Orthographic System Research Articles

The Ambiguity of the Relations between Graphemes and Phonemes in the Persian Orthographic System

In this paper, the degree to which Persian orthography deviates from transparency is quantified and evaluated. We investigate the relations between graphemes and phonemes in Persian, in which the writing system is not fully representative of the spoken language, mostly due to the omission of the short-vowel graphemes. We measure the degree of the Persian orthographic system transparency using a heuristic mathematical model. We apply the same measures to orthographic systems of other languages and compare the results to those obtained for Persian. The results show a relatively high degree of transparency in Persian when it comes to writing, but a low degree of transparency when it comes to reading. We also consider models that avoid the problems related to the short vowels in Persian and these models demonstrate a considerable decrease of the uncertainty in the Persian orthographic system.

Early Literacy Skills and Later Reading and Writing Performance Across Countries: The Effects of Orthographic Consistency and Preschool Curriculum

BackgroundStudies have reported a strong association between children's early literacy skills at preschool and their reading and writing skills at primary school. However, it is unclear whether this association is affected by language and curriculum practices.ObjectiveThe study investigates (i) whether early literacy skills are influenced by orthographic consistency and by preschool curriculum, and (ii) how early skills are related to later literacy skills across countries.MethodThree countries, Italy (n = 73), Romania (n = 65), and Belgium (n = 109) were involved in the study, for a total of 247 children. Language and early literacy in preschool were assessed using a novel assessment tool (the ‘Talk’). Early visual-phonological and manual aspects integration were investigated using rapid automatized naming and grapho-motor tasks. The children’s reading and writing skills nine months later were assessed using standardized tests.ResultsResults showed higher early literacy scores for the groups of children speaking languages with more transparent orthographic systems and for the group taking part in preschool activities designed to enhance literacy acquisition. Later reading and writing skills were predicted by early competences, albeit with differences across countries.ConclusionsFindings suggest that literacy acquisition trajectories are not only associated with early skills but are also influenced by language characteristics and curriculum practices. The study also presents preliminary findings relative to the ‘Talk’, an assessment tool that may have important implications for early identification and intervention of language and literacy difficulties, as well as for improving cross-country curriculum practices.

On the specific graphic, orthographic and morphological features of the usus of the monastic scriptoria of Nuremberg in the 15th century

The article examines the graphic, spelling and morphological features characteristic for medieval texts created in Nuremberg. The study involves spiritual literature created in various Nuremberg scriptoria. Each investigated text is considered as an integral and independent graphic and spelling system, consisting of interrelated elements. Following features presented in the studied manuscripts are revealed in the course of the analysis of the texts: the Middle and Early New High German features, features characteristic of the Southeastern, East Frankish and Nuremberg dialects, as well as the spelling features. The reasons for the differences between the graphic and spelling systems of the studied texts from the phonetic system of Early New High German and intertextual differences are subject to interpretation. The analysis of the scriptoria peculiarities makes it possible to determine the place of graphic and orthographic systems in the context of Early New High German linguistic dynamics, as well as the degree of influence of various dialects on them. When considering the graphic and orthographic features of the studied texts, the specificity of the written fixation of Early New High German is taken into account as well as the fact that the urban written language and the urban dialect are different sources of influence on the formation of the written tradition of each scriptorium. This study allows to conclude about the degree of independence of the graphic and spelling systems of manuscripts and about the usability of the norms of the written language of the period under study.

Sensitivity to distributional properties of the orthography in the spelling of Italian children with dyslexia.

The study examines statistical learning in the spelling of Italian children with dyslexia and typically developing readers by studying their sensitivity to probabilistic cues in phoneme-grapheme mappings. In the first experiment children spelled to dictation regular words and words with unpredictable spelling that contained either a high- or a low-frequency (i.e., typical or atypical) sound-spelling mappings. Children with dyslexia were found to rely on probabilistic cues in writing stimuli with unpredictable spelling to a greater extent than typically developing children. The difficulties of children with dyslexia on words with unpredictable spelling were limited to those containing atypical mappings. In the second experiment children spelled new stimuli, that is, pseudowords, containing phonological segments with unpredictable mappings. The interaction between lexical knowledge and reliance on probabilistic cues was examined through a lexical priming paradigm in which pseudowords were primed by words containing related typical or atypical sound-to-spelling mappings. In spelling pseudowords, children with dyslexia showed sensitivity to probabilistic cues in the phoneme-to-grapheme mapping but lexical priming effects were also found, although to a smaller extent than in typically developing readers. The results suggest that children with dyslexia have a limited orthographic lexicon but are able to extract regularities from the orthographic system and rely on probabilistic cues in spelling words and pseudowords.

The effect of orthographic systems on the developing reading system: Typological and computational analyses.

Orthographic systems vary dramatically in the extent to which they encode a language's phonological and lexico-semantic structure. Studies of the effects of orthographic transparency suggest that such variation is likely to have major implications for how the reading system operates. However, such studies have been unable to examine in isolation the contributory effect of transparency on reading because of covarying linguistic or sociocultural factors. We first investigated the phonological properties of languages using the range of the world's orthographic systems (alphabetic, alphasyllabic, consonantal, syllabic, and logographic), and found that, once geographical proximity is taken into account, phonological properties do not relate to orthographic system. We then explored the processing implications of orthographic variation by training a connectionist implementation of the triangle model of reading on the range of orthographic systems while controlling for phonological and semantic structure. We show that the triangle model is effective as a universal model of reading, able to replicate key behavioral and neuroscientific results. The model also generates new predictions deriving from an explicit description of the effects of orthographic transparency on how reading is realized and defines the consequences of orthographic systems on reading processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Ẹdo Orthography: The Compelling Need for Harmonization and Standardization

The earliest attempts at reducing the Ẹdo language to writing were the singular efforts of the colonial administrators with the aim of facilitating communication with the people. Records show that the writing system of the time, and its subsequent post-colonial reviews, lack the basic criteria that characterize a good orthography and show evidences of the direct adoption of European (mostly English) writing systems for the language. This study presents primary data that include synchronic written texts by Ẹdo writers with the aim of examining whether or not the Ẹdo writing system (as currently used) is consistent with established principles of a good orthography. Results of the study reveal that the writings of the average Ẹdo writer violate the orthographic principles of consistency, simplicity, accuracy, one sound-one letter/digraph, and harmonization. A phonetic-based orthographic system made up of thirty-nine (39) letters of the roman alphabet representing each of the thirty-nine distinctive sounds in the language on a one sound-one letter/digraph basis, in addition to other writing conventions, is proposed for the language. It is recommended that immediate and deliberate steps should be taken by all relevant stakeholders to halt the glaring trend of a 'free-for-all' writing system by organizing regular specialized seminars, workshops and conferences, for the purpose of harmonizing and standardizing the Ẹdo orthography.

The advanced acquisition of orthography in heritage Turkish in Germany

AbstractThe paper investigates Turkish texts from heritage speakers of Turkish in Germany in a pseudo-longitudinal setting, looking at pupils’ texts from the 5th, 7th, 10th and 12th grades. Two types of dynamics are identified in the advanced acquisition1of Turkish orthography in the heritage context. One is the dynamic of language contact, where in certain areas of the orthography, we find a re-interpretation of Turkish principles according to the German model. However, this changes as the pupils grow up. The second dynamic is the heritage situation. The heritage situation on one side leads to the establishment of new practices, and it also leads to a higher degree of variability of spelling solutions in those areas, where the orthographic system of Turkish poses challenges to every writer, whether monolingual and growing up in Turkey or heritage speaker.2

Правопис у настави српског језика (на примеру скраћеница)


 
 
 Будући да су скраћенице у комуникацији веома фреквентне, циљ рада и истраживања био је да се утврди колико свршени средњошколци познају правописна правила у вези са скраћивањем речи. Испитивање се вршило на основу анкете. У истраживању је учествовало 160 испитаника. Анализиране су скраћенице и у наставним програ- мима за основну и средњу школу и правописна правила у вези са њиховим писањем у Правопису српскога језика Матице српске. Покушали смо да утврдимо које се грешке јављају, зашто до њих долази и понудимо могућа решења која би утицала на то да оваквих грешака буде све мање.
 
 

The phonological process of Rongga language from the phonemic into phonetic realization

PurposeThe current study aims firstly to explain the origin of the morphemic segments of Rongga language, either at the phonological or the phonetic level and the terms of the morphemic structure of Rongga, whether related to positive or if-then conditions. The second objective is to describe the phonological process of Rongga from the changing process of phonemic into phonetic realization.Design/methodology/approachAs far as the methodology is concerned, three methods are applied including (1) method of collecting data, (2) data analysis methods and (3) method of presenting the result of data analysis. The literary method is defined as a way of obtaining written materials that can support the primary data as additional data.FindingsThe findings of compression placement on Rongga reveal that firstly, the monosyllabic words, whether or not preceded by a consonant, whether or not preceded by a consonant stressed on a single syllable and whether or not preceded by a consonant or before the second syllable, both of which either precedes the consonant or do not follow a word boundary. Second, three and four monosyllabic words will be stressed on the last syllable if they precede the consonant or not.Originality/valueThe results are expected to be considered as one of the primary contributions to the determination of the orthographic system of Rongga, in particular, the consonant and unique vowel in Rongga.

Reading and reading-related skills in adults with dyslexia from different orthographic systems: a review and meta-analysis.

An individual diagnosed with dyslexia in childhood typically remains dyslexic throughout his/her life. However, the cognitive profile of adults with dyslexia has been less explored than that of children. This meta-analytic study is intended to clarify three questions: (1) To what extent, and in what manner, do adults with reading difficulties (dyslexia) differ from typical adult readers in measures of reading and writing competence and related cognitive skills?; (2) To what extent do speed measures pose a greater challenge than accuracy measures in an adult population that has already had years of print exposure?; and (3) To what extent does orthographic transparency modulate the reading profile of adults with dyslexia? A total of 178 studies comparing adults with dyslexia and matched controls were reviewed. The results showed that adults with dyslexia exhibited poor performance on almost all reading and writing tasks expressed by very large effect sizes (range 1.735≤ d ≤2.034), except for reading comprehension (d = 0.729). Deficits in reading- and writing-related variables are also present but with a lower expression (range 0.591≤ d ≤1.295). These difficulties are exacerbated for speed measures, especially for word and pseudoword reading, phonological awareness and orthographic knowledge. Orthographic transparency proved to be a significant moderator of dyslexic deficits in word and pseudoword reading, reading comprehension, spelling and phonological awareness, with the expression of the deficits being weaker on transparent-as opposed to intermediate and opaque-orthographies. Overall, the meta-analysis shows that reading and writing difficulties persist in adulthood and are more pronounced in speed measures. Moreover, symptoms are more severe for reading and writing than they are for measures tapping into the cognitive processes underlying reading skills. Orthographic transparency has a significant effect on the manifestation of dyslexia, with dyslexia symptoms being less marked on transparent orthographies. In addition, phonological awareness seems to be a minor problem in adulthood, especially for transparent orthographies.

Dàj guruguiˈ yumiguiì ‘de como apareció la gente del mundo’: leyenda en triqui de Chicahuaxtla

Chicahuaxtla Triqui is an Otomanguean language spoken in San Andrés Chicahuaxtla and in other neighboring communities in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico. There are two other Triqui languages. One is spoken in San Juan Copala and the other in San Martín Itunyoso. The oral text is a legend entitled Dàj guruguiˈ yumiguiì /da1h ɡuruɡwi3ʔ ʃumiɡwiː313/ ‘How the people of the world appeared’ and is a compilation of several legends about Triqui deities and the creation of the human race as we know it today. In this manuscript, I present a map of the Triqui region, a general description of the Chicahuaxtla Triqui language, its consonant and vowel inventories, tones, information about current and competing orthographic systems and a brief grammatical sketch. The article includes an orthographic representation of the legend with broad and narrow transcription using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) along with a free translation of the text in both Spanish and English.

Supplemental Material for The Effect of Orthographic Systems on the Developing Reading System: Typological and Computational Analyses

Supplemental Material for The Effect of Orthographic Systems on the Developing Reading System: Typological and Computational Analyses

”Wie schrieuwe Seeltersk” – a study of the orthography of Saterland Frisian literary texts

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether literary texts in Saterland Frisian correspond to the written form codified in dictionaries. In order to answer this question, two dictionaries have been investigated: one by Pyt Kramer, and one by Marron C. Fort. Both Kramer and Fort have proposed their own orthographic systems, and made efforts to establish them not only in their respective dictionaries, but in other written works as well. Two literary texts, written by speakers of Saterland Frisian, have been compared to the dictionaries in terms of orthography: one by Gesina Lechte-Siemer, and one by Gretchen Grosser. The results of the investigation show that Lechte-Siemer’s orthography mostly corresponds to that of Kramer. However, Grosser’s text – which is the more recent of the two – does not adhere strictly to either orthographic system, instead combining aspects of both. This indicates that neither Kramer’s nor Fort’s orthography has established itself as standard, and that a degree of flexibility remains when using Saterland Frisian in writing.

One Orthography, Four Lects: The Unified Berawan Orthography

Berawan is an endangered Austronesian language family consisting of four lects, which are Batu Belah, Long Teru, Long Jegan, and Long Terawan. Their settlements are located in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. The impetus for a unified orthography came from the Berawan community, who desire to write their lects consistently and reflecting the way they speak. The unified orthography was developed starting with a phonological analysis of the Berawan lects. This was followed by several orthography workshops and discussions with individual Berawan communities, culminating in a combined orthography workshop in which a unified orthography was agreed upon. The aim of the paper is to provide the groundwork for establishing the unifed orthography of the Berawan language family. A phonological comparison of the four Berawan varieties is included for this purpose. The phonological descriptions are taken from Burkhardt (2014). Smalley’s (1959, 1965) maxim of ‘maximal representation of speech’ and Rogers’s (2005) ‘shallow orthography’ approach are employed. On this basis, issues that arise for graphemic representation of Berawan phonemes are then discussed and the decisions made by the participants of the combined workshops are described. The paper also touches on issues encountered throughout the discussion. The issues that arose are primarily related to the differences in orthographic systems between the Berawan lects and the Malay language. The paper ends with a proposed unified Berawan orthography

A Retrospective Meta-analysis of Semantic-Spatial Comparison of Persian and English Orthographic Systems

A Retrospective Meta-analysis of Semantic-Spatial Comparison of Persian and English Orthographic Systems

Phonotactics, graphotactics and contrast: the history of Scots dental fricative spellings

The spelling conventions for dental fricatives in Anglic languages (Scots and English) have a rich and complex history. However, the various – often competing – graphemic representations (<þ>, <ð>, <y> and <th>, among others) eventually settled on one digraph, <th>, for all contemporary varieties, irrespective of the phonemic distinction between /ð/ and /θ/. This single representation is odd among the languages’ fricatives, which tend to use contrasting graphemes (cf. <f> vs <v> and <s> vs <z>) to represent contrastive voicing, a sound pattern that emerged nearly a millennium ago. Close examinations of the scribal practices for English in the late medieval period, however, have shown that northern texts had begun to develop precisely this type of distinction for dental fricatives as well. Here /ð/ was predominantly represented by <y> and /θ/ by <th> (Jordan 1925; Benskin 1982). In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, this ‘Northern System’ collapsed, due to the northward spread of a London-based convention using exclusively <th> (Stenroos 2004). This article uses a rich body of corpus evidence for fifteenth-century Scots to show that, north of the North, the phonemic distinction was more clearly mirrored by spelling conventions than in any contemporary variety of English. Indeed, our data for Older Scots local documents (1375–1500) show a pattern where <y> progressively spreads into voiced contexts, while <th> recedes into voiceless ones. This system is traced back to the Old English positional preferences for <þ> and <ð> via subsequent changes in phonology, graphemic repertoire and letter shapes. An independent medieval Scots spelling norm is seen to emerge as part of a developing, proto-standard orthographic system, only to be cut short in the sixteenth century by top-down anglicisation processes.

Pareizrakstības kļūdas krievu valodā kā svešvalodā pamatskolā

The purpose of the paper is to determine the most typical and frequently used orthograms to pay attention to, when teaching Russian as a foreign language in a primary school. Our practical experience of teaching and our observation of the process of learning Russian as a foreign language allows us to state and suggest that schools lack systematic and focused teaching of Russian orthography. Pupils make a lot of mistakes because they do not understand the reason why such mistakes occur, they lack orthographic vigilance, i.e., the ability and skills to determine an orthographically “dangerous place”. Most teachers do not include practices and spelling skills of forming orthographic literacy into the context of their class activities and do not know practices of working on orthograms of different types and origin. It is considered that pupils learn Russian orthography through listening comprehension and through books and, thus, remember and memorize the spelling of different words well enough. It is believed that the pupil’s first step in the creation of a system of exercises to form orthographic literacy is the development of a classification of orthograms that are topical and frequent in teaching Russian as a foreign language in a primary school (forms 6–9). Similar research was conducted several decades ago, therefore, it is now necessary to develop and determine the methodology as well as technology for conducting an experiment and revealing the currently most typical orthographic and spelling mistakes. The classification of orthograms has been made with account of a comparative analysis of phonetic, orthographic and graphic systems of the Russian and Latvian languages. For the Latvian audience, it is expedient to single out phonetic and non-phonetic orthograms. Phonetic orthograms are those caused by underdeveloped phonemic awareness, interference of Latvian pronunciation and incorrect articulation of Russian sounds (seven types have been singled out). Non-phonetic orthograms (morphologic and traditional) are true orthograms and their spelling causes difficulties for both Latvian and Russian pupils. To determine the frequency and quality of mistakes in the Russian language, we have performed a diagnostic assessment. The data of our practical research can be used in forecasting mistakes of pupils who study Russian as a foreign language, creating a system of monitoring skills and abilities in writing, developing tests and exercises to contribute to the improvement of orthographic literacy of pupils.

Lexical Ambiguity in Arabic Information Retrieval: The Case of Six Web-Based Search Engines

In recent years, both research and industry have shown an increasing interest in developing reliable information retrieval (IR) systems that can effectively address the growing demands of users worldwide. In spite of the relative success of IR systems in addressing the needs of users and even adapting to their environments, many problems remain unresolved. One main problem is lexical ambiguity which has negative impacts on the performance and reliability of IR systems. To date, lexical ambiguity has been one of the most frequently reported problems in the Arabic IR systems despite the development of different word sense disambiguation (WSD) techniques. This is largely attributed to the limitations of such techniques in addressing the issue of linguistic peculiarities. Hence, this study addresses these limitations by exploring the reasons for lexical ambiguity in IR applications in Arabic as one step towards reliable and practical solutions. For this purpose, the performances of six search engines Google, Bing, Baidu, Yahoo, Yandex, and Ask are evaluated. Results indicate that lexical ambiguities in Arabic IR applications are mainly due to the unique morphological and orthographic system of the Arabic language, in addition to its diglossia and the multiple colloquial dialects where sometimes mutual intelligibility is not achieved. For better disambiguation and IR performances in Arabic, this study proposes that clustering models based on supervised machine learning theory should be trained to address the morphological diversity of Arabic and its unique orthographic system. Search engines should also be adapted to the geographic location of the users in order to address the issue of vernacular dialects of Arabic. They should also be trained to automatically identify the different dialects. Finally, search engines should consider all varieties of Arabic and be able to interpret the queries regardless of the particular language adopted by the user.

Learning to Read in Multilingual Malaysia: A Focus on Bahasa Melayu, Tamil and Chinese

Learning to read fluently is an extremely important skill for all children to acquire. The current article focuses on learning to read in the most widely spoken languages of Malaysia, namely, the national language Bahasa Melayu, Tamil and Chinese. These three unrelated languages have quite distinct writing systems. Bahasa Melayu uses alphabetic Rumi or Roman script, Tamil has an alphasyllabary, and Chinese has a logographic or morphosyllabic writing system. Moreover, many of these children are learning to speak and read in more than one language. When we consider the task of these biscriptal learners, a complex picture emerges, as they may have to learn to map different phonological and orthographic systems. Furthermore, many children in Malaysia have the additional challenge of learning English as a second language. First, a brief review of the characteristics of the three main languages and their orthographies is given. Subsequently, research on phonological awareness, an important skill associated with success in reading, is reviewed. Initially, phonological awareness and reading in single language studies is examined prior to reviewing some research on bilingual learners. As these three languages have rich morphological systems, we will also briefly examine some research on morphological awareness and reading. A review of the literature reveals that children who speak a language with a similar orthography to a second language may have some advantage when learning to read that second language in comparison to children whose first and second languages and orthographies are unrelated.

Matrices of the frequency and similarity of Arabic letters and allographs.

Indicators of letter frequency and similarity have long been available for Indo-European languages. They have not only been pivotal in controlling the design of experimental psycholinguistic studies seeking to determine the factors that underlie reading ability and literacy acquisition, but have also been useful for studies examining the more general aspects of human cognition. Despite their importance, however, such indicators are still not available for Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), a language that, by virtue of its orthographic system, presents an invaluable environment for the experimental investigation of visual word processing. This paper presents for the first time the frequencies of Arabic letters and their allographs based on a 40-million-word corpus, along with their similarity/confusability indicators in three domains: (1) the visual domain, based on human ratings; (2) the auditory domain, based on an analysis of the phonetic features of letter sounds; and (3) the motoric domain, based on an analysis of the stroke features used to write letters and their allographs. Taken together, the frequency and similarity of Arabic letters and their allographs in the visual and motoric domains, as well as the similarities among the letter sounds, will be useful for researchers interested in the processes underpinning orthographic processing, visual word recognition, reading, and literacy acquisition.