely introduced in early literacy instruction, the consonant with inherent

vowel (Ca) becomes the standard referent for a consonant symbol.

Visuo-spatial characteristics

Akshara languages show differences in the way in which the phoneme markers are arranged

within a visuo-spatial space. Rather than the linear arrangement of symbols typical of many

alphabetic systems, the akshara writing system makes use of space in a non-linear way. The

akshara is built up with the primary consonant symbol as the base, with all subsequent

sounds in the symbol block being written in the secondary form and ligatured to this base.

Depending on the language, the ligaturing position of the secondary form can be to the right,

left, above, below and even around a base consonant. The syllables /ka:/, /ke/, /ku/, /ko/ are

shown here with the base consonant in bold:

Bengali: Eõç åEõ EÇõ åEõç

Hindi: MüÉ Måü MÑü MüÉå Kannada: PÁ PÉ PÀÄ PÉÆ

There is predictability in the system of stacking visual features to build up an akshara. In akshara that represent consonant clusters for example, the Hindi symbol is typically built up with the two consonants being placed either next to each other or one above the other, while in Kannada, the second consonant is almost always written off-the-line, below the first consonant. In some languages, the visuo-spatial characteristics of the akshara also give clues about the phonological correlates of a symbol. In Kannada for example, vowel length is revealed by the number of elements in the vowel form: short vowels are often represented with one element while the corresponding long vowels take on an additional element (e.g. É /e/ and ÉÃ /e:/). Similarly, in many akshara languages syllable complexity is revealed by the number of additional markers that are attached to the base consonant: visually simpler symbol blocks represent CV syllables and more complex symbol blocks the CCV syllables. Thus the simple syllable /k√/ and the more complex syllable /kk√/ are represented as PÀ and

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PÀÌ in Kannada, Mü and YMü in Hindi and Eõ and hõ in Bengali. We can expect that such immediately visible and predictable aspects of the symbol system would simplify the process of akshara learning. One implication of the non-linear style of symbol construction is that there is occasionally a departure from the expected sequence of mappings between the akshara symbol and the spoken sound. Within the symbol block, a phoneme marker may not be located in a place that is consistent with its position in the sound sequence of the spoken syllable. In the Hindi CV syllable /ki/ for example, the vowel /i/ is located in front of the consonant ( Ì + Mü = ÌMü) rather than to match the post-consonantal location of the sound in the spoken form ( Mü + Ì = MüÌü ). In Kannada, the vowel in a CCV is ligatured to the first consonant rather than the immediately preceding second consonant which is typically written under the first consonant (e.g. in /spa/ ¸Àà , the vowel diacritic À /a/ is ligatured to the first consonant ¸ï /s/ rather than to the consonant à /p/). We can expect that such mis-sequenced orthography-to-phonology mappings in the akshara system will slow down akshara recognition; preliminary confirmation of this is available from error analysis of Hindi written work of Grades 2 and 3 children (Nag, 2010). Errors on the mis-sequenced /i/ were more common than the in-sequence /i:/. Such a finding suggests a primary role of orthographic features in the learning of the akshara. There is however a further explanation that needs to be considered. Older children who have mastered the mis-sequenced akshara and can recognise it reliably, continue to make errors in spelling these akshara. When children in Grades 4 and 5 made errors on the mis-sequenced Kannada CCV akshara, the errors were not related to where to ligature the vowel marker but to the way the second consonant was represented. The second consonant was either dropped entirely or placed in-line (recall that in Kannada, second consonants are typically written off-the-line below the first consonant). These errors suggest the role of phonological processing and confusion with phonology-to-orthography mappings. We will return to this trend in akshara learning in the section on spelling development but the findings are clear: mis-sequences in the akshara symbol block, despite being predictable in visuo-spatial layout, draw upon additional processing resources and impact the automatisation of akshara learning.

Size of the orthographic register

Orthographies differ in the number of symbols they use to represent sounds. Beginning

readers of akshara languages need to recognise 400 and more symbols which is no mean feat!

Here we introduce a framework to analyse the orthographic register of akshara languages in

relation to the number of symbols in other writing systems (Nag, 2007).

Let us call a language with a large symbol inventory as an Extensive Orthography. In these

orthographies the count of the symbol set is in the hundreds and sometimes even thousands.

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Akshara languages are Extensive Orthographies. Bengali, Hindi and Kannada for example

have more than 400 akshara each. Tamil, a Southern Indian alphasyllabary, has a relatively

smaller repertoire of symbols, but the number still stands at more than 200 symbols. In

contrast, many Western European languages and Indian languages that have adopted the

Latin script have small symbol sets (between 20 to 30 symbols). The Khasi language of

Meghalaya for example has adopted the Welsh alphabet, and has 24 letters. A language with

a relatively small symbol inventory may be referred to as a Contained Orthography.

The framework of orthographic size makes it possible to locate languages along a continuum

graded from the contained to the extensive. Languages with a lesser number of symbols fall

closer to the contained-end of the continuum while those with a greater number fall at the

extensive-end. Figure 2 gives a visual representation of the location of a small group of

languages along the contained – extensive continuum. This listing of languages would

suggest that the akshara languages are alone in having elaborate number of symbols. This

notion is quickly dispelled when we look at Chinese where there are more than 2500

characters!

Figure 2: Placing languages along the Contained-Extensive continuum

Khasi and English Bengali, Hindi and Kannada Chinese

(24 and 26) (400+) (2500+)

Contained Extensive

Orthographies Orthographies

The extensive symbol set of the akshara languages create a learning situation quite different

from learning the alphabetic languages. First, there are many more sounds that have a unique

symbol as a representation. Second, the large numbers of symbols also mean that there are

fewer sounds that will have to be represented by using the same symbol. Hence, while in the

contained English orthography, letters like ‘g’ and ‘c’ carry two sounds (‘g’ sounds different

in ‘ginger’ and ‘gate’ and ‘c’ in ‘cat’ and ‘cell’), in a language with a larger symbol set such

confusion is minimised. Another characteristic of orthographies with limited symbols is the

assigning of two symbols to represent a third sound; thus the first sound in ‘shirt’ has the

letters ‘s’ and ‘h’, both symbols losing their individual identities to jointly represent a third

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sound sh, /ʃ/. In the extensive orthographies of akshara languages there is no such borrowing

of symbols to represent entirely new minimal sounds.

We can hypothesise that there could be a trade-off between the cognitive demands of learning

an orthography and the number of symbols in that writing system. For a child learning the

symbols of an extensive orthography there is a greater demand on memory. First, there are

the primary and secondary forms for all phonemes, second are the rules that govern the use of

these forms in the symbol block and third, the fresh learning required for exceptional akshara.

But there is also the much reduced confusion about which sounds the symbols represent. In

contrast, when a child is learning the symbols of a contained orthography, memory demands

are relatively less but greater cognitive resources have to be available in order to remember

the many ways in which the symbols represent the sounds.

Phases of learning about the akshara

The pace of learning the extensive akshara system is slower than what has been reported in

the contained orthographies (Nag, 2007, Nag & Sircar, 2008, Nag & Snowling, submitted).

While in alphabetic languages, most children learn their letters by the end of the first year in

school, symbol learning continues well into Grades 4 and 5 in the akshara languages.

A simple view of the development of akshara knowledge would be a three step process, each

step linked to mastery of one akshara type. In such a scheme the akshara with inherent

vowels (Ca) are learnt first followed by the akshara with other vowel markers (CV) and

finally the akshara for clusters (CCV). Indeed, this is the way the akshara is taught in many

classrooms. Children however rarely learn in such a compartmentalised manner, and instead

master high frequency akshara earlier than low frequency akshara. Thus in Kannada, the

CCV akshara /kka/ and /mma/ are common in early textbook in words like akka, lekka,

amma, nimma (sister, count, mother, your) and with exposure children typically learn these

akshara alongside the akshara with inherent vowels. In addition, literacy instruction impacts

the pace of akshara learning. When akshara teaching is through explicit instruction of

phoneme markers, the majority of the symbol set is mastered within the first two years (Nag

& Sircar, 2008). When children attend poorly functioning schools their akshara attainments

can be up to 2 years behind children attending efficient, well functioning schools (Nag,

2007).

Apart from the effect of instruction on the pace of learning in the akshara languages, there are

other akshara processing factors that are also impacted. If each akshara is treated like an

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undifferentiated block and every symbol has to be learned anew, development will be slow.

In contrast, if the commonalities across akshara (e.g. the ligaturing rules, the position rules

for primary vs secondary forms) are abstracted, the segmental details within the symbol block

can become cues for learning. New akshara can be constructed and the demand on rote

memory will be considerably reduced. In turn, the two different approaches may merge,

moving the reader to a strategic phase. The level of knowledge about a particular sound-

symbol mapping may decide which approach is reliable. The global approach may be used

for akshara that are completely learnt and have reached a high degree of automaticity for

recognition and writing. The analytic approach may be called upon when akshara are new

and unfamiliar. Given the extensive nature of the akshara symbol set, the strategic use of

global and analytic strategies arguably remains necessary even among mature readers and

spellers. Figure 3 gives a schematic representation of this three phase process of akshara

learning.

Figure 3: Phases of akshara learning

Spelling, Reading and Akshara Knowledge

Spelling words

There are two aspects of a word that appear to contribute to spelling errors: the type of

akshara and the position of the akshara in a word. In Kannada, Nag, Treiman and Snowling

(2010) found that the strongest unique predictor of spelling performance among both skilled

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and less skilled 8 to 10 year old spellers was akshara-type with position being an additional

unique predictor for the less skilled spellers. At the earlier stages of spelling acquisition,

simple types of akshara, particularly in the beginnings of words were easier to spell. As

spelling skills matured the visually complex CCV akshara remained a challenge but accuracy

was assured for all other akshara irrespective of where they were positioned in a word.

Similar developmental trends have been recorded in a survey in Bengali (Nag & Sircar, 2008)

and case studies in Hindi. These findings highlight that the orthographic features of the

writing system are a significant factor in spelling in the akshara languages. Returning to the

Kannada spelling survey (Nag et al, 2010), we also found that the length of the word was no

longer a unique predictor of spelling after variance had been explained by akshara

characteristics. This is perhaps because Kannada is a language with a simple syllable

structure and the relative predominance of CV syllables over CCV syllables in Kannada

makes it possible to spell most parts of a word accurately. Taken together, the trends in our

surveys suggest that word length does not have the same impact on spelling in akshara

languages as has been reported in alphabetic languages.

Apart from the impact of the type of akshara symbol on spelling, there are further trends in

the error patterns that suggest a strong impact of orthographic features on spelling

development. The first effect is seen in the spelling of consonants and vowels and the second

in the spelling of consonant clusters. As we have seen, phoneme level sounds in the akshara

language map onto two symbols: the primary and the secondary form. Despite this level of

consistency in the writing system, there are systematic differences in the spelling of the

consonant and the vowel segments in syllables. More consonants are typically spelled with

the primary form and more vowels with the secondary form. These differences impact

spellings on consonants and vowels with errors on akshara being located more often on the

vowel markers than on base consonants. In Hindi, examples of such errors on vowel markers

are seen in the writing of SS, a Grade 4 child with poor spelling: {ÉÖVÉÉ for {ÉÚVÉÉ (/pʊʤa:/ for

/pu:ʤa:/, to pray); SÉÉèÊEònùÉ®ú for SÉÉèEòÒnùÉ®ú (/ʧɔ:kida:r/ for / ʧɔ:ki:da:r/, watchman) and {ÉÖ±ÉÒºÉ

for {ÉÖʱɺÉ) (/pʊli:s/ for /pʊlis/, police). Similar predominance of errors on vowels was

recorded in a survey of spellings in Grades 1 to 5 in Bengali (Nag & Sircar, 2008) and Grades

4 and 5 in Kannada (Nag et al, 2010). The most obvious explanation for the difficulty on

vowels is that children may sometimes miss small marks when learning a spelling. Since

there is not much difference in the relative height and length of symbols in English or other

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alphabetic languages, the role of symbol size in spelling has not been noted in alphabetic

research. The process of mapping phonology to specific diacritics in a symbol block may

also be harder than mapping phonology to base symbols.

The higher error rate on the CCV akshara is of particular interest since confusion may relate

to insecure orthographic knowledge about these later taught and visually more complex

akshara, but equally may be because of phonological confusion in spelling these complex

syllables. A sample of Hindi writing by MY, a 12 year old boy, shows the overlapping nature

of these two sources of confusion (see Figure 4). The Kannada CCV akshara is especially

useful for analysing the competing role of phonological and orthographic processing because,

as mentioned earlier, the written syllable is a mis-sequence of the phonological syllable. If

visuo-spatial sequencing was the problem in spelling these consonant clusters, we should

have found errors in which the vowel diacritic was put in the wrong place. Such errors in the

ligature position of the vowel diacritic in the CCV akshara did not occur much, if at all, by

Grades 4-5. Instead, we found several errors, particularly on the mixed consonant clusters,

where the second consonant was inserted in-line with the vowel diacritic. It is plausible that

such in-line errors are an attempt to map the written sequence to the temporal sequence of the

phonological syllable. Arguably, they reflect an analytic approach to spelling (rather than use

of akshara only for their global features). This is one line of evidence for the proposition that

children show an analytic processing of the akshara even if they have begun by learning of

the akshara globally as symbol blocks.

Figure 4: Sample of Hindi writing

Child MY, age 12 yrs. 2 mnths.

With correct spelling: =ºÉxÉä =xɺÉä ʨɱÉxÉä EòÒ <SUôÉ |ÉEò]õ EòÒ* usne unse milne ki ichchha prakat ki. (She expressed a wish to meet him.)

The extensive nature of the akshara systems repeatedly brings up the question of whether

errors in spelling are because of confusion within the orthographic knowledge domain or

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whether there is confusion in the phonological processing of component sounds in a word.

The errors on vowels are a case in point. Secondary forms of vowels are mis-spelt by either

reverting to the inherent vowel, or by using the contrasting vowel within the short-long vowel

length pair. Typically, the short vowels are prone to being dropped, with reversion back to

the inherent vowel. These errors may occur for phonological reasons since sometimes short

vowels are dropped in speech. Among long vowels however the substitution is more often

with the short vowel in the pair. In Kannada, such a substitution would appear to have an

orthographic basis because the short vowel is derived by doing away with an additional

diacritic feature of the long vowel. But in the Hindi and Bengali akshara the extent to which

visual features are shared by long and short vowel markers is reduced. We found the

confusion with vowel length to also occur in Hindi and Bengali thus weakening the

orthographic explanation and strengthening a phonological explanation for the spelling errors

(Nag and Sircar, 2008).

The impact of dialect on spelling is another trend that points to the stronger role of the

phonological domain when compared to the orthographic domain. In keeping with cross-

linguistic studies in the alphabetic languages, learning to spell accurately is harder on those

sounds that are different in children’s spoken language environment when compared to the

written form. Some children find the inconsistency between sound-to-spelling that is caused

by these dialect features hard to spell. In Kannada for example, we found specific sounds

such as the glottal /h/ harder to spell accurately because of a specific dialect feature that

introduced inconsistency between the spoken form and the standard written form (Nag et al,

2010).

We need more empirical research to tease out the role of prolonged confusion particularly

with regard to low frequency akshara. We know that by the fourth and fifth year of school

the frequency of global substitutions of whole akshara with visually plausible alternatives are

rare. Instead we see more errors in the component parts of an akshara, suggesting that

phonological confusion plays a greater role than orthographic confusion in spelling. Further,

if rote memorisation of whole akshara remained the predominant way in which akshara are

used then we should have seen visually similar substitutions continue even at the end of

primary school. But instead we find children’s errors reflecting confusion with the phonemic

sub-components within an akshara suggesting that an important factor for spelling

development in akshara languages is alpha-syllabic knowledge. Children must gain mastery

over the symbol block and its constituent segments.

305

Box 1: Catalogue of errors among typically developing Kannada spellers

(from Nag, Treiman and Snowling, 2010)

Word level errors - Longer words are more vulnerable to errors than shorter words. - Words that contain consonant clusters are the most difficult, followed by words

that contain akshara with vowels other than /a/. The easiest words to spell arethose that contain only akshara with the inherent vowel.

Akshara level errors - The more number of diacritics carried by an akshara, the more errors may occur.

The most frequent errors are on consonant clusters, followed by consonants withvowel diacritics. The least errors are on akshara with the inherent vowel.

- In the beginning stages of spelling competence, not only does the degree ofcomplexity of the akshara matter, but also its position in a word. Thus the latersounds in a word are more susceptible to error than the initial sounds.

Intra-akshara level errors - More errors occur on the vowel than the consonant components in an akshara. - Among consonants, errors are typically substitutions with another consonant. The

substituted consonant is typically o from within the same phonetic class (e.g. the velar class: /k/ with /g/) o between the voiced and unvoiced phoneme pairs (e.g. /dh/ for /d/) o between pairs that differ in only one articulatory feature (e.g. the liquids: /l/

and /L/) - Among vowels, errors are typically substitutions with another vowel.

o for short vowels the substitution is often with the inherent vowel /a/ o for long vowels the substitution is often with the contrasting short vowel

(e.g. /e/ for /e:/) - Among consonant clusters, errors are typically with the diacritic segments

o more errors are with the consonant diacritic rather than the vowel diacritic o among consonant diacritics, there are more errors when the diacritic is a

completely new symbol and not a miniaturised symbol of the primary formo mixed consonant clusters (e.g. /lv/, /sv/) are more difficult to spell than

geminates (/kk/, /bb/) o among mixed consonant clusters, the second consonant may either be

substituted by a primary form or may be dropped altogether

306

Reading attainments

Not surprising, the role of akshara knowledge on reading development is also substantial. In

Hindi, case records of children with low reading accuracy and reading speed in Grades 5 and

6 show that they began as slow learners of the Hindi akshara in Grades 1 and 2 (Nag, 2010).

For most of these children, the akshara with vowel markers and the akshara for consonant

clusters were particularly difficult, but for a small sub-group of children even the simple

akshara with inherent vowels were difficult to learn. For SS, the 8 year old whose difficulties

with spelling were reported earlier, learning the symbols for the voiced and unvoiced Hindi

consonants was also confusing (‘The /t/, /th/, /d/, /dh/ is too much!’). A qualitative analysis of

his errors during reading showed difficulty with voiced-unvoiced sounds (SÉÒiÉ for VÉÒiÉ (/ʧi:t/

for /ʤi:t/, victory) and aspirated-unaspirated sounds (¤É®ú for ¦É®ú (/bər/ for /bhər/, to fill)).

Similar trends were found in Bengali among children who were in a literacy teaching

environment where an analytic approach to akshara knowledge was explicitly supported (Nag

& Sircar, 2008). There was a significant correlation between children’s level of akshara

knowledge and their reading accuracy scores across all Grades from 1 to 4. In similar vein, in

Kannada, for 5th and 6th Grade children who had been taught using the ‘look –say’ method,

there was also a strong correlation between akshara knowledge and reading skill (Nag &

Snowling, 2010). Moreover, more than 80% of poor readers of Kannada were found to have

very limited akshara knowledge. While the cognitive profiles of poor readers showed

difficulties in multiple domains including oral language, phonological processing, speed of

processing and visual processing, akshara knowledge emerged as the single most common

area of deficit (see Figure 5 for details). Taken together, these findings confirm with startling

clarity the somewhat downplayed trends reported in alphabetic languages that growth in

orthographic knowledge is a critical determinant of future reading attainment (e.g., Torppa,

Poikkeus, Laakso, Eklund & Lyytinen, 2006).

Figure 5 Percentage of poor readers according to domains of difficulty (adapted from Nag & Snowling, 2010)

Naming Speed 6.9%

Oral Language

3.4%

3.4%

All five domains 13.8%

Visual Processing

37.9%6.9%

Phonological processing17.2%

Akshara knowledge (orthographic knowledge)

6.9%

308

An interesting connection can also be observed between increasing akshara knowledge,

increasing reading development and phonological development. In a four year longitudinal

study, Nag (2007) examined two aspects of phonological development - syllable awareness

and phoneme awareness. In Grades 1-2 when children mainly knew the akshara with

inherent vowels, associations were seen with syllable awareness; phoneme awareness was

exceptionally low. By Grades 3-4, when knowledge for the akshara with distinct phoneme

markers (/CV/ and /CCV/) had emerged, the association with phoneme awareness had

become significant. In addition children who started off with better akshara knowledge in

Grades 1-2 typically maintained the advantage in later years. We also found that syllable

awareness in Grades 1-2, but not phoneme awareness, predicted akshara knowledge in

Grades 3-4. However, there was nonetheless a reciprocal relationship between akshara

knowledge and phoneme awareness, with earlier knowledge about phoneme markers in the

akshara predicting later phonemic awareness. These findings offer another line of evidence

for the proposed global and analytic phases in akshara knowledge. In the early stages of

learning the symbols appear to be treated globally as syllable blocks, but with time, more

attention is paid to phonemic markers suggestive of a change to a more analytical

understanding of the akshara. The growth appears to be a shift from treating the akshara

system as a syllabary to treating it like an alphasyllabary. Based on this and other findings

about the mapping of phonology to orthography, we have proposed that skilled reading in the

akshara languages requires abstracting the ‘alphasyllabic principle’ of the writing system

(Nag & Snowling, submitted).

Concluding comments:

The alphasyllabic nature of the akshara writing system is often considered an elegant

compromise between an alphabet and a syllabary. Research with alphabetic languages has

highlighted one challenge to literacy learning: the need to segment speech into phonemic

units (Goswami & Bryant, 1994). Research from the akshara languages shows that there is

an additional challenge to learning to become literate - learning to segment written symbols

into their component parts. When this alphasyllabic principle has been abstracted the

accuracy of spelling and reading words improves substantially.

309

Acknowledgements

This chapter was written while the author was a Newton International Fellow of the Royal

Society (UK) at the University of York. She would like to acknowledge her collaborators

Margaret Snowling, Rebecca Treiman, Shruti Sircar, and between 2004 and 2007, project

members at the National Institute of Advanced Studies and Department of Education,

Chamarajanagara District, Karnataka. Finally, the author acknowledges with deep gratitude

the unstinting support she has received from all at The Promise Foundation and the children

who participated in the surveys and individual sessions.

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