A phonemic orthography is an orthography in which the graphemes correspond consistently to the language's phonemes, or more generally to the language's diaphonemes.[1] Phonemic orthographies have the highest possible level of orthographic depth, as they have exact grapheme to phoneme correspondence.
For a systemic analysis of the phoneme/grapheme correspondence, Petr Sgall distinguishes two conditions, both of which are to be satisfied for a phonemic orthography:[2]
- in any context, a given grapheme is pronounced as the same phoneme ("uniqueness of pronunciation")
- in any context, a given phoneme is written with the same grapheme ("uniqueness of spelling")
Phonetic orthography
editIn the past, the term phonetic orthography was used to refer to various proposals of phonetic English-language spelling reforms,[3] e.g., by J.I.D. Hinds[4][5] or Tobias Witmer.[6]
On the other hand, Morris Swadesh defined "phonetic orthography" or "phonetic alphabet" as a writing system to make a phonetic record using symbols for "selected characteristic points in the total range of possible speech sounds",[1]: 365 this is more commonly referred to as "phonetic transcription".
See also
editReferences
edit- 1 2 Morris, Swadesh (June 1934). "The Phonemic Principle". Language. 10 (2). Linguistic Society of America: 117–129.
- ↑ Petr Sgall, "Towards a Theory of Phonemic Orthography", In book: Orthography and Phonology, pp. 1-30, p. 10
- ↑ Wolman, David (2009). Righting the Mother Tongue: From Olde English to Email, the Tangled Story of English Spelling. HarperCollins.
- ↑ Smyth, B. B. (1893-10-13). "A Phonetic Orthography". Science. 22 (558). American Association for the Advancement of Science: 207–208. JSTOR 1766246.
- ↑ Hinds, J.I.D. (1893-07-21). "A New Orthography". Science. 22 (546). American Association for the Advancement of Science: 34–35. JSTOR 1766199.
- ↑ Witmer, Tobais (1876). A System of Phonetic Spelling
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