orthography

An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and emphasis.

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An orthography is a set of standardized rules for writing a language, covering things like spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and how to divide words on a page. These conventions matter because they help ensure that written communication is consistent and understandable to everyone who reads the language.

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Stack Exchange tag: linguistics.stackexchange.com/tags/orthography
P8168: Seshemetka
P13411: Uzbekistan

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Article

11 sections

Contents

Terminology
Units and notation
Types
Correspondence with pronunciation
Developing literacy
Defective orthographies
See also
References
Works cited
Further reading
External links

An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and emphasis.

Most national and international languages have an established writing system that has undergone substantial standardization, thus exhibiting less dialect variation than the spoken language. These processes 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).