A grapheme is the minimum unit of writing that cannot be divided . In the Roman or Latin alphabet, which is what we use in our language , graphemes are the diacritical marks (tilde, dieresis, etc.) and the letters .
It is often said that a grapheme is the minimum element that allows distinguish two written words in a language (and, with it, two meanings). Terms like "shovel", "pass", "for" and "paw", for example, they differ in each case by a grapheme (a letter, in this specific context).
A accent mark It is also a grapheme that serves to recognize the difference between two words. It is not the same a "pulpit" (a platform) that a "pulpit" (a small octopus). The grapheme <' > is the differentiating element.
The idea of grapheme is analogous to the concept of phoneme : the minimum and indivisible unit at the phonological level. The phoneme is part of the language, it is a formal or mental abstraction of the sound of speech. Grapheme, on the other hand, belongs to the system of graphic representation of the language.
A phoneme usually corresponds to a phoneme. Anyway, there is no strict correspondence between the orthography and phonology. In Spanish, graphemes <c > and <h > come together to represent a single phoneme: ch. The union of two letters for the representation of a single sound is known as digraph .
It is important to keep in mind that, in other alphabets, the link between graphemes and phonology It is not so close. In Chinese writing, there are numerous graphemes that cannot be interpreted as sounds.
