Article published In:
From Letter to Sound: New perspectives on writing systemsEdited by Martin Neef and Beatrice Primus †
[Written Language & Literacy 7:2] 2005
► pp. 165–184
Edited by Martin Neef and Beatrice Primus †
[Written Language & Literacy 7:2] 2005
► pp. 165–184
Word-initial entropy in five languages
Letter to sound, and sound to letter
Frauke M. Hellwig | Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik and F. C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging
Alphabetic orthographies show more or less ambiguous relations between spelling and sound patterns. In transparent orthographies, like Italian, the pronunciation can be predicted from the spelling and vice versa. Opaque orthographies, like English, often display unpredictable spelling–sound correspondences. In this paper we present a computational analysis of word-initial bi-directional spelling–sound correspondences for Dutch, English, French, German, and Hungarian, stated in entropy values for various grain sizes. This allows us to position the five languages on the continuum from opaque to transparent orthographies, both in spelling-to-sound and sound-to-spelling directions. The analysis is based on metrics derived from information theory, and therefore independent of any specific theory of visual word recognition as well as of any specific theoretical approach of orthography.
Cited by (29)
Cited by 29 other publications
Adedeji, Victoria I., Julie A. Kirkby, Martin R. Vasilev & Timothy J. Slattery
2024. Children’s Reading of Sublexical Units in Years Three to Five: A Combined Analysis of Eye-Movements and Voice Recording. Scientific Studies of Reading 28:2 ► pp. 214 ff. 
Kuvač Kraljević, Jelena, Nikolina Runje, Valentina Ružić, Ana Matić Škorić, Mirjana Lenček & Antonia Štefanec
2024. Predictors of reading comprehension and profiling of poor readers in Croatian: educational and clinical perspectives. Frontiers in Psychology 15
Terziyan, Treysi
2024. Turkish Spelling Errors by Turkish-Dutch Bilingual Children. Ampersand ► pp. 100197 ff.
Benyhe, András, Melanie Labusch & Manuel Perea
2023. Just a mark: Diacritic function does not play a role in the early stages of visual word recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 30:4 ► pp. 1530 ff.
Haase, Astrid & Claudia Steinbrink
2022. Associations between morphological awareness and literacy skills in German primary school children: the roles of grade level, phonological processing and vocabulary. Reading and Writing 35:7 ► pp. 1675 ff.
De Simone, Elisabetta, Elisabeth Beyersmann, Claudio Mulatti, Jonathan Mirault, Xenia Schmalz & Madelon van den Boer
2021. Order among chaos: Cross-linguistic differences and developmental trajectories in pseudoword reading aloud using pronunciation Entropy. PLOS ONE 16:5 ► pp. e0251629 ff.
Petrescu, Maria Claudia & Rena Helms-Park
2021. Trilingualism and reading difficulty in a third (school) language: A case study of an at-risk child in French immersion. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy ► pp. 146879842110413 ff.
Galuschka, Katharina, Ruth Görgen, Julia Kalmar, Stefan Haberstroh, Xenia Schmalz & Gerd Schulte-Körne
2020. Effectiveness of spelling interventions for learners with dyslexia: A meta-analysis and systematic review. Educational Psychologist 55:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Georgiou, George K., Minna Torppa, Karin Landerl, Alain Desrochers, George Manolitsis, Peter F. de Jong & Rauno Parrila
2020. Reading and Spelling Development Across Languages Varying in Orthographic Consistency: Do Their Paths Cross?. Child Development 91:2
Inoue, Tomohiro, George Manolitsis, Peter F. de Jong, Karin Landerl, Rauno Parrila & George K. Georgiou
2020. Home Literacy Environment and Early Literacy Development Across Languages Varying in Orthographic Consistency. Frontiers in Psychology 11
Larsen, Linda, Stefan Kilian Schauber, Saskia Kohnen, Lyndsey Nickels & Genevieve McArthur
2020. Children’s knowledge of single- and multiple-letter grapheme-phoneme correspondences: An exploratory study. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 51 ► pp. 379 ff.
Salas, Naymé
2020. Non-phonological Strategies in Spelling Development. Frontiers in Psychology 11
Schmalz, Xenia, Serje Robidoux, Anne Castles & Eva Marinus
2020. Variations in the use of simple and context-sensitive grapheme-phoneme correspondences in English and German developing readers. Annals of Dyslexia 70:2 ► pp. 180 ff.
Siegelman, Noam, Devin M. Kearns & Jay G. Rueckl
2020. Using information-theoretic measures to characterize the structure of the writing system: the case of orthographic-phonological regularities in English. Behavior Research Methods 52:3 ► pp. 1292 ff.
Zhang, Lan & Rebecca Treiman
2020. Learning to Spell Phonologically: Influences of Children’s Own Names. Scientific Studies of Reading 24:3 ► pp. 229 ff.
Salas, Naymé & Markéta Caravolas
2019. Dimensionality of Early Writing in English and Spanish. Journal of Literacy Research 51:3 ► pp. 272 ff.
Saletta, Meredith
2019. Orthography and speech production in children with good or poor reading skills. Applied Psycholinguistics 40:4 ► pp. 905 ff.
Bradley, Rachel L. & George H. Noell
2018. The effectiveness of supplemental phonics instruction employing constant time delay instruction for struggling readers. Psychology in the Schools 55:7 ► pp. 880 ff.
Borleffs, Elisabeth, Ben A. M. Maassen, Heikki Lyytinen & Frans Zwarts
2017. Measuring orthographic transparency and morphological-syllabic complexity in alphabetic orthographies: a narrative review. Reading and Writing 30:8 ► pp. 1617 ff.
Saletta, Meredith, Lisa Goffman & Tiffany P. Hogan
2016. Orthography and Modality Influence Speech Production in Adults and Children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 59:6 ► pp. 1421 ff.
Pollack, Courtney, Gigi Luk & Joanna A. Christodoulou
2015. A meta-analysis of functional reading systems in typically developing and struggling readers across different alphabetic languages. Frontiers in Psychology 6
Schmalz, Xenia, Eva Marinus, Max Coltheart & Anne Castles
2015. Getting to the bottom of orthographic depth. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 22:6 ► pp. 1614 ff.
Beyermann, Sandra & Martina Penke
2014. Word Stress in German Single-Word Reading. Reading Psychology 35:6 ► pp. 577 ff.
Beyermann, Sandra & Martina Penke
2014. The Impact of Orthographic Consistency on German Spoken Word Identification. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education 61:3 ► pp. 212 ff.
Vaessen, Anniek & Leo Blomert
2013. The Cognitive Linkage and Divergence of Spelling and Reading Development. Scientific Studies of Reading 17:2 ► pp. 89 ff.
Sturm, Jessica L.
2012. Meaning and orthography in L2 French. Writing Systems Research 4:1 ► pp. 47 ff.
Marinus, Eva & Peter F. de Jong
2011. Dyslexic and typical-reading children use vowel digraphs as perceptual units in reading. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 64:3 ► pp. 504 ff.
Bowers, Peter N., John R. Kirby & S. Hélène Deacon
2010. The Effects of Morphological Instruction on Literacy Skills. Review of Educational Research 80:2 ► pp. 144 ff.
Protopapas, Athanassios & Eleni L. Vlahou
2009. A comparative quantitative analysis of Greek orthographic transparency. Behavior Research Methods 41:4 ► pp. 991 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 september 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.