What is homographs?

What Does homographs Mean

Homograph words are those that are spelled the same but have different meanings . This means that they share spelling although they allude to different issues.

The condition of homograph is called homography . The composition of this term helps to understand what the concept points to: the homo- compositional element makes reference to what is “equal” , while spelling is the way of representation or writing of sounds.
Homography, as can be seen, is similar to homonymy . While homograph words are spelled the same way, homonyms are pronounced identically, although their meaning differs.

It can be said that homography is a type of homonymy. In our language , homograph words are always homophones. However, this particularity is not maintained in all languages.
It is important to explain the meaning of homophony. In the field of linguistics, two words are homophones if they have the same sound, although they may differ both in their spelling and in their meaning. If we think of the third person singular of the verb have , had , we can say that it and tube (a hollow piece and generally cylindrical in shape) are homophone words, since in our language we do not pronounce V and B differently.
This example helps us to clarify that the majority of Spanish speakers pronounce these two consonants in the same way, although their confusion in the writing implies a spelling error worthy of a decrease in academic grades and unacceptable in a publication such as a book or a Newspaper. The history of these two letters and their ancient differences go back to Latin, but nowadays it is not correct to distinguish them when speaking, something that makes it especially difficult to properly learn the words that are written with them.
Candle (the piece of paraffin or wax that, when its wick is lit, is used to illuminate) and candle (the cloths or canvases that, attached to a boat, allow it to move when receiving the wind) are examples of homograph words. The writing of both is identical: the two words have the same four letters, in the same order ( candle ). To understand what they mean, you need to pay attention to the context.
Cup (the glass that has a foot and is used for drinking) and cup (the upper sector of a tree, formed by its branches and leaves) are also homographs. If it is stated that someone drank a glass of wine, the first meaning is thought of by how the speech was constructed.

Homography can seem like a simple phenomenon that does not exceed the importance of a trivial coincidence, or even an obstacle in the correct learning of the language. However, in the hands of a person dedicated to the language it can become a versatile tool to create witty and colorful texts. In fact, they can also be used in speech (if we rely on the fact that these words are also homophones) to elaborate sentences with double meaning for humorous purposes, for example.
When we compare terms from two different languages, cases of homography can be called false friends , something that is usually studied between English and Spanish. In this case, the meaning also differs, so we should never assume it simply because of its similarity.
Far from the language, the term homography is also used in the field of geometry, where it is used to give a name to any projective transformation from which two plane geometric figures are corresponding, so that their points and lines correspond to points and straight from the other. The most common homographic transformations include symmetry, homology, and translation.

Go up