Setswana conventions
===================

Setswana contains 7 vowels: /a/, /e/, /I/, /i/, /o/, /U/ and /u/.
While /a/, /i/ and /u/ are easily identifiable from the language orthography,
both /e/ and /I/ are transcribed using the single grapheme e, and both /o/ and
/U/ are transcribed using the grapheme o. 

From the dictionary development process it became clear that the /e/ vs /I/ and
/o/ vs /U/ distinction are made in different ways by different speakers. When
this was evaluated using different subjects, the inter-speaker consistency was
low. 

These inter-speaker discrepancies are currently the subject of ongoing
research. In the interim, two versions of the dictionary are being made
available, a 7-vowel version, and a 5-vowel version with the e/I and o/U
distinctions merged, for the purposes of technology development.

