Orthography

Lore & Background

The English word orthography is first attested in the 15th century, ultimately from Ancient Greek: ὀρθός (orthós 'correct') and γράφειν (gráphein 'to write'). Orthography in phonetic writing systems is often concerned with matters of spelling, i.e. the correspondence between written graphemes and the phonemes found in speech. Other elements that may be considered part of orthography include hyphenation, capitalization, word boundaries, emphasis, and punctuation. Orthography describes or defines the symbols used in writing, and the conventions that regulate their use. Most natural languages developed as oral languages and writing systems have usually been crafted or adapted as ways of representing the spoken language. The rules for doing this tend to become standardized for a given language, leading to the development of an orthography that is generally considered 'correct'. In linguistics, orthography often refers to any method of writing a language without judgement as to right and wrong, with a scientific understanding that orthographic standardization exists on a spectrum of strength of convention. The original sense of the word, though, implies a dichotomy of correct and incorrect, and the word is still most often used to refer specifically to a standardized prescriptive manner of writing. Orthographic units, such as letters of an alphabet, are conceptualized as graphemes. These are a type of abstraction, analogous to the phonemes of spoken languages; different physical forms of written symbols are considered to represent the same grapheme if the differences between them are not significant for meaning. For example, in written English, there are two different physical representations (glyphs) of the lowercase Latin letter a: ⟨a⟩ and ⟨ɑ⟩. Since the substitution of either of them for the other cannot change the meaning of a word, they are considered to be allographs of the same grapheme.

Reader's Guide

Orthography is significant because it provides the standardized framework for written communication, enabling literacy, education, and the preservation of languages. The development of orthographic norms occurs through social and political influence at various levels, such as encounters with print in education, the workplace, and the state. Some nations have established language academies in an attempt to regulate aspects of the national language, including its orthography—such as the Académie Française in France and the Royal Spanish Academy in Spain. No such authority exists for most languages, including English. Some non-state organizations, such as newspapers of record and academic journals, choose greater orthographic homogeneity by enforcing a particular style guide or spelling standard such as Oxford spelling. Orthographies can be classified by their correspondence with pronunciation. An orthography in which the correspondences between spelling and pronunciation are highly complex or inconsistent is called a deep orthography (e.g., Navajo). An orthography with relatively simple, consistent correspondences between spelling and pronunciation is called shallow (e.g., Spanish). According to studies, children learn to read and write more quickly in shallow orthographies compared to deeper orthographies. Orthographic mapping is the process of associating phonemes with graphemes, which helps with vocabulary development and reading fluency. Researchers have also argued that deeper orthographies make it challenging for individuals with dyslexia to learn. Orthographic norms can fossilize pronunciation patterns that are no longer routinely observed in speech (e.g., 'would' and 'should'); they can also reflect deliberate efforts to introduce variability for the sake of national identity, as seen in Noah Webster's efforts to introduce easily noticeable differences between American and British spelling (e.g., 'honor' and 'honour'). An orthography based on a correspondence to phonemes may sometimes lack characters to represent all the phonemic distinctions in the language, called a defective orthography. Examples include the lack of any indication of stress in English, or the Arabic and Hebrew alphabets, in which short vowels are normally left unwritten.

Did You Know?

• The English word orthography is first attested in the 15th century, from Ancient Greek meaning 'correct writing'.
• Orthographic norms can fossilize pronunciation patterns no longer routinely observed in speech, such as 'would' and 'should'.
• No language academy exists for most languages, including English.
• Children learn to read and write more quickly in shallow orthographies like Spanish than in deeper orthographies like English.