Spelling and Reading Words in Bengali: The Role of Distributed Phonology

Abstract

Bengali orthography is only moderately transparent, and there are several striking instances of phonology-orthography and orthography-phonology inconsistency. In this chapter, we show that an index of advancing skills in Bengali word reading and spelling is knowledge of word level phonology. In particular, we show that in the early grades, an important task is to learn to read and spell words where phonological information is distributed across the word, neutralized or elided. While phonological neutralizations impact spelling more than reading, some forms of phonology-akshara mapping and non-linear arrangements in complex akshara impact both reading and spelling.