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The Catalan and Valencian orthographies encompass the spelling and punctuation of standard Catalan (set by the IEC) and Valencian (set by the AVL). There are also several adapted variants to the peculiarities of local dialects of Insular Catalan (Alguerese and the Balearic subdialects).
The history of the Catalan and Valencian orthographies shows a singularity in regard to the other Romance languages. These have been mostly developed from Latin, adapting them to their own phonetic particularities. It had been a gradual and slow process through centuries until the creation of the Academies in the 18th century that fixed the orthography from their language dominant variety. [1]
In the case of Catalan and Valencian, the mediaeval orthography had a noticeable homogeneity. The Royal Chancellery set a unitary written model in several fields. Thus, Ramon Muntaner expressed in his Chronicle (1325–1328) that the Catalans are the largest group with a single language, since all the Romance-speaking regions had very divided languages like the difference that exists between Catalans and Aragonese. [2]
In the 16th century, just after the Golden Age, the split of Catalans started. With the isolation of the Royal Court and several political events, the unitary linguistic consciousness and the shared cultural tradition broke off. The production became more dialectal.
In the 19th century, the recovery of the unity emerged, beginning with the orthography. Institutions like the Acadèmia de Bones Lletres or the Floral Games were in the middle of several orthographic dilemmas.
The orthographic norms of Catalan were first defined officially in the First International Congress of the Catalan Language, held in Barcelona in October 1906. Subsequently, the Philological Section of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC, founded in 1911) published the Normes ortogràfiques in 1913 under the direction of Antoni Maria Alcover and Pompeu Fabra. Despite some opposition, the spelling system was adopted immediately and became widespread enough that, in 1932, Valencian writers and intellectuals gathered in Castelló to make a formal adoption of the so-called Normes de Castelló , a set of guidelines following Pompeu Fabra's Catalan language norms. [3]
In 1917, Fabra published an Orthographic Dictionary following the orthographic norms of the IEC. In 1931–1932 the Diccionari General de la Llengua Catalana (General Dictionary of the Catalan language) appeared. In 1995, a new normative dictionary, the Dictionary of the Catalan Language of the Institute of Catalan Studies (DIEC), marked a new milestone in the orthographic fixation of the language, in addition to the incorporation of neologisms and modern uses of the language.
On the 24th October 2016, the IEC published a new orthography for Catalan, the Ortografia catalana, which outlined several modifications, including a reduced number of monosyllabic words that take an acute or grave diacritic for reasons of disambiguation. [4] Thus, the disyllabic word adéu is now generally spelled adeu ; the monosyllabic words sec ("dry", pronounced /sɛk/ in Central Catalan) and séc ("fold, wrinkle", pronounced /sek/) are both written sec after the reform. Discretionary use of a diacritic is possible if the context is not sufficient for disambiguation. [4]
Like those of many other Romance languages, the Catalan and Valencian alphabet derives from the Latin alphabet and is largely based on the respective language's phonology. [5]
The Catalan and Valencian alphabet consists of the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet:
| Upper case | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lower case | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | v | w | x | y | z |
The following letter-diacritic combinations are used, but they do not constitute distinct letters in the alphabet: À à , É é , È è , Í í , Ï ï , Ó ó , Ò ò , Ú ú , Ü ü and Ç ç (though the Catalan keyboard includes the letter Ç as a separate key). [6] K k and W w are used only in loanwords. Outside loanwords, the letters Q q and Y y appear only in the digraphs qu, qü and ny. However, Y was used until the official orthography was established in 1913, when it was replaced with I, except in the digraph ny and loanwords. [7] Some Catalan surnames conserve the letter y and the word-final digraph ch (pronounced /k/), e. g. Layret, Aymerich.
The following table shows the letters and their names in Standard Catalan (IEC) and Standard Valencian (AVL):
| Letter | Catalan | Valencian | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name (IEC) | Pronunciation | Name (AVL) | Pronunciation | |
| Aa | a | /ˈa/ | a | /ˈa/ |
| Bb | be, be alta | /ˈbe/, /ˈbeˈaltə/ | be, be alta | /ˈbe/, /ˈbeˈalta/ |
| Cc | ce | /ˈse/ | ce | /ˈse/ |
| Dd | de | /ˈde/ | de | /ˈde/ |
| Ee | e | /ˈe/ | e | /ˈe/ |
| Ff | efa | /ˈefə/ | efe, ef | /ˈefe/, /ˈef/ |
| Gg | ge | /ˈʒe/ | ge | /ˈdʒe/ |
| Hh | hac | /ˈak/ | hac | /ˈak/ |
| Ii | i, i llatina | /ˈi/, /ˈiʎəˈtinə/ | i, i llatina | /ˈi/, /ˈiʎaˈtina/ |
| Jj | jota | /ˈʒɔtə/ | jota | /ˈdʒota/ |
| Kk | ca | /ˈka/ | ca | /ˈka/ |
| Ll | ela | /ˈelə/ | ele, el | /ˈele/, /ˈel/ |
| Mm | ema | /ˈemə/ | eme, em | /ˈeme/, /ˈem/ |
| Nn | ena | /ˈenə/ | ene, en | /ˈene/, /ˈen/ |
| Oo | o | /ˈo/ | o | /ˈo/ |
| Pp | pe | /ˈpe/ | pe | /ˈpe/ |
| cu | /ˈku/ | cu | /ˈku/ | |
| Rr | erra | /ˈɛrə/ | erre, er | /ˈere/, /ˈeɾ/ |
| Ss | essa | /ˈesə/ | esse, es | /ˈese/, /ˈes/ |
| Tt | te | /ˈte/ | te | /ˈte/ |
| Uu | u | /ˈu/ | u | /ˈu/ |
| Vv | ve, ve baixa | /ˈve/, /ˈbeˈbaʃə/ | ve, ve baixa | /ˈve/, /ˈbeˈbajʃa/ |
| Ww | ve doble | /ˈveˈdobːlə/, /ˈbeˈdobːlə/ | ve doble | /ˈveˈdoble/, /ˈbeˈdoble/ |
| Xx | ics, xeix | /ˈiks/, /ˈʃeʃ/ | ics, xeix | /ˈiks/, /ˈʃejʃ/ |
| Yy | i grega | /ˈiˈɡɾeɡə/ | i grega | /ˈiˈɡɾeɡa/ |
| Zz | zeta | /ˈzetə/ | zeta | /ˈzeta/ |
The names efa (/ˈefa/), ela (/ˈela/), ema (/ˈema/), ena (/ˈena/), erra (/ˈera/), and essa (/ˈesa/) are also used in certain speeches of Valencian. [8]
The names be alta ("high b") and ve baixa ("low v") are used by speakers who do not distinguish the phonemes /b/ and /v/. Speakers that do distinguish them use the simple names be and ve. [8]
Catalan is a pluricentric language; the pronunciation of some of the letters is different in Eastern Catalan (IEC) and Valencian (AVL). Apart from those variations, the pronunciation of most consonants is fairly straightforward and is similar to French, Occitan or Portuguese pronunciation. (The following list includes a quick pronunciation of letters in standard Catalan and Valencian, for an in-depth view see attached main article on top of this section).
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Catalan and Valencian also use the acute and grave accents to mark stress or vowel quality. An acute on ⟨é ó⟩ indicates that the vowel is stressed and close-mid (/eo/), while grave on ⟨è ò⟩ indicates that the vowel is stressed and open-mid (/ɛɔ/). Grave on ⟨à⟩ and acute on ⟨í ú⟩ simply indicate that the vowels are stressed. Thus, the acute is used on close or close-mid vowels, and the grave on open or open-mid vowels. [5] For example:
Standard rules governing the presence of accents are based on word endings and the position of the stressed syllable. In particular, accents are expected for:
Since there is no need to mark the stressed syllable of a monosyllabic word, most of them do not have an accent. Exceptions are those with a diacritical accent differentiating words that would otherwise be homographic. Example: es/əs/ or /es/ ('it' impersonal) vs és/ˈes/ ('is'), te/tə/ or /te/ ('you' clitic) vs té/ˈte/ ('s/he has'), mes/ˈmɛs/ or /ˈmes/ ('month') vs més/ˈmes/ ('more'), dona/ˈdɔnə/ or /ˈdɔna/ ('woman') vs dóna/ˈdonə/ or /ˈdona/ ('s/he gives'). In most cases, the word bearing no accent is either unstressed (as in the case of 'es' and 'te'), or the word without the accent is more common, usually a function word.
The different distribution of open e/ɛ/ vs closed e/e/ between Eastern Catalan and Western Catalan is reflected in some orthographic divergences between standard Catalan and Valencian norms, for example: anglès/əŋˈɡlɛs/ (Catalan) vs anglés/aŋˈɡles/ (Valencian) ('English'). In the Balearic Islands, open e /ɛ/ tends to be a centralised e (/ə/) in the same cases where open e contrasts with closed e in Catalan and Valencian. The cases where the difference of pronunciation of e can have graphical repercussions are the followings: [9]
The circumflex is rarely used in modern Catalan and Valencian, nonetheless it has been used in the beginning of the 19th century by Antoni Febrer i Cardona to represent schwa in the Balearic subdialects. According to the Diccionari català-valencià-balear , in modern times there are some cases where the circumflex can be used to indicate silent etymological sounds (similar to French) [10] or a contraction. [11] Contrary to the restrictions of the acute and grave accent, the circumflex can be used with all vowels ⟨â ê î ô û⟩, the most common, especially in Valencian, being ⟨â⟩ (i.e. due to the elision of /d/), e.g. mascletâes (instead of mascletades 'pyrotechnic festivals'), anâ (instead of anar 'to go'), témê (instead of témer 'to fear'), sortî (instead of sortir 'to exit'), pâ ('to', preposition in colloquial Valencian).
The diaeresis has two different uses: to mark hiatus over ⟨ï, ü⟩, and to mark that ⟨u⟩ is not silent in the groups ⟨gü, qü⟩.
If a diaeresis appears over an ⟨i⟩ or ⟨u⟩ that follows another vowel, it denotes a hiatus, examples: [12]
This diaeresis is not used over a stressed vowel that already should have an accent. Examples: suís/suˈis/ ('Swiss' masculine), but suïssa/suˈisə/ or /suˈisa/ ('Swiss' feminine), suïs/ˈsuis/ ('that you sweat' subjunctive) (without the diaeresis, this last example would be pronounced /ˈsui̯s/, i.e. as only one syllable, like reis/ˈrei̯s/ 'kings').
Certain verb forms of verbs ending in -uir do not receive a diaeresis, although they are pronounced with separate syllables. This concerns the infinitive, gerund, future and conditional forms (for example traduir, traduint, traduiré and traduiria, all with bisyllabic /u.i/). All other forms of such verbs do receive a diaeresis on the ï according to the normal rules (e.g. traduïm, traduïa).
In addition to this, ⟨ü⟩ represents /w/ between a velar consonant /ɡ/ or /k/ and a front vowel (⟨gu⟩ and ⟨qu⟩ are used to represent a hard (i.e. velar) pronunciation before ⟨i⟩ or ⟨e⟩). [13]
Forms of the verb argüir represents a rare case of the sequence /ɡu.i/, and the rules for /gu/ and /ui/ clash in this case. The ambiguity is resolved by an additional rule, which states that in cases where diaereses would appear on two consecutive letters, only the second receives one. This thus gives arguïm /arguˈim/, i.e. and arguïa /arguˈia/, but argüir /arˈgwir/,argüint /arˈgwint/ and argüiré/argwiˈre/ as these forms don't receive a diaeresis on the i normally, according to the exception above.
Catalan and Valencian ce trencada (Ç ç), literally in English 'broken cee', is a modified ⟨ c ⟩ with a cedilla mark ( ¸ ). It is only used before ⟨a u o⟩ to indicate a soft c/s/, much like in Portuguese, Occitan or French (e.g. compare coça/ˈkosə/ or /ˈkosa/ 'kick', coca/ˈkokə/ or /ˈkoka/ 'cake' and cosa/ˈkɔzə/ or /ˈkɔza/ 'thing'). In Catalan and Valencian, ce trencada also appears as last letter of a word (e.g. feliç/fəˈlis/ or /feˈlis/ 'happy', falç/ˈfals/ 'sickle'), but then ⟨ ç ⟩ may be voiced to [z] before vowels and voiced consonants, e.g. feliçment/fəˌlizˈmen(t)/ or /feˌlizˈmen(t)/ ('happily') and braç esquerre/ˈbɾazəsˈkɛrə/ or /ˈbɾazesˈkɛre/ ('left arm').
The so-called punt volat or middot is only used in the group ⟨ŀl⟩ (called ela or el(e) geminada, 'geminate el') to represent a geminated sound /lː/, as ⟨ll⟩ is used to represent the palatal lateral /ʎ/. This usage of the middot sign is a recent invention from the beginning of twentieth century (in medieval and modern Catalan, before Fabra's standardization, this symbol was sometimes used to note certain elisions, especially in poetry). The only (and improbable) case of ambiguity in the whole language that could arise is the pair ceŀla/ˈsɛlːə/ or /ˈsɛlːa/ ('cell') vs cella/ˈsɛʎə/ or /ˈseʎa/ ('eyebrow').
The hyphen (called a guionet) is used in Catalan and Valencian to separate a verb and the combination of pronouns that follow them (e.g. menjar-se-les), to separate certain compounds (e.g. vint-i-un and para-sol), and to split a word at the end of a line of text for the purpose of maintaining page margins.
Compounds are hyphenated in cases that involve numerals (e.g. trenta-sis, and trenta-sisè/é); cardinal points (e.g. sud-americà); repetitive and expressive compounds (xup-xup); those compounds in which the first element ends in a vowel and the second starts with ⟨r⟩, ⟨s⟩, or ⟨x⟩ (e.g. penya-segat); and those compounds in which the combination of the two elements can lead to wrong reading (e.g. pit-roig). There are also compound terms in which the first element carries a grave accent (mà-llarg), the construction no plus substantive[ clarification needed ] (but not no plus adjective, no-violència but the nacions no violentes) and certain singular constructions like abans-d'ahir and adéu-siau.
Since 1996, the normative set that in the none mentioned cases in the previous paragraph do not carry hyphen. Thus, the general norm set that the prefixed forms, aside from the cited exceptions, are written without hyphen (the only normative option, then, is to write arxienemic and fisicoquímic).[ clarification needed ]
In regard to numbers, hyphen is set according to the D-U-C rule (Desenes-Unitats-Centenes, 'Tens-Units-Hundreds'), thus, a hyphen is placed between tens and units (quaranta-dos) and between units and hundreds (tres-cents). For example, the number 35,422 is written trenta-cinc mil quatre-cents vint-i-dos.
In the case of the separation of a term at the end of line, syllable boundaries are maintained. Still, there are digraphs that can be separated and others that cannot. The digraphs that can be separated are those that, when splitting them, they result in two graphs the corresponding sound from which they share a phonetic trait with the sound of the digraph. (Thus, the digraph rr, for example it corresponds with the nearest sound of a rhotic alveolar trill. Cor-randes, calit-ja and as-sas-sí are words with digraphs that can be split). The digraphs that cannot be separated are those in which the two graphs correspond to sounds that they are not related with the sound of the digraph. (For example, the digraph ny cannot be separated.)
To orthographic effects, the syllabic separation of words follow the following norms:
Catalan and Valencian follow some apostrophation rules that serve to determine whether it is necessary to use an apostrophe (') with an article, preposition or pronoun or not if the word that follows it or precedes it begins or finishes in a vowel, respectively.
The masculine singular article (el, en, and dialectally also lo, in Continental Catalan, and es and so in Balearic, the so called salted article, with s) is apostrophated before all words of masculine gender that begin with a vowel, e.g. l'avió, l'encant, l'odi, n'Albert, s'arbre; with a silent h, e.g. l'home, l'ham, n'Hug, s'home; with a liquid s, e.g. l'spa, l'Stuttgart. It is not apostrophated before of words that begin with a consonantic i or u (with or without h), el iogurt, el iode (or dialectally lo iogurt, lo iode).
In case of apostrophation, the specific forms al (dial. as), del (dial. des), pel (dial. pes), cal (dial. cas) and can are broken and become a l' (dial. a s'), de l' (dial. de s'), per l' (dial. per s'), ca l' (dial. ca s') and ca n' respectively.
The feminine singular article (la, na and dialectally sa) are apostrophated in the following cases: When the following word start with a vowel: l'emoció, l'ungla, l'aigua, n'Elena; when the word start with a silent h: l'heura, l'holografia, n'Hermínia, s'horabaixa. It is not apostrophated in the following cases: When it goes before word that starts with a consonantic i or u (with h or not): la hiena; when it goes before a word that begins with unstressed i or u (with h or not): la humitat, la universitat, la imatge; before some specific terms like la una (when referring to the time), la ira, la host, la Haia (toponym); before the name of the letters (la i, la hac, la essa); before a word that start with s followed by a consonant, la Scala de Milà.
Traditionally, to avoid ambiguities, words beginning with the negative prefix a- did not take an apostrophe. Nowadays, general apostrophation rules are followed in written text: l'anormalitat, l'amoralitat, l'atipicitat, l'asimetria, l'asèpsia, etc. The Diccionari de l'Institut d'Estudis Catalans (DIEC) of 1995 started to apply the new criteria; however, it was never formulated explicitly. In the same way, the introduction of DIEC writes about the abnormality of the situation, and the outline of the new normative grammar that prepares the IEC already does not collect that traditional exception.
The preposition de takes the apostrophe before a vowel (with silent h, or without): d'aigua, d'enveja, d'humitat. It does not apostrophate however before the following cases: words that start with a consonantic i or u (with silent h or without); de iode, de ioga, de uombat, de iogurt, de Utah, de ouija; before names of letters; de a, de hac. In general it does not apostrophate in case of metalanguage: el plural de alt és alts; before a liquid s: de Stalin.
Weak pronouns take the apostrophe in the following cases:
Before a verb that starts with a vowel, using its elided form: m'agrada, n'abastava, s'estimaran, l'aconseguiria. At the end of a verb that finishes in a vowel, using the reduced form: menja'n, trenca'l, fondre's, compra'ns. When there are two, the second if the orthographic rules allow it: me'n, li'n , se'm, te'ls, la'n, n'hi; if it is possible, it takes the apostrophe with the following word, like me n'ha dut tres. The apostrophe always goes the further to the right possible: te l'emportes, not *te'l emportes.
Does not take the apostrophe:
The pronouns us, vos, hi, ho, li, les: us el dono or vos el done, se us esperava or se vos esperava. Like in the case of the article, the pronoun before words that start by unstressed i and u (with silent h or without): la ignora, la hi pren, la humitejarem, la usàvem. It also does not take the apostrophe the first weak pronoun in the forms la hi and se us.
Catalan and Valencian do not capitalize the days of the week, months, or national adjectives. [14]
Catalan and Valencian punctuation rules are similar to English, with some minor differences. [15]
The distribution of the two rhotics /r/ and /ɾ/ closely parallels that of Spanish. Between vowels, the two contrast but they are otherwise in complementary distribution: in the onset, an alveolar trill, [r], appears unless preceded by a consonant; different dialects vary in regards to rhotics in the coda with Western Catalan generally featuring an alveolar tap, [ɾ], and Central Catalan dialects like those of Barcelona or Girona featuring a weakly trilled [r] unless it precedes a vowel-initial word in the same prosodic unit, in which case [ɾ] appears. [16]
In Eastern Catalan and North Western Catalan, most instances of word-final ⟨r⟩ are silent, but there are plenty of unpredictable exceptions (e.g. in Central Eastern Catalan por[ˈpo] 'fear' but mar[ˈmɑɾ] 'sea'). In Central Eastern Catalan monosyllabic words with a pronounced final ⟨r⟩ get a reinforcement final consonant [t] when in absolute final position (e.g. final ⟨r⟩ of cor ('heart') in reina del meu cor/ˈrejnədəlˈmewˈkɔrt/ 'queen of my heart' vs el cor es mou/əlˈkɔɾəzˈmɔw/ 'the heart is moving').
In Valencian, most instances of word-final ⟨r⟩ are pronounced.
A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek διακριτικός, from διακρίνω. The word diacritic is a noun, though it is sometimes used in an attributive sense, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritics, such as the acute ⟨á⟩, grave ⟨à⟩, and circumflex ⟨â⟩, are often called accents. Diacritics may appear above or below a letter or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters.
Valencian or Valencian language is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community of Spain to refer to the Romance language also known as Catalan, either as a whole or in its Valencia-specific linguistic forms. The Valencian Community's 1982 Statute of Autonomy and the Spanish Constitution officially recognise Valencian as the name of the regional language.
Welsh orthography uses 29 letters of the Latin script to write native Welsh words as well as established loanwords.
Ë, ë (e-diaeresis) is a letter in the Albanian, Kashubian, Emilian, Romagnol, Ladin, and Lenape alphabets. As a variant of the letter e, it also appears in Acehnese, Afrikaans, Belarusian, Breton, Dutch, English, Filipino, French, Luxembourgish, Piedmontese, Russian, the Abruzzese dialect of the Neapolitan language, and the Ascolano dialect. The letter is also used in Seneca, Taiwanese Hokkien, Turoyo, and Uyghur when written in Latin script.
Balearic is the collective name for the dialects of Catalan spoken in the Balearic Islands: mallorquí in Mallorca, eivissenc in Ibiza and menorquí in Menorca.
The alphabet for Modern English is a Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 letters, each having an upper- and lower-case form. The word alphabet is a compound of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta. The alphabet originated around the 7th century to write Old English from Latin script. Since then, letters have been added or removed to give the current letters:
A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used in the orthography of a language to write either a single phoneme, or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined.
German orthography is the orthography used in writing the German language, which is largely phonemic. However, it shows many instances of spellings that are historic or analogous to other spellings rather than phonemic. The pronunciation of almost every word can be derived from its spelling once the spelling rules are known, but the opposite is not generally the case.
Italian orthography uses 21 letters of the 26-letter Latin alphabet to write the Italian language. This article focuses on the writing of Standard Italian, based historically on the Florentine dialect, and not the other Italian dialects.
In an alphabetic writing system, a silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the word's pronunciation. In linguistics, a silent letter is often symbolised with a null sign U+2205∅EMPTY SET. Null is an unpronounced or unwritten segment. The symbol resembles the Scandinavian letter Ø and other symbols.
Dutch orthography uses the Latin alphabet. The spelling system is issued by government decree and is compulsory for all government documentation and educational establishments.
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 AD, and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite enormous changes to the pronunciation of the language in the intervening years. Even in the late 17th century, with the publication of the first French dictionary by the Académie française, there were attempts to reform French orthography.
Spanish orthography is the orthography used in the Spanish language. The alphabet uses the Latin script. The spelling is fairly phonemic, especially in comparison to more opaque orthographies like English, having a relatively consistent mapping of graphemes to phonemes; in other words, the pronunciation of a given Spanish-language word can largely be predicted from its spelling and to a slightly lesser extent vice versa. Spanish punctuation uniquely includes the use of inverted question and exclamation marks: ⟨¿⟩⟨¡⟩.
The orthography of the Greek language ultimately has its roots in the adoption of the Greek alphabet in the 9th century BC. Some time prior to that, one early form of Greek, Mycenaean, was written in Linear B, although there was a lapse of several centuries between the time Mycenaean stopped being written and the time when the Greek alphabet came into use.
Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes. The diaeresis was abolished by the last Orthography Agreement. Accented letters and digraphs are not counted as separate characters for collation purposes.
Greek orthography has used a variety of diacritics starting in the Hellenistic period. The more complex polytonic orthography, which includes five diacritics, notates Ancient Greek phonology. The simpler monotonic orthography, introduced in 1982, corresponds to Modern Greek phonology, and requires only two diacritics.
Papiamento has two standardised orthographies, one used on the island of Aruba and the other on the islands of Curaçao and Bonaire. The Aruban orthography is more etymological in nature, while the other is more phonemic. Among the differences between the two standards, one obvious difference is the way the name of the language is written. In Aruba it is written Papiamento, while in Curaçao and Bonaire it is written Papiamentu. The governments of Curaçao and Aruba formally standardised orthographic rules in 1976 and 1977, respectively.
The diaeresis is a diacritical mark used to indicate the separation of two distinct vowels in adjacent syllables when an instance of diaeresis occurs, so as to distinguish from a digraph or diphthong.
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