The Representation of Vowel Duration in Civili Dictionaries

Abstract

Civili is a developing language spoken in Gabon and in a few neighbouring coun-tries. This article focuses on the representation of vowel duration in Civili dictionaries. The repre-sentation in these dictionaries is inconsistent. In the article, it is argued that this inconsistency stems from a twofold phonetic-phonological issue, which has implications for the word writing system of the language. The article provides an assessment of the existing orthography proposals for Civili and offers materials for a new proposal that takes the vowel duration issue into account. Subsequently, it is recommended that vowel duration be represented by a diaeresis above the vowel for both the orthography and the lemmatization in reference works such as dictionaries and school and religious textbooks.

Keywords: vowel duration, civili, dictionaries, orthography, phonetic-phonological issue, word writing system