phonemicity writing would like get estimate percentage world written languages represented orthographically phonemic manner specifically many written languages one predict phonological properties word including stress accent tone merely consulting string symbols used write word without information morphological structure word language whose writing system largely phonemic one could write set rules word pronunciation ideal case number rules would within order magnitude number graphemes lexical exceptions nt matter long nt hundreds leaving sense phoneme intentionally vague normally phonemic written representation implies one predict surface phonemic representation written form word would perfectly happy considering system phonemic abstract level phonological representation represented surface phonemic representation could predicted regular phonological rules principles also note clarify question interested primarily correspondence written form spoken form standard variet ies language written form presumably reflects degree interested moment dialects language deviate varying degrees standard definition spanish would presumably count phonemic since one nearly always predict pronunciation word including stress orthography romanian less phonemic since actual set phonemes word mostly determinable set graphemes used representation glides slight source complication placement stress requires knowledge morphological class word following work ioana chitoran english presumably among least phonemic since regular rules pronunciation quite complex many lexical exceptions particular classification writing system logographic moraic segmental unimportant principle chinese writing could classed phonemic albeit rather large set graphemes fact especially among common characters quite pronunciation ambiguities resolved using lexical information familiar several recent books writing systems typically contain indepth analyses particular systems far tell nobody done survey kind contrary someone point survey answers question would grateful would interested getting much information related question many languages people sufficiently familiar think already know answer questions familiar western european languages including less familiar ones like irish welsh well romanian russian hebrew arabic chinese japanese malagasy would particularly interested knowing languages writing systems recently developed spelling system recently undergone massive restructuring conventional wisdom cases writing system phonemic perhaps always true please send replies sufficient number post results survey list richard sproat linguistics research department att bell laboratories tel 908 5825296 600 mountain avenue room 2d 451 fax 908 5827308 murray hill nj 07974 usa rws research att com