Alphabet (Writing) a writing system type where symbols represent individual sounds

Alphabet is a term in Grammatology that commonly means "a writing system type where symbols represent individual sounds." (See also: ScriptSource Script Types). This term belongs mainly to the broader category called Writing.

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Website definitions of Alphabet

Source: ScriptSource (https://scriptsource.org)

"Alphabet"

a segmental writing system having symbols for individual sounds, rather than for syllables or morphemes. In a true alphabet, consonants and vowels are written as independent letters, in contrast to an abugida or an abjad. In a perfectly phonemic alphabet, phonemes and letters would be predictable in both directions; that is, the sound of a word could be predicted from its spelling and vice-versa. A phonetic alphabet is also predictable in this way, however it uses separate letters for separate allophones, whereas a phonemic alphabet may describe allophones of the same phoneme using a single letter.

SIL International Contributors, "ScriptSource: Alphabet," accessed September 11, 2023, https://scriptsource.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=glossary#alph. [Visit]

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Citation

MLA 8

PsychLing Contributors. "Alphabet." PsychLing, OMNIKA Foundation, 30 Aug. 2023, psylng.org/glossary/term/alphabet-script. Accessed 25 Dec. 2024.

APA 6

PsychLing (2023, August 30). Alphabet. Retrieved from https://psylng.org/glossary/term/alphabet-script

CMS 16

PsychLing Contributors. "Alphabet." Las Vegas, NV: OMNIKA Foundation. Created August 30, 2023. Modified September 18, 2023. Accessed December 25, 2024. https://psylng.org/glossary/term/alphabet-script.

Bibliography

APA Dictionary

APA Contributors. "APA Dictionary of Psychology." Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Accessed September 14, 2023. https://dictionary.apa.org. [Visit]

DLP

Crystal, David, ed. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. 6ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2011.

WM

Internet Archive Contributors. "Wayback Machine." San Francisco, CA: Internet Archive. Created October 24, 2001. Accessed July 21, 2023. https://web.archive.org. [Visit]

ScriptSource

SIL International Contributors. "ScriptSource: Index of Languages and Writing Systems." Dallas, TX: SIL International. Created June 11, 2011. Accessed July 28, 2023. https://scriptsource.org. [Visit]

PsychLing Glossary

Grammatology is a field of study that concerns the scientific study of writing.

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PsychLing Glossary

ScriptSource Script Types is a term in Grammatology that means the classifications of writing system types according to the ScriptSource website.

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Browse 23 psycholinguistic glossary terms and definitions organized in the Writing category.

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