University Letter

Professor John M. Clifton will discuss “Dialects, Orthography, and Society" during the next Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) colloquium at 8 p.m. Thursday, June 23, in Gamble Hall, room 5.

Clifton proposes that orthography should be considered primarily a social, not linguistic, phenomenon by examining four case studies from Papua New Guinea and Bangladesh. In the situations described, orthography is used primarily as a marker of social identity.

-- Regina Blass, 777-0575, regina.blass@und.edu.