Orthography
Orthography is the set of symbols (glyphs and diacritics) used to write a language, as well as
the set of rules that describe how to write them.
A glyph is the shape given in a particular typeface to a specific grapheme or symbol.
A grapheme is a letter, a numerical digit, a punctuation mark, or suchlike.
A diacritic is any mark that is added to a letter to indicate pronunciation, or to differentiate between two similar words.
Alphabets
See also Letters.
Letters (characters) in the Hebrew alphabet |
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22 |
Letters in the Greek alphabet |
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24 |
Characters in the Arabian alphabet |
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28 |
Characters in the Welsh alphabet (including eight
digraphs – 'ch', 'dd', 'll', etc.)
|
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29 |
Letters in the Russian alphabet (including two "modifier letters", or "signs", which alter
the pronunciation of a preceding consonant and/or a following vowel) |
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33 |
Other
& (the "and" sign) |
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Ampersand |
Originated as a ligature of the letters E and T |
Ligature of A and E (either upper or lower case) – used in Old English (but relatively rare in
modern English) |
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Ash |
U–shaped mark over a vowel, to indicate a short sound |
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Breve |
V–shaped mark over a letter to indicate pronunciation, esp. in Eastern European languages |
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Caron or háček |
Mark placed under certain consonant letters to alter pronunciation, particularly in French and Portuguese;
the bottom half of a small cursive z; name is a Spanish diminutive for Z, but the mark is no longer used in Spanish |
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Cedilla |
"Hat–shaped" mark used in various languages, over certain letters, for various purposes |
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Circumflex |
Punctuation mark that shared its name with a body part |
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Colon |
Umlaut when used to show that two vowels are pronounced separately (as in naïve) |
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Diaeresis |
Two letters expressing a single sound (eg. 'ch', 'ou') |
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Digraph |
The 'octothorpe' is an alternative name (not widely used) for the
|
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Hash sign (#) |
Combines a question mark and an exclamation mark; used to express excitement or disbelief when asking a
question – first proposed in 1962 by American advertising executive Martin K. Speckter
|
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Interrobang |
Two characters joined together (e.g. Æ) |
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Ligature |
Line over a vowel to indicate a long sound |
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Macron |
Word commonly used for the division sign (÷): originally a mark (− or ÷) used in
ancient manuscripts to mark a word or passage as spurious, corrupt or doubtful; also a dagger sign (†) used to indicate that a person
is deceased, or to refer to a footnote |
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Obelus |
Printer’s name for a paragraph sign |
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Pilcrow |
Letter used in various north European alphabets, including Old English, but replaced from around the
14th century with the digraph th |
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Thorn (þ) |
Sign over an 'n' in Spanish (as in mañana) |
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Tilde |
The dot over an i or j – or (informally) a generic word for a diacritic |
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Tittle |
Two dots over a letter (e.g. in German) |
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Umlaut |
© Haydn Thompson 2017–22