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

Larsson, Filip LU (2012) ALSK11 20112
General Linguistics
Abstract
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... (More)
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. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Larsson, Filip LU
supervisor
organization
course
ALSK11 20112
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
genealogical, Latin alphabet, orthography, grapheme, areal
language
English
id
2302107
date added to LUP
2012-02-01 09:20:38
date last changed
2012-02-01 09:20:38
@misc{2302107,
  abstract     = {{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.}},
  author       = {{Larsson, Filip}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Orthographic Typology - a comparative study of the Latin orthographies of Europe}},
  year         = {{2012}},
}