Journal of Universal Language

Sejong University Language Research Institue

J. Univers. Lang. 2003; 4(1):37-112

pISSN: 1598-6381

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22425/jul.2003.4.1.91

Article

The Writing System of an Artificial Language: For Efficient Orthographic Processing

Miho Sasaki¹

¹University of Essex

Copyright ⓒ 2016, Sejong University Language Research Institue. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Jan 01, 2017

Abstract

The major purpose of this paper is to explore the role of orthography in language and to propose new approaches to the development of an artificial language in relation to reading and spelling. Recent second language acquisition research has shown evidence that orthography is one of the most important features for acquisition of reading skills. For many years, effects of orthographic regularity on efficiency of language processing have been underestimated. This paper looks at the relationship between orthography and phonology across languages and examines what is the optimal writing system. The writing system of Esperanto is also investigated in terms of orthographic regularity to uncover possibility of a simpler writing system.

Keywords: orthography; writing systems; language acquisition and processing; reading

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