Written language/Related Articles

Parent topics

Linguistics [r]: The scientific study of language. ^[e]
Language (general) [r]: A type of communication system, commonly used in linguistics, computer science and other fields to refer to different systems, including 'natural language' in humans, programming languages run on computers, and so on. ^[e]

Writing system [r]: A set of signs used to represent a language, such as an alphabet, or a set of rules used to write a language, such as conventions of spelling and punctuation. ^[e]
Orthography [r]: Art or study of correct spelling and grammar according to established usage. ^[e]
Writing [r]: The process of recording thoughts or speech in a visually or haptically retrievable manner. ^[e]
Reading (process) [r]: Process of understanding and gaining knowledge from written text. ^[e]
Alphabet [r]: Writing system in which symbols - single or multiple letters, such as <a> or <ch> - represent phonemes (significant 'sounds') of a language. ^[e]
Letter (alphabet) [r]: Symbol in an alphabetic script, usually denoting one or more phonemes; for example, in the English alphabet the letter <a> can represent the phoneme /æ/ as in mat and /eɪ/ as in mate. ^[e]
Mora [r]: Unit of phonology which organises sequences of segments such as [h] and [o] into larger units (e.g. ほ ho in Japanese) which are subject to phonological rules, such as influencing which syllable in a word is stressed (as in English), or how long a syllable is relative to others (as in Japanese). ^[e]
Grapheme [r]: Unit of written language that may represent one or more phonemes, syllables, morphemes or words; e.g. in English <b> is a grapheme usually representing /b/, and are two graphemes representing in some cases the single phoneme /θ/, in others the single phoneme /ð/. ^[e]

Chinese characters [r]: (simplified Chinese 汉字; traditional Chinese: 漢字) are symbols used to write varieties of Chinese and - in modified form - other languages; world's oldest writing system in continuous use. ^[e]
Kanji [r]: (漢字) Chinese-derived characters used to write some elements of the Japanese language. ^[e]
English spellings [r]: Lists of English words showing pronunciation, and articles about letters. ^[e]
Language planning [r]: In sociolinguistics, the name for any political attempt to change the status of a language in some way or develop new ways of using it, e.g. a government devising laws to promote a language, or scholars producing an official dictionary; the former is status planning (changing the political recognition of a language), the latter corpus planning (changing the way a language is used). ^[e]
Spoken language [r]: An example of language produced using some of the articulatory organs, e.g. the mouth, vocal folds or lungs, or intended for production by these organs; alternatively, the entire act of communicating verbally - what people mean or intend, the words they use, their accent, intonation and so on. ^[e]