Term for "Letter"/Symbol name vs. pronunciation


I was trying to explain to someone why spelling & reading in Japanese (at
least with kana) is easy because the name of the letter _**is**_ its
pronuncation. (Yes, I realize kana are not strictly "letters", but for the
sake of brevity...)

Kana | Name | Pronunciation  
---|---|---  
た | "tah" | "tah"  
み | "mee" | "mee"  
etc. |  |  
  
So if you can see a word or sentence (particles aside), you know exactly how
to pronounce it. Conversely, if you can hear/say a word, you know exactly how
to spell it.

However, English and many other languages are not like this. The letter's name
is completely different than how you'd say it.

Letter | Name | Pronunciation  
---|---|---  
A | "ay" | "ah", "ah", "a(nt)"  
B | "bee" | "b-"  
C | "see" | "k-", "s-"  
etc. |  |  
  
* * *

Is there some linguistic term (in Japanese, or any language) around this
name/pronunciation relationship? And if so, are there terms that encompass the
sameness of Japanese relationship, and the difference of English one?




In linguistics, the consistency of pronunciation for each letter or character
in a language like Japanese Katakana or Hindi is referred to as " **phonemic
orthography**." This term describes a writing system where each symbol (or
letter) consistently represents the same sound (or phoneme). In languages with
phonemic orthography, there's a direct and consistent correspondence between
the written symbols and their pronunciation, which makes it easier to predict
how a word is pronounced based on its spelling.

In contrast, languages like English, which have a high degree of variation in
how letters are pronounced in different contexts, are said to have a " **deep
orthography**." This means there's a complex relationship between spelling and
pronunciation, with many exceptions and irregularities.

Thus, the key term here is "phonemic orthography," describing the
straightforward, predictable relationship between spelling and pronunciation
in languages like Japanese (when written in Katakana) and Hindi.

