Spelling is the writing of a word or words with all necessary letters and diacritics present in the correct order. It is one of the elements of orthography.
Approved spelling is one of the features of a standard language, and official languages usually have a standard spelling. Minority languages and regional languages sometimes lack a unified spelling, a characteristic which was shared by many national languages until recently.
Divergence from the standard spelling is often perceived as illiteracy, lower class, or even mental handicap , and can detract from the validity of the arguments so presented.
Since traditional language teaching methods emphasized written language over spoken language, a second-language speaker can have a better spelling than a native in spite of having a poorer command of the language.
Different spelling standards can lead to the perception of the variants as different languages (see "American language").
Conversely a common spelling over different accents helps to perceive the variants as one common language (see "Chinese language")
See also
