Spelling
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Spelling is the writing of a word or words with all necessary letters and diacritics present in the correct order. It is one of the elements of orthography.
Approved spelling is one of the features of a standard language, and official languages usually have a standard spelling. Minority languages and regional languages sometimes lack a unified spelling, a characteristic which was shared by many national languages until recently.
Divergence from the standard spelling is often perceived as illiteracy,or as lower class, or can detract from the validity of the arguments so presented. Since traditional language teaching methods emphasized written language over spoken language, a second-language speaker can have a better spelling than a native in spite of having a poorer command of the language.
Different spelling standards can lead to the perception of the variants as different languages (see "American language"). Conversely a common spelling over different accents helps to perceive the variants as one common language (see "Chinese language").
See also
- Misspelling
- Spelling reform
- Phonemic orthography
- Spelling pronunciation
- English spelling
- Greek orthography
- Latin spelling and pronunciation
- Russian orthography
- Grapheme
- Official script