ABSTRACT
The writing system The basic unit of written language is the letter. The name grapheme is given to the letter or combination of letters that represents a phoneme. For example, the word “ghost” contains five letters and four graphemes (“gh,” “o,” “s,” and “t”), representing four phonemes. There is much more variability in the structure of written languages than there is in spoken languages. Whereas all spoken languages utilize a basic distinction between consonants and vowels, there is no such common thread to the world’s written languages.
