Grapheme

A grapheme is the smallest part of a writing system that has meaning. The word grapheme comes from Ancient Greek, where gráphō means "write." It is similar to a phoneme, which is the smallest unit of sound in a language.

Graphemes are important because they help us understand how writing works. For example, in the English language, the letter "a" can represent a grapheme. When we study graphemes, we are learning about graphemics.

Each grapheme can look different depending on the style of writing, called a typeface. The actual shape we see is called a glyph. To show a grapheme in writing, we put it inside angle brackets, like ⟨a⟩. This helps us talk about the idea of the grapheme, not just its shape.

Conceptualization

There are two main ways people think about graphemes.

One way is that graphemes are the smallest parts of writing that match sounds. For example, the letters "sh" in "shake" make a specific sound. This connects writing to speech.

Another way is that graphemes are the smallest parts of writing that help us tell words apart. For example, the letters "h" and "n" make "shake" different from "snake." This treats writing as its own system, not tied to speech. Both ideas have good points and bad points. Some newer ideas see a grapheme as the smallest part of writing that can show meaning and match a sound or part of a word.

Notation

Further information: International Phonetic Alphabet § Brackets and transcription delimiters

Graphemes are often shown inside angle brackets, like ⟨a⟩. This is similar to the slash notation /a/ used for phonemes. Just like square brackets [a] are used for phones, glyphs can sometimes be shown with vertical lines, for example |ɑ|.

Glyphs

Main articles: Glyph and Allograph

Just like different sounds can be the same, different written symbols can be the same grapheme. These symbols are called glyphs. When several glyphs work the same way, they are called allographs of one grapheme.

For example, in English writing, the letters "a" and "ɑ" look different but they mean the same thing. They are allographs of the same grapheme, which we write as ⟨a⟩. Even the way a letter looks — bold, italic, with or without extra lines — does not change its meaning.

Sometimes two letters together, like ⟨sh⟩ in "ship", act like one grapheme. Letters with extra marks, like ⟨ç⟩, are also their own graphemes.

Types of grapheme

Graphemes come in different types. Some, like Chinese characters or the ampersand "&", represent whole words or smaller parts of words called morphemes. Others, such as Japanese kana, stand for parts of words we say called syllables. Then there are alphabetic letters, which usually match the smallest sounds in speech called phonemes.

Writing also includes extra symbols like punctuation marks, mathematical symbols, spaces between words, and other special signs used in printing and typing. In ancient writing systems, special symbols called determinatives were sometimes added to help make the meaning of nearby words clearer.

For more details about these types, see Writing system § Functional classification.

Relationship with phonemes

Main article: Phonemic orthography

In languages that use alphabetic writing systems, many graphemes stand for phonemes (significant sounds) of the language. However, matching letters and sounds can be tricky. Sometimes, one sound is shown by more than one grapheme, like the sh in English. Other times, a single grapheme might show more than one sound, like the Russian letter я or the Spanish c. Some graphemes don’t represent any sound at all, like the b in English debt or the h in Spanish words.

Some languages, like standard Spanish and Finnish, have rules that mostly match graphemes and phonemes well. But in languages like French and English, the rules are more complicated and less consistent.