From a post by Alik Gilmullin <gilmy@open.ksu.ras.ru>.
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Alik Gilmullin
Artificial Intelligence Lab
Kazan State University
Kazan, Tatarstan
(gilmy@open.ksu.ras.ru)
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Dear tatarophiler!
As is well known the Latin alphabet contains 26 letters, but in Tatar Language there are at least 32 phonemes. So, there is problem of precise and unique representation of the Tatar words on our computers. It is necessary for correct understanding, search operations and, finally, for the future of the Tatar Language. We offer this agreement.
*********************
Tatar e-mail alphabet
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------------------------------
Tatar phonemes Examples
and its average
appearance in (if it's
Tatar texts (%) necessary)
-------------------------------
A 0.113
E 0.072 *ni (mother)
N 0.070
E 0.068 *t (dog), b*r (one)
I 0.066 bal*k (fish)
R 0.064
L 0.063
K 0.056
T 0.050
I 0.042 k*tap (book), *ke (two)
Y 0.033 ma* (oil)
G 0.030
M 0.028
B 0.028
D 0.028
S 0.027
U 0.025
Sh 0.018 ko* (bird), bi* (fife)
Z 0.016
C 0.015 ki* (evening)
P 0.015
Ng 0.013 ta* (dawn)
U? 0.011 k*l (like), but not "kul"(arm)
O? 0.011 k*l (ashes), but not "kol"(slave)
O 0.010
W 0.007
X? 0.006 *at (letter) May be X=H ?
J? 0.005 *ey (summer)
F 0.003
H 0.003 *em (and)
V 0.002 *okzal (railway station)
J ~ 0.001 *urnal (journal)
P.S. The last two letters appear mostly in Russian loan words.
So, we have following problems:
- - Four vowels (E,I,U,O) and at least one consonant (in our case J) used
twice.
- - Two phonemes (Sh,Ng) consist of two Latin letters.
There are a few ways to solve vowels problem = = "kol (ashes) - kol (slave) problem":
- - koel - kul (like in Germany)
- - kol' - kol (make use of the sinharmony phenomena of Tatar by sign
')
- - kol - qol (like in Yangalif,1929)
- - kol - kol (no difference, recognition by context)
and of course
- - special drivers with required letters (we have it)
- - UNICODE project (in the near future as we hope)