IV SCRIPT AND SPELLING

Korku language does not have its distinct script; however Devanagari script has been adopted by the writers in their books of Madhya Pradesh. There are very few books available for oral tradition of Korku tribe. We found some books of Korku folksongs, folktales that are published but show some discontinuous scripts. They pronounce differently but they write differently.

Korku has some sounds like glottal stop (ʔ) short mid back vowel (O). But Devanagari script can’t fulfill the necessity. Though glottal stop (ʔ) is an allophone of /h/ still it is written as ‘e’ in Devanagari script.

 
	/heʔen/  is written as   हेएन   
	/ḍeʔen/  is written as  डेएन

And for /O/ and /o/, it is written as long one. 

Ex.	/ḍO/  ‘keep’  is written as  डो
 	/korku/ ‘people’   is written as कोरकू

Suprasegmental feature nasalization (   ͂ ) is denoted as adding either chandrabindu (ँ )  or  anuswara (o).  Somewhere ‘न ’ comes for this purpose.   

For  Ex.   		Korku				Devanagari

		hindar				हिन्दार, हिंदार
		sendrəyəba			सेंदरायबा
		manḍi 	 			माँडी




Sometimes extra chandrabindu (ँ ) is added where that words do not pronounce with nasalized vowels.  

For  Ex.		Korku				Devanagri

		mIya				म्याँ

In Devanagri script retroflex stop unvoiced sound ‘ḍ’ is written initially as ‘ड ’ whereas medially and finally as ‘ड ’. But to fulfill the requirement of Korku retroflex sound /ḍ/, they have adopted ‘ड ’ in all the three position, initially, medially and finally and for flap sound /ṛ/ they use as ‘ड ’ in medially and finally.

For  Ex.  		Korku				Devanagri 	

		ḍaḍa				डाडा   
		manḍi 				माँडी   
		baḍon				बाडोन
		ḍoḍo				डोडो
		ḍaḍun				डाडून  	
		ḍiḍom 				डिडोम  


Vowels: 
		Korku				Devanagri

		i				ई
		I 				इ
		e				ऐ
		E				ए
		ə				अ
		a				आ
		u				ऊ
		U 				उ
		o				ओ
		O				ओ	

Consonants

		p				प
		pʰ				फ
		b				ब
		bʰ				भ
		m				म
		t				त
		tʰ				थ
		d				द
		dʰ				ध
		n				न
		ṭ				ट
		ṭʰ				ठ
		ḍ				ड़
		ḍʰ				ढ़
		c				च
		cʰ				छ
		j				ज
		jʰ				झ
		ñ				ञ
		k				क
		kʰ				ख
		g				ग
		gʰ				घ
		ŋ				ङ [o] (anuswara) 
		s				स
		l				ल
		r				र	
		h				ह
		ṛ				ड
		w				व
		y				य

Again in case of palatal nasal ñ, they pronounce as ‘ञ ’ . For example, they have a term /iñ/ for first person pronoun ‘⌶’, while writing in Devanagari script, they prefer to write it as:-

[इंज ]     instead of writing    [इंञ ]   

In some other examples, where the sound /-ñ/ come, they write as /-nj/, such as: -

Korku		        	Devanagari
b⌶ñj      	बिञ्ज         		बिन्ज
s⌶ñj	सिञ्ज		सिन्ज
k⌶ñj	किञ्ज		किन्ज

Somewhere for the same sound /-ñ/ they also use /-yã/, such as: -

iña    	इंञा

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