Spelling

Spelling is a set of conventions that regulate the way of using graphemes to represent a language in its written form. In other words, spelling is the rendering of speech sound (phoneme) into writing (grapheme). Spelling is one of the elements of orthography, and highly standardized spelling is a prescriptive element. Spelling is a set of conventions that regulate the way of using graphemes to represent a language in its written form. In other words, spelling is the rendering of speech sound (phoneme) into writing (grapheme). Spelling is one of the elements of orthography, and highly standardized spelling is a prescriptive element. Spellings originated as transcriptions of the sounds of spoken language according to the alphabetic principle. They remain largely reflective of the sounds, although fully phonemic spelling is an ideal that most languages' orthographies only approximate, some more closely than others. This is true for various reasons, including that pronunciation changes over time in all languages, yet spellings as visual norms may resist change. In addition, words from other languages may be adopted without being adapted to the spelling system, and different meanings of a word or homophones may be deliberately spelled in different ways to differentiate them visually. Uniformity in the spelling of words is a typical consequence accompanying the establishment of standard languages in modern times, and official languages usually have standard spellings. However, this is a relatively recent development linked to the compiling of dictionaries, the founding of national academies and other institutions of language maintenance, including widespread education and literacy, and often does not apply to minority and regional languages. In countries where there is an authoritative language academy; such as France, the Netherlands, and Germany, reforms are regularly made so that spelling better matches the changing pronunciation.