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 |
 |
22 |
| Letters in the Greek alphabet |
|
24 |
| Characters in the Arabian alphabet |
|
28 |
| Characters in the Welsh alphabet (including eight
digraphs – 'ch', 'dd', 'll', etc.)
|
|
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) |
|
33 |
Other
| & (the "and" sign) |
|
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) |
|
Ash |
| U–shaped mark over a vowel, to indicate a short sound |
|
Breve |
| V–shaped mark over a letter to indicate pronunciation, esp. in Eastern European languages |
|
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 |
|
Cedilla |
| "Hat–shaped" mark used in various languages, over certain letters, for various purposes |
|
Circumflex |
| Punctuation mark that shared its name with a body part |
|
Colon |
| Umlaut when used to show that two vowels are pronounced separately (as in naïve) |
|
Diaeresis |
| Two letters expressing a single sound (eg. 'ch', 'ou') |
|
Digraph |
| The 'octothorpe' is an alternative name (not widely used) for the
|
|
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
|
|
Interrobang |
| Two characters joined together (e.g. Æ) |
|
Ligature |
| Line over a vowel to indicate a long sound |
|
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 |
|
Obelus |
| Printer’s name for a paragraph sign |
|
Pilcrow |
| Letter used in various north European alphabets, including Old English, but replaced from around the
14th century with the digraph th |
|
Thorn (þ) |
| Sign over an 'n' in Spanish (as in mañana) |
|
Tilde |
| The dot over an i or j – or (informally) a generic word for a diacritic |
|
Tittle |
| Two dots over a letter (e.g. in German) |
|
Umlaut |
© Haydn Thompson 2017–22
