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
In 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. Hinds45 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
See also
References
References
- 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