Editing Alphabet (section)

== Orthography and pronunciation ==
{{further|Phonemic orthography}}
When an alphabet is adopted or developed to represent a given language, an [[orthography]] generally comes into being, providing rules for [[spelling]] words, following the principle on which alphabets get based. These rules will map letters of the alphabet to the [[phoneme]]s of the spoken language.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Seidenberg |first=Mark |title=Beyond Orthographic Depth in Reading: Equitable Division of Labor |publisher=Advances in Psychology |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-444-89140-2 |editor-last=Frost |editor-first=Ram |editor-last2=Katz |editor-first2=Leonard}}</ref> In a perfectly [[phonemic orthography]], there would be a consistent one-to-one correspondence between the letters and the phonemes so that a writer could predict the spelling of a word given its pronunciation, and a speaker would always know the pronunciation of a word given its spelling, and vice versa. However, this ideal is usually never achieved in practice. Languages can come close to it, such as Spanish and [[Finnish language|Finnish]]. Others, such as English, deviate from it to a much larger degree.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Nordlund |first=Taru |year=2012 |title=Standardization of Finnish Orthography: From Reformists to National Awakeners |journal=Walter de Gruyter |pages=351–372 |doi=10.1515/9783110288179.351 |isbn=978-3-11-028817-9 |s2cid=156286003 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

The pronunciation of a language often evolves independently of its writing system. Writing systems have been borrowed for languages the orthography was not initially made to use. The degree to which letters of an alphabet correspond to phonemes of a language varies.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rogers |first=Henry |year=1999 |title=Sociolinguistic factors in borrowed writing systems |url=https://twpl.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/twpl/article/view/6264 |journal=Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics |volume=17 }}</ref>

Languages may fail to achieve a one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds in any of several ways:
* A language may represent a given phoneme by combinations of letters rather than just a single letter. Two-letter combinations are called [[digraph (orthography)|digraphs]], and three-letter groups are called [[trigraph (orthography)|trigraphs]]. German uses the [[tetragraph]]s (four letters) "tsch" for the phoneme {{IPA|de|tʃ}} and (in a few borrowed words) "dsch" for {{IPA|[dʒ]}}.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Reindl |first=Donald |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rWAeAQAAMAAJ |title=The Effects of Historical German-Slovene Language Contact on the Slovene Language |publisher=Indiana University, Department of Slavic Languages and Literature. |year=2005 |edition=Digitized |page=90}}{{ISBN?}}</ref> [[Kabardian language|Kabardian]] also uses a tetragraph for one of its phonemes, namely "кхъу."<ref>{{Cite book |title=Dictionaries, An International Encyclopedia of Lexicography |publisher=Walter De Gruyter |year=1991 |volume=3rd}}{{ISBN?}}{{pn|date=November 2024}}</ref> Two letters representing one sound occur in several instances in Hungarian as well (where, for instance, ''cs'' stands for [tʃ], ''sz'' for [s], ''zs'' for [ʒ], ''dzs'' for [dʒ]).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Berecz |first=Ágoston |title=Empty signs, historical imaginaries: the entangled nationalization of names and naming in a late Habsburg borderland |publisher=Berghahn |year=2020 |isbn=978-1-78920-635-7 |location=New York |page=211}}</ref>
* A language may represent the same phoneme with two or more different letters or combinations of letters. An example is [[modern Greek]] which may write the phoneme {{IPA|el|i}} in six different ways: {{gpm|ι}}, {{gpm|η}}, {{gpm|υ}}, {{gpm|ει}}, {{gpm|οι}}, and {{gpm|υι}}.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Campbell |first1=George L. |title=The Routledge Concise Compendium of the World's Languages |last2=King |first2=Gareth |publisher=Routledge |year=2018 |isbn=978-0-367-58125-1 |edition=2nd |page=253}}</ref>
* A language may spell some words with unpronounced letters that exist for historical or other reasons. For example, the spelling of the Thai word for 'beer' {{lang|th|เบียร์}} retains a letter for the final consonant /r/ present in the English word it borrows, but silences it.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Allyn |first1=Eric |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pGJkAAAAMAAJ |title=The Bua Luang What You See is what You Say Thai Phrase Handbook Contemporary Thai-language Phrases in Context, WYSIWYS Easier-to-read Transliteration System |last2=Chaiyana |first2=Samorn |publisher=Bua Luang |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-942777-04-8}}{{pn|date=November 2024}} Note in the pronunciation guide next to "เบียร์" it has it being said as, "Bia"</ref>
* Pronunciation of individual words may change according to the presence of surrounding words in a sentence, for example, in [[sandhi]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=Advances in Social Science, Education, and Humanities Research: Proceedings of the 2022 6th international Seminar, on Education, Management, and Social Sciences |publisher=Atlantis |year=2022 |isbn=978-2494069305 |editor-last=Strielkowski |editor-first=Wadim |page=644 |editor-last2=Birkök |editor-first2=Mehmet |editor-last3=Khan |editor-first3=Intakhab}}</ref>
* Different dialects of a language may use different phonemes for the same word.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gasser |first=Micheal |date=April 10, 2021 |title=4.5: English Accents |url=https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Anthropology/Linguistics/Book%3A_How_Language_Works_(Gasser)/04%3A_Word_Forms_-_Processes/4.05%3A_English_Accents |access-date=2022-12-15 |website=Social Sci LibreTexts}}</ref>{{bsn|date=September 2024}}
* A language may use different sets of symbols or rules for distinct vocabulary items, typically for foreign words, such as in the Japanese [[katakana]] syllabary is used for foreign words, and there are rules in English for using loanwords from other languages.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Workbook/laboratory manual to accompany Yookoso!: an invitation to contemporary Japanese |publisher=McGraw-Hill |others=Sachiko Fuji, Yasuhiko Tohsaku |year=1994 |isbn=0-07-072293-5 |location=New York}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Durkin |first=Philip |title=Borrowed words: a history of loanwords in English |publisher=Oxford Scholarship Online |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-19-166706-0}}</ref>

National languages sometimes elect to address the problem of dialects by associating the alphabet with the national standard. Some national languages like [[Finnish language|Finnish]], [[Armenian language|Armenian]], [[Turkish language|Turkish]], Russian, [[Serbo-Croatian language|Serbo-Croatian]] ([[Serbian language|Serbian]], [[Croatian language|Croatian]], and [[Bosnian language|Bosnian]]), and [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]] have a very regular spelling system with nearly one-to-one correspondence between letters and phonemes.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Joshi |first=R. Malatesha |title=Handbook of Orthography and Literacy |publisher=Taylor & Francis |others=P. G. Aaron |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-136-78134-6 |location=Hoboken, NJ}}</ref> Similarly, the Italian verb corresponding to 'spell (out),' ''compitare'', is unknown to many Italians because spelling is usually trivial, as Italian spelling is highly phonemic.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kambourakis |first=Kristie McCrary |title=Reassessing the role of the syllable in Italian phonology: an experimental study of consonant cluster syllabification, definite article allomorphy and segment duration |publisher=Routledge |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-00-306197-7 |location=New York}}</ref> In standard Spanish, one can tell the pronunciation of a word from its spelling, but not vice versa, as phonemes sometimes can be represented in more than one way, but a given letter is consistently pronounced. French using [[silent letter]]s, [[nasal vowel]]s, and [[elision]], may seem to lack much correspondence between the spelling and pronunciation. However, its rules on pronunciation, though complex, are consistent and predictable with a fair degree of accuracy.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rochester |first=Myrna Bell |title=Easy French step-by-step: master high-frequency grammar for French proficiency |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-07-164221-7 |location=New York}}</ref>

At the other extreme are languages such as English, where pronunciations mostly have to be memorized as they do not correspond to the spelling consistently. For English, this is because the [[Great Vowel Shift]] occurred after the orthography got established and because English has acquired a large number of loanwords at different times, retaining their original spelling at varying levels.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Denham |first1=Kristin E. |author-link=Kristin Denham |title=Linguistics for everyone: an introduction |last2=Lobeck |first2=Anne C. |author-link2=Anne Lobeck |publisher=Wadsworth |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-4130-1589-8 |location=Boston}}</ref> However, even English has general, albeit complex, rules that predict pronunciation from spelling. Rules like this are usually successful. However, rules to predict spelling from pronunciation have a higher failure rate.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Linstead |first=Stephen |date=2014-12-11 |title=English spellings don't match the sounds they are supposed to represent. It's time to change |url=http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2014/dec/11/mind-your-language-english-spelling |access-date=2022-12-13 |work=The Guardian}}</ref>

Sometimes, countries have the written language undergo a [[spelling reform]] to realign the writing with the contemporary spoken language. These can range from simple spelling changes and word forms to switching the entire writing system. For example, Turkey switched from the Arabic alphabet to a Latin-based [[Turkish alphabet]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zürcher |first=Erik Jan |title=Turkey: a modern history |publisher=I. B. Tauris |year=2004 |isbn=1-4175-5697-8 |edition=3rd |location=London |pages=188–189}}</ref> and [[Kazakh alphabets|Kazakh]] changed from an Arabic script to a Cyrillic script due to the Soviet Union's influence. In 2021, it made a transition to the Latin alphabet, similar to Turkish.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2017-06-28 |script-title=kk:Нұрсұлтан Назарбаев. Болашаққа бағдар: рухани жаңғыру |url=https://egemen.kz/article/nursultan-nazarbaev-bolashaqqa-baghdar-rukhani-zhanhghyru |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170628091133/https://egemen.kz/article/nursultan-nazarbaev-bolashaqqa-baghdar-rukhani-zhanhghyru |archive-date=28 June 2017 |access-date=2022-12-13 |language=kk-Cyrl |newspaper=Egemen.kz }}{{bsn|date=September 2024}}</ref><ref><bdi>[https://www.akorda.kz/ru/legal_acts/decrees/o-perevode-alfavita-kazahskogo-yazyka-s-kirillicy-na-latinskuyu-grafiku О переводе алфавита казахского языка с кириллицы на латинскую графику]</bdi> [On the change of the alphabet of the Kazakh language from the Cyrillic to the Latin script] (in Russian). [[President of the Republic of Kazakhstan]]. 26 October 2017. Archived from the original on 27 October 2017. Retrieved 26 October 2017.{{bsn|date=September 2024}}</ref> The Cyrillic script used to be official in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan before they switched to the Latin alphabet. Uzbekistan is reforming the alphabet to use diacritics on the letters that are marked by apostrophes and the letters that are digraphs.<ref>{{Cite web |title=ÖZBEK ALIFBOSI |url=https://www.evertype.com/standards/uz/uzlat.html |access-date=2022-12-13 |website=www.evertype.com |language=uz}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=12 February 2021 |title=Uzbekistan Aims For Full Transition To Latin-Based Alphabet By 2023 |url=https://www.rferl.org/a/uzbekistan-aims-for-full-transition-to-latin-based-alphabet-by-2023/31099723.html |access-date=2022-12-13 |work=Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty}}{{bsn|date=September 2024}}</ref>

The standard system of symbols used by [[linguist]]s to represent sounds in any language, independently of orthography, is called the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=International Phonetic Association |title=Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: a guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1999 |isbn=0-521-65236-7}}</ref>