Which term refers to language-specific symbols?

The term that refers to language-specific symbols is grapheme. A grapheme is the smallest unit in a written system that corresponds to a phoneme, or sound, in a language. This can include letters, numerals, punctuation marks, and any other symbols that contribute to the orthography of a language. Each language has its own set of graphemes that represent its sounds, making them language-specific.

In contrast, an allograph refers to different ways to represent the same grapheme, such as uppercase versus lowercase letters (e.g., 'A' and 'a' are allographs of the grapheme representing the same sound). A morpheme is the smallest grammatical unit in a language that carries meaning, which can be a word or part of a word, such as a prefix or suffix. Orthography refers to the conventional spelling system of a language, encompassing the rules and norms for spelling and punctuation but not specifically to the symbols themselves. Thus, while all of these terms are related to written language, grapheme specifically designates the individual symbols unique to each language.