Digraph (orthography)
A digraph () or digram is a pair of character (symbol), characters used in the orthography of a language to write either a single phoneme (distinct sound), or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined. Some digraphs represent phonemes that cannot be represented with a single character in the writing system of a language, like in Spanish ''chico'' and ''ocho''. Other digraphs represent phonemes that can also be represented by single characters. A digraph that shares its pronunciation with a single character may be a relic from an earlier period of the language when the digraph had a different pronunciation, or may represent a distinction that is made only in certain dialects, like the English . Some such digraphs are used for purely etymology, etymological reasons, like in French. In some orthographies, digraphs (and occasionally trigraph (orthography), trigraphs) are considered individual letter (alphabet), letters, w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Romanization
In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and transcription (linguistics), transcription, for representing the spoken word, and combinations of both. Transcription methods can be subdivided into ''phonemic orthography, phonemic transcription'', which records the phonemes or units of semantic meaning in speech, and more strict ''phonetic transcription'', which records speech sounds with precision. Methods There are many consistent or standardized romanization systems. They can be classified by their characteristics. A particular system's characteristics may make it better-suited for various, sometimes contradictory applications, including document retrieval, linguistic analysis, easy readability, faithful representation of pronunciation. * Source, or donor language – A system may be tai ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Estonian Orthography
Estonian orthography is the system used for writing the Estonian language and is based on the Latin alphabet. The Estonian orthography is generally guided by phonemic principles, with each grapheme corresponding to one phoneme. Alphabet Due to German and Swedish influence, the Estonian alphabet () has the letters Ä, Ö, and Ü (A, O, and U with diaeresis), which represent the vowel sounds , and , respectively. Unlike German umlauts, they are considered, and alphabetised as, separate letters. The most distinctive letter in the Estonian alphabet, however, is the Õ (O with tilde), which was added to the alphabet in the 19th century by Otto Wilhelm Masing and stands for the vowel . In addition, the alphabet also differs from the Latin alphabet by the addition of the letters Š and Ž (S and Z with caron/háček), and by the position of Z in the alphabet: it has been moved from the end to between S and T (or Š and Ž). The official Estonian alphabet has 27 letters: A, B, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Finnish Orthography
Finnish orthography is based on the Latin script, and uses an alphabet derived from the Swedish alphabet, officially comprising twenty-nine letters but also including two additional letters found in some loanwords. The Finnish orthography strives to represent all morphemes phonology, phonologically and, roughly speaking, the Finnish phonology, sound value of each letter tends to correspond with its value in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) – although some discrepancies do exist. Alphabet The following table describes how each letter in the Finnish alphabet () is spelled and pronounced separately. If the name of a consonant begins with a vowel (usually ), it can be pronounced and spelled either as a monosyllabic or bisyllabic word. In practice, the names of the letters are rarely spelled, as people usually just type the (uppercase or lowercase) glyph when they want to refer to a particular letter. The pronunciation instructions enclosed in slashes are broad Phonetic ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Long Vowel
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived or actual duration of a vowel sound when pronounced. Vowels perceived as shorter are often called short vowels and those perceived as longer called long vowels. On one hand, many languages do not distinguish vowel length phonemically, meaning that vowel length alone does not change the meanings of words. However, the amount of time a vowel is uttered can change based on factors such as the phonetic characteristics of the sounds around it: the phonetic environment. An example is that vowels tend to be pronounced longer before a voiced consonant and shorter before a voiceless consonant in the standard accents of American and British English. On the other hand, vowel length is indeed an important phonemic factor in certain languages, meaning vowel length can change word-meanings, for example in Arabic, Czech, Dravidian languages (such as Tamil), some Finno-Ugric languages (such as Finnish and Estonian), Japanese, Kyrgyz, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in Vowel length, quantity (length). They are usually voice (phonetics), voiced and are closely involved in Prosody (linguistics), prosodic variation such as tone (linguistics), tone, intonation (linguistics), intonation and Stress (linguistics), stress. The word ''vowel'' comes from the Latin word , meaning "vocal" (i.e. relating to the voice). In English, the word ''vowel'' is commonly used to refer both to vowel sounds and to the written symbols that represent them (, , , , , and sometimes and ). Definition There are two complementary definitions of vowel, one Phonetics, phonetic and the other Phonology, phonological. *In the phonetic definition, a vowel is a sound, such as the English language, English "ah" or "oh" , produ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
French Orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French –1200 AD, and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite enormous changes to the pronunciation of the language in the intervening years. Even in the late 17th century, with the publication of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française">first French dictionary by the Académie française, there were attempts to reform French orthography. This has resulted in a complicated relationship between spelling and sound, especially for vowels; a multitude of silent letters; and many homophones, e.g. ''/////'' (all pronounced ) and ''//'' (all pronounced ). This is conspicuous in verbs: ' (you speak), ' (I speak / one speaks) and ' (they speak) all sound like . Later attempts to respell some words in accordance with their Latin etymologies further increased ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Ligature (writing)
In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes or letters are joined to form a single glyph. Examples are the characters and used in English and French, in which the letters and are joined for the first ligature and the letters and are joined for the second ligature. For stylistic and legibility reasons, and are often merged to create (where the tittle on the merges with the hood of the ); the same is true of and to create . The common ampersand, , developed from a ligature in which the handwritten Latin letters and (spelling , Latin for 'and') were combined. History The earliest known script Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieratic both include many cases of character combinations that gradually evolve from ligatures into separately recognizable characters. Other notable ligatures, such as the Brahmic abugidas and the Germanic bind rune, figure prominently throughout ancient manuscripts. These new glyphs emerge alongside the prolife ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Irish Orthography
Irish orthography is the set of conventions used to write Irish. A spelling reform in the mid-20th century led to , the modern standard written form used by the Government of Ireland, which regulates both spelling and grammar. The reform removed inter-dialectal silent letters, simplified some letter sequences, and modernised archaic spellings to reflect modern pronunciation, but it also removed letters pronounced in some dialects but not in others. Irish spelling represents all Irish dialects to a high degree despite their considerable phonological variation, e.g. ("tree") is read in Mayo and Ulster, in Galway, or in Munster. Some words may have dialectal pronunciations not reflected by their standard spelling, and they sometimes have distinct dialectal spellings to reflect this. Alphabet Latin script has been the writing system used to write Irish since the 5th century, when it replaced Ogham, which was used to write Primitive Irish and Old Irish. Prior to the mid- ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Dutch Orthography
Dutch orthography uses the Latin alphabet. The spelling system is issued by government decree and is compulsory for all government documentation and educational establishments. Legal basis In the Netherlands, the official spelling is regulated by the Spelling Act of 15 September 2005. This came into force on 22 February 2006, replacing the Act on the Spelling of the Dutch Language of 14 February 1947. The Spelling Act gives the Committee of Ministers of the Dutch Language Union the authority to determine the spelling of Dutch by ministerial decision. In addition, the law requires that this spelling be followed "at the governmental bodies, at educational institutions funded from the public purse, as well as at the exams for which legal requirements have been established". In other cases, it is recommended, but it is not mandatory to follow the official spelling. The Decree on the Spelling Regulations of 2005–2006 contains the annexed spelling rules decided by the Committee of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
IJ (digraph)
IJ (lowercase ij; ; also encountered as Unicode compatibility characters IJ and ij) is a Digraph (orthography), digraph of the letters ''i'' and ''j''. Occurring in the Dutch language, it is sometimes considered a Ligature (writing), ligature, or a letter in itself. In most fonts that have a separate character for ''ij'', the two composing parts are not connected but are separate glyphs, which are sometimes slightly Kerning, kerned. An ''ij'' in written Dutch usually represents the diphthong , similar to the pronunciation of in "pay", and is preserved in such Dutch spellings as the place-name IJsselmeer. In standard Dutch and most Dutch dialects, there are two possible spellings for the diphthong : ''ij'' and ''ei'', with no clear usage rules. To distinguish between the two, the ''ij'' is referred to as the ("long ''ij''"), the ''ei'' as ("short ''ei''") or simply ''E – I''. In certain Dutch dialects (notably West Flemish and Zeelandic) and the Dutch Low Saxon dialects of Lo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Norwegian Orthography
Norwegian orthography is the method of writing the Norwegian language, of which there are two written standards: Bokmål and Nynorsk. While Bokmål has for the most part derived its forms from the written Danish language and Dano-Norwegian, Danish-Norwegian speech, Nynorsk gets its word forms from Ivar Aasen, Aasen's reconstructed "base dialect", which is intended to represent the distinctive dialectal forms. Both standards use a 29-letter variant of the Latin alphabet and the same orthographic principles. Alphabet The Danish and Norwegian alphabet, Norwegian alphabet is based upon the Latin alphabet and is identical to the Danish alphabet. Since 1917 it has consisted of the following 29 letters. The letters , , , and are not used in the spelling of native Norwegian words. They are rarely used; loanwords routinely have their orthography adapted to the native sound system. Diacritics Norwegian (especially the Nynorsk variant) also uses several letters with diacritic signs: , ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |