STANDARDIZING SAAHO WRITING SYSTEM (A Study on the Irob dialect-Focus on students’ textbook)

Saaho, the language of the Irob people in northeastern Tigray, was introduced into education in 2010 with its own orthography. However, the system has not yet been standardized, creating challenges in reading and writing as well as a lack of shared understanding among native speakers. To address this gap, this thesis, titled “Standardizing the Saaho Writing System,” focuses on developing a more consistent system of writing. Informants were selected purposively, including Saaho language experts such as mediators, lecturers, textbook developers, and teachers.Primary data were collected from students’ text books by observation. then Focus Group Discussion was employed (FGDs) based on the variations in the writing of clitics, conjunctions, connecters, tonal symbols, modifiers, possessive pronouns, imperatives beginning with ɑ, cases of elision and deletion, the use of lə and jə, and allophonic variation. As a result, those variations affect students’ and speakers’ ability on writing and reading. The analysis, conducted qualitatively, revealed that the absence of a standardized set of rules is the main cause of these inconsistencies. The thesis proposes conventions to guide orthography writing system: front and post-positional clitics should generally be written separately, with tonal symbols omitted unless the clitic functions as part of a noun or ends in a single consonant. Possessive, interrogative, and negation markers should also be written separately, while tonal symbols are applied only to independent root words. The contextual usage of lə and jə is clarified with specific rules and identified allophones may be used interchangeably. The significance of this thesis lies in fostering a unified writing system for Saaho, contributing to improved literacy and shared understanding among its speakers. Furthermore, it provides a reference for future studies on Saaho and related languages and offers valuable insights for linguists working on language standardization.