Jim Breen wrote:
[Gerard Meijssen ([Wiktionary-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] English orthographies) writes:]
How many different orthographies / dialects are there for English.
It all depends on definition. I say there is one "orthography" for English (the A-Z "Latin" alphabet). Perhaps you are confusing "orthography" and spelling.
As for dialects, well many people who work in dialects do not regard "British English" and "American English" as distinct dialects because they are very similar (when compared with real dialects.)
American and British English are different orthographies because their rules of spelling differ. When creating a spellchecker, you need to have a clear destinction in what is what. When people look up words in UW it HAS to be clear what is what.
Thanks, GerardM