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Orthographic Typology - a comparative study of the Latin orthographies of Europe

På svenska

Author

  • Filip Larsson

Summary, in English

This thesis aims to explain the variation that is found among the Latin orthographies of Europe. The main question is if it can be explained as genealogical, areal or social. The hypothesis presented in this thesis is that genealogical factors are the most important. Orthographies are relevant to study in their own right since they are autonomous from spoken languages. Since orthographies basically express the relation between phonemes and graphemes the study has been done as a comparative analysis by comparing the amount of shared combinations of phonemes and graphemes in 45 orthographies. These shared combinations constituted the basis for a tree model of the relation of the studied orthographies. The results of the tree model and the database showed that orthographical variation is not random and that genealogical factors were the most important but historical factors were also important. The tree model also showed that the variation is greater among vowels than among consonants. Another conclusion that was made was that political dominance is a relevant factor when new orthographies are created.

Publishing year

2012

Language

English

Document type

Student publication for Bachelor's degree

Topic

  • Languages and Literatures

Keywords

  • genealogical
  • Latin alphabet
  • orthography
  • grapheme
  • areal

Supervisor

  • Gerd Carling