2. Writing

Writing vs. language

→ Writing influences the way people perceive and know language but:

Language should not be equated with writing systems or spelling conventions AND grammar is not orthography or punctuation

→ Statemets like “… is a phonetic language” refer to writing systems not grammar or language

Same language can be written in different systems

<--> Same writing system can be used for entirely different languages

Writing vs. speaking

Priority of spoken language supported by

biological priority: natural acquisition in individual, effort to master writing later
historical priority: speech as defining property of humans for long time
functional priority: wider range of communicative functions, more levels of signalling
structural priority: writing represents spoken word

Writing systems based on meaning

- Logographic: signs represents units of meaning (e.g. Chinese characters in dif. Asian languages, but also 8 or &)

Writing systems based on sounds

- Syllabary: signs represent syllables

- Alphasyllabary: signs represent combinations of consonant and vowel (default vowel unexpressed)

- Consonantal alphabet: signs represent consonants (with vowels unexpressed, indicated partially or optionally)

- Alphabet: signs represent sounds (consonant and vowels)

The Latin alphabet

historically most alphabetic writing systems derive from consonantal alphabet developed by Phoenician civilisation around 1100 BCE → Origin still reflected in
- name of greek letters
- ordering of letters
- shape of many signs
Phoenician → Greek alphabet → Etruscan → Latin
Latin later enriched though diacritics (á), ligatures (ae) and other modified symbols → to suit needs of hundreds of languages

Writing English

early Middle Ages: Old English also written in runic alphabet
course of history alphabet used for English included:
- borrowed runes
- ligatures (saet)
- diacritics (ding)
- a variant of (g) pronounced j: jear
- a variant of (s) in certain positions: finnes (sins)
Modern English 26 letters of Latin alphabet
- including modern distinction (i): (j) and (u) : (v)
- and medieval addition (w)
only exceptionally preserves special characters and diacritics:
- ligature: encyclopaedia
- cedilla: faćade,,,
- diearesis: Bronte”
- grave accent: learnèd
- acute accent: fiancé
- circumflex accent: r^ole
- tilde: El Nino
- macron: Ma-ori

History of spelling English:

originally based on medieval sound values of Latin letters
heavily influenced by habits of French scribes and ideals of Humanist scholars
gradually standardised from 14th century onwards, especially after invention of printing press 1476
muddled by loanwords from different sources

Fails to reflect

→ spelling reforms have been proposed since 16th century but never materialised

Principles of spelling

- Historical spelling:

words spelled the way they were pronounced in earlier stages of language
loanwords introduce additional letter-sound correspondences foreign to language (e.g. pizza)

- Morphological principle:

element of meaning is spelled same even though pronounciation varies (e.g. used, produced)

Modern English spelling has been shaped by all sorts of coincidences (e.g. island spelled with s because it was wrongly associated with Latin insula)

→ modern English spelling has systematic shortcomings:

→ pronounciation of many English words cannot be predicted from spelling

Scholarly transcription

→ How to write sounds:

to identify speech sounds in written, invention of system of graphic symbols called transcription → Free from shortcomings of traditional orthography

International Phonetic Asscociation (IPA): phonetic alphabet is standardised set of symbols which have only one exactly defined sound value each

Basic conventions: