Orthography Development

“Orthography is the way in which a language is expressed in written form, including symbols, punctuation, decisions on where to break words and where to join them together, and so on. It draws from linguistics, literacy and education, sociopolitics, and language technology. Though orthographies of different languages may resemble each other, each language needs to have an orthography based on that particular language.” SIL.

In designing a writing system, one must decide what symbols will be used and how. At least two sets of standards should be considered when developing an orthography:

• National/local alphabet. Local or national standards may have higher priority than phonetic considerations
• The Unicode Standard. Unicode factors that should be taken into account
  • Recommendations for Creating New Orthographies
  • Best practice when using non-alphabetic characters in orthographies

Resources

• SIL’s Orthography home page
• Factors in designing effective orthographies for unwritten languages
• Orthography development
• SIL’s Orthography resources

Related articles

• Non-alphabetic characters in orthographies - Best practice when using non-alphabetic characters in orthographies. Helping languages succeed in the modern world