Language Research

Abstract The present study clarifies the difference between orthographic words and their phonological correspondents in Persian writing system via computing orthographic depth of Persian writing system. In this article, first, the relationship between orthographic forms of the words and their phonological correspondents is formalized by using context free and context sensitive grapheme-phoneme rules. Then, the phonological bases of diacritics are studied. Finally, a method for computing orthographic depth of Persian writing system is introduced regardless of linguistic knowledge. The results indicate that it is possible to reduce the depth of Persian writing system by phonological, morphological and syntactic knowledge of the native speakers.