Written language

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A Specimen of typeset fonts and languages, by William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728 Cyclopaedia.

A written language is the representation of a spoken or gestural language by means of a writing system.^[1] Written language is an invention in that it must be taught to children, who will pick up spoken language or sign language by exposure even if they are not formally instructed.

A written language exists only as a complement to a specific spoken language, and no natural language is purely written.

Compared to spoken language[]

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Written languages change more slowly than corresponding spoken languages. When at least one register of a language is strongly divergent from spoken language, the resulting situation is called diglossia. However, that is still often considered one language between literary language and other registers, especially if the writing system reflects its pronunciation.

Native readers and writers of English are often unaware that the complexities of English spelling make written English a somewhat artificial construct. The traditional spelling of English, at least for inherited words, preserves a late Middle English phonology that is never used as a speech dialect. The artificial preservation of that form of the language, in writing, might make much of what is now written intelligible to Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) even if the medieval writer's speech could no longer be understood^{[citation needed]}.

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Further reading[]

• Ankerl, Guy (2000). Global communication without universal civilization. INU societal research. Vol.1: Coexisting contemporary civilizations: Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western. Geneva: INU Press. pp. 59–66, 235–236. ISBN 2-88155-004-5. |volume= has extra text (help)