Letter (redirected from letterer)

letter: see alphabet.

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letter [′led·ər]

(communications)

A character used in an alphabet generally representing one or more sounds of a spoken language.

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Letter 

(1) A graphic sign, or type.

(2) a grapheme, or unit of an alphabet. In an ordinary text a letter signifies not a sound but a phoneme. More precisely, a letter segment of a written word may, in an ideal situation, coincide with a phonemic segment of the corresponding word when sounded. In actuality, however, such a coincidence almost never occurs. A letter may also not have a sound equivalent if it is used only in a certain graphic combination or in a digraph (a graphic symbol consisting of two letters); thus, in the German othography the letter q can only occur in the combination qu.

REFERENCES

Boduen-de-Kurtene, I. A. “Neskol’ko slov po povodu ’obshche-slavianskoi azbuki.’” Zhurnal Ministerstva narodnogo prosveshcheniia, 1871, no. 5, pp. 149-95.
Boduen-de-Kurtene, I. A. Ob otnoshenii russkogo pis’ma k russkomu iazyku. St. Petersburg, 1912.
Shcherba, L. V. “Teoriia russkogo pis’ma.” In his book Izbrannye raboty po russkomu iazyku. Moscow, 1957.
Gelb, I. J. Study of Writing. London, 1952.