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

• Creating an Orthography Description - For those working with minority languages, one of the first needs is the ability to work with the orthography of the language on a computer. The prerequisite for this is an adequate description of the orthography.
• How do I encode...? - Questions and answers on how to encode certain characters.
• Non-alphabetic characters in orthographies - Best practice when using non-alphabetic characters in orthographies. Helping languages succeed in the modern world
• Options for Representing Glottal Stops in Orthographies
• Orthography development in relation to Unicode - In designing a writing system, one must decide what symbols will be used and how.

External links

• Khmer Character Specification/Usages  

Bibliography

• Clark, Scott. “Alphabet and orthography statement for Fulfulde [FUB] Ajamiya (found in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Central African Republic)”. SIL Global , 2007 , https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/32286.
• Miller, Michelle. “A Description of Kmhmu’ Lao Script-Based Orthography”. Mon-Khmer Studies , edited by Paul Sidwell and Brian Migliazza , vol. 42 , 2013-05-14 , pp. 12-25 , http://mksjournal.org/mks42miller.pdf. Accessed 2026-10-07.
• Roberts, David. “Hidden morpheme boundaries in Kabiye: A source of miscues in a toneless orthography”. Writing Systems Research , vol. 2 , no. 2 , 2010 , http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1093/wsr/wsq011.
• Unseth, Peter. “Missiology and Orthography: The Unique Contribution of Christian Missionaries in Devising New Scripts”. Missiology , vol. 36 , no. 3 , 2008-07-01 , pp. 357-371 .