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Scribal abbreviations or sigla (
singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular homology * SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS) * Singular or sounder, a group of boar, ...
: siglum) are
abbreviation An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...
s used by ancient and medieval scribes writing in various languages, including Latin, Greek,
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
and Old Norse. In modern manuscript editing (substantive and mechanical) sigla are the symbols used to indicate the source manuscript (e.g. variations in text between different such manuscripts) and to identify the
copyist A copyist is a person that makes duplications of the same thing. The term is sometimes used for artists who make copies of other artists' paintings. However, the modern use of the term is almost entirely confined to music copyists, who are emplo ...
s of a work.


History

Abbreviated writing, using sigla, arose partly from the limitations of the workable nature of the materials ( stone, metal, parchment, etc.) employed in record-making and partly from their availability. Thus,
lapidaries Lapidary (from the Latin ) is the practice of shaping stone, minerals, or gemstones into decorative items such as cabochons, engraved gems (including cameos), and faceted designs. A person who practices lapidary is known as a lapidarist. A la ...
, engravers, and
copyist A copyist is a person that makes duplications of the same thing. The term is sometimes used for artists who make copies of other artists' paintings. However, the modern use of the term is almost entirely confined to music copyists, who are emplo ...
s made the most of the available writing space. Scribal abbreviations were infrequent when writing materials were plentiful, but by the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, writing materials were scarce and costly. During the Roman Republic, several abbreviations, known as sigla (plural of ''siglum'' 'symbol or abbreviation'), were in common use in inscriptions, and they increased in number during the Roman Empire. Additionally, in this period shorthand entered general usage. The earliest known Western shorthand system was that employed by the Greek historian Xenophon in the memoir of Socrates, and it was called . In the late Roman Republic, the Tironian notes were developed possibly by Marcus Tullius Tiro, Cicero's
amanuensis An amanuensis () is a person employed to write or type what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another, and also refers to a person who signs a document on behalf of another under the latter's authority. In one example Eric Fenby ...
, in 63 BC to record information with fewer symbols; Tironian notes include a shorthand/syllabic alphabet notation different from the Latin minuscule hand and square and
rustic capital Rustic capitals ( la, littera capitalis rustica) is an ancient Roman calligraphic script. Because the term is negatively connoted supposing an opposition to the more 'civilized' form of the Roman square capitals, Bernhard Bischoff prefers to call ...
letters. The notation was akin to modern
stenographic Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''ste ...
writing systems. It used symbols for whole words or word roots and grammatical modifier marks, and it could be used to write either whole passages in shorthand or only certain words. In medieval times, the symbols to represent words were widely used; and the initial symbols, as few as 140 according to some sources, were increased to 14,000 by the
Carolingians The Carolingian dynasty (; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charlemagne, grandson of mayor Charles Martel and a descendant of the Arnulfing and Pippin ...
, who used them in conjunction with other abbreviations. However, the alphabet notation had a "murky existence" (C. Burnett), as it was often associated with witchcraft and magic, and it was eventually forgotten. Interest in it was rekindled by the
Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...
Thomas Becket in the 12th century and later in the 15th century, when it was rediscovered by
Johannes Trithemius Johannes Trithemius (; 1 February 1462 – 13 December 1516), born Johann Heidenberg, was a German Benedictine abbot and a polymath who was active in the German Renaissance as a lexicographer, chronicler, cryptographer, and occultist. He is consi ...
, abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Sponheim, in a psalm written entirely in Tironian shorthand and a Ciceronian lexicon, which was discovered in a Benedictine monastery (). To learn the Tironian note system, scribes required formal schooling in some 4,000 symbols; this later increased to some 5,000 symbols and then to some 13,000 in the medieval period (4th to 15th centuries AD); the meanings of some characters remain uncertain. Sigla were mostly used in lapidary inscriptions; in some places and historical periods (such as medieval Spain) scribal abbreviations were overused to the extent that some are indecipherable.


Forms

The abbreviations were not constant but changed from region to region. Scribal abbreviations increased in usage and reached their height in the
Carolingian Renaissance The Carolingian Renaissance was the first of three medieval renaissances, a period of cultural activity in the Carolingian Empire. It occurred from the late 8th century to the 9th century, taking inspiration from the State church of the Roman Emp ...
(8th to 10th centuries). The most common abbreviations, called , were used across most of Europe, but others appeared in certain regions. In legal documents, legal abbreviations, called , appear but also capricious abbreviations, which scribes manufactured ad hoc to avoid repeating names and places in a given document. Scribal abbreviations can be found in
epigraphy Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...
, sacred and legal manuscripts, written in Latin or in a vernacular tongue (but less frequently and with fewer abbreviations), either calligraphically or not. In
epigraphy Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...
, common abbreviations were comprehended in two observed classes: *The abbreviation of a word to its initial letter; *The abbreviation of a word to its first consecutive letters or to several letters, from throughout the word. Both forms of abbreviation are called ''suspensions'' (as the scribe suspends the writing of the word). A separate form of abbreviation is by ''contraction'' and was mostly a Christian usage for sacred words, or ; non-Christian sigla usage usually limited the number of letters the abbreviation comprised and omitted no intermediate letter. One practice was rendering an overused, formulaic phrase only as a siglum: ''DM'' for ('Dedicated to the Manes'); ''
IHS IHS may refer to: Religious * Christogram IHS or ΙΗΣ, a monogram symbolizing Jesus Christ * ''In hoc signo'', used by Roman emperor Constantine the Great Organizations * Indian Health Service, an operating division of the US Department of Hea ...
'' from the first three letters of ; and ''RIP'' for ('rest in peace')) because the long-form written usage of the abbreviated phrase, by itself, was rare. According to Traube, these abbreviations are not really meant to lighten the burden of the scribe but rather to shroud in reverent obscurity the holiest words of the Christian religion. Another practice was repeating the abbreviation's final consonant a given number of times to indicate a group of as many persons: denoted , thus, denoted ; however, lapidaries took typographic liberties with that rule, and instead of using to denote , they invented the form. Still, when occasion required referring to three or four persons, the complex doubling of the final consonant yielded to the simple plural siglum. To that effect, a '' vinculum'' (overbar) above a letter or a letter-set also was so used, becoming a universal medieval typographic usage. Likewise the '' tilde'' (~), an undulated, curved-end line, came into standard late-medieval usage. Besides the tilde and macron marks above and below letters, modifying cross-bars and extended strokes were employed as scribal abbreviation marks, mostly for prefixes and verb, noun and adjective suffixes. The typographic abbreviations should not be confused with the phrasal abbreviations: ''i.e.'' ( 'that is'); ''loc. cit.'' ( 'in the passage already cited'); ''viz.'' ( 'namely; that is to say; in other words' – formed with ''vi'' + the
yogh The letter yogh (ȝogh) ( ; Scots: ; Middle English: ) was used in Middle English and Older Scots, representing ''y'' () and various velar phonemes. It was derived from the Insular form of the letter ''g''. In Middle English writing, tailed z ...
-like glyph ꝫ, the siglum for the suffix ''-et'' and the conjunction ); and ''etc.'' (''et cetera'' 'and so on'). Moreover, besides scribal abbreviations, ancient texts also contained variant typographic characters, including
ligatures Ligature may refer to: * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure ** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry * Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...
(Æ, Œ, etc.), the long s (ſ), and the r rotunda (ꝛ). The ''u'' and ''v'' characters originated as scribal variants for their respective letters, likewise the ''i'' and ''j'' pair. Modern publishers printing Latin-language works replace variant typography and sigla with full-form Latin spellings; the convention of using ''u'' and ''i'' for vowels and ''v'' and ''j'' for consonants is a late typographic development.


Scribal sigla in modern use


Latin script

Some ancient and medieval sigla are still used in English and other European languages; the Latin
ampersand The ampersand, also known as the and sign, is the logogram , representing the conjunction "and". It originated as a ligature of the letters ''et''—Latin for "and". Etymology Traditionally in English, when spelling aloud, any letter that ...
(&) replaces the conjunction ''and'' in English, in Latin and French, and in Spanish (but its use in Spanish is frowned upon, since the ''y'' is already smaller and easier to write). The Tironian sign (⁊), resembling the digit seven (7), represents the conjunction ''et'' and is written only to the x-height; in current
Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...
usage, the siglum denotes the conjunction ('and'). Other scribal abbreviations in modern typographic use are the
percentage In mathematics, a percentage (from la, per centum, "by a hundred") is a number or ratio expressed as a fraction of 100. It is often denoted using the percent sign, "%", although the abbreviations "pct.", "pct" and sometimes "pc" are also us ...
sign (%), from the Italian ('per hundred'); the
permille Per mille (from New Latin, Latin , "in each thousand") is an expression that means parts per thousand. Other recognised spellings include per mil, per mill, permil, permill, or permille. The associated sign is written , which looks like a ...
sign (‰), from the Italian ('per thousand'); the pound sign (₤, £ and #, all descending from or ''lb'' for ) and the dollar sign ($), which possibly derives from the Spanish word . The
commercial at The at sign, , is normally read aloud as "at"; it is also commonly called the at symbol, commercial at, or address sign. It is used as an accounting and invoice abbreviation meaning "at a rate of" (e.g. 7 widgets @ £2 per widget = £14), but ...
symbol (@), originally denoting 'at the rate/price of', is a ligature derived from the English preposition ''at''; from the 1990s, its use outside commerce became widespread, as part of
e-mail address An email address identifies an email box to which messages are delivered. While early messaging systems used a variety of formats for addressing, today, email addresses follow a set of specific rules originally standardized by the Internet Engineer ...
es. Typographically, the ampersand, representing the word ''et'', is a space-saving ligature of the letters ''e'' and ''t'', its component
graphemes In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other names of emic units. The study of graphemes is called ''graphemics' ...
. Since the establishment of movable-type printing in the 15th century, founders have created many such ligatures for each set of record type (font) to communicate much information with fewer symbols. Moreover, during the Renaissance (14th to 17th centuries), when Ancient Greek language
manuscripts A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...
introduced that tongue to Western Europe, its scribal abbreviations were converted to ligatures in imitation of the Latin scribal writing to which readers were accustomed. Later, in the 16th century, when the culture of publishing included Europe's vernacular languages, Graeco-Roman scribal abbreviations disappeared, an ideologic deletion ascribed to the anti- Latinist Protestant Reformation (1517–1648). The common abbreviation ''Xmas'', for '' Christmas'', is a remnant of an old scribal abbreviation that substituted the Greek letter
chi Chi or CHI may refer to: Greek *Chi (letter), the Greek letter (uppercase Χ, lowercase χ); Chinese *Chi (length), ''Chi'' (length) (尺), a traditional unit of length, about ⅓ meter *Chi (mythology) (螭), a dragon *Chi (surname) (池, pin ...
(Χ) for Christ's name (deriving from the first letter in his name, ).


Church Slavonic

After the invention of printing, manuscript copying abbreviations continued to be employed in
Church Slavonic Church Slavonic (, , literally "Church-Slavonic language"), also known as Church Slavic, New Church Slavonic or New Church Slavic, is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus, Bosnia and Herzeg ...
and are still in use in printed books as well as on icons and inscriptions. Many common long roots and nouns describing sacred persons are abbreviated and written under the special
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
symbol titlo, as shown in the figure at the right. That corresponds to the ('Sacred names') tradition of using contractions for certain frequently occurring names in Greek ecclesiastical texts. However, sigla for personal nouns are restricted to "good" beings and the same words, when referring to "bad" beings, are spelled out; for example, while ''God'' in the sense of the one true God is abbreviated as , ''god'' referring to "false" gods is spelled out. Likewise, the word meaning 'angel' is generally abbreviated as , but the word meaning 'angels' is spelled out for 'performed by evil angels' in Psalm 77.


Abbreviation types

's lists the various medieval brachigraphic signs found in
Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve ...
and Italian texts, which originate from the Roman sigla, a symbol to express a word, and Tironian notes. Quite rarely, abbreviations did not carry marks to indicate that an abbreviation has occurred: if they did, they were often copying errors. For example, ''e.g.'' is written with periods, but modern terms, such as ''PC'', may be written in uppercase. The original manuscripts were not written in a modern sans-serif or serif font but in Roman capitals, rustic, uncial, insular, Carolingian or blackletter styles. For more, refer to Western calligraphy or a beginner's guide. Additionally, the abbreviations employed varied across Europe. In Nordic texts, for instance, two
runes Runes are the letter (alphabet), letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, a ...
were used in text written in the Latin alphabet, which are '' '' (ᚠ 'cattle, goods') and ''
maðr *Mannaz is the conventional name of the ''m''-rune of the Elder Futhark. It is derived from the reconstructed Common Germanic word for "man", ''*mannaz''. Younger Futhark ᛘ is maðr (" man"). It took up the shape of the algiz rune ᛉ, re ...
'' (ᛘ 'man'). divides abbreviations into six overlapping categories: *by suspension () *by contraction () *with independent meaning () *with relative meaning () *by superscript letters () *by convention ()


Suspension

Suspended terms are those of which only the first part is written, and the last part is substituted by a mark, which can be of two types: ; General: indicating there has been an abbreviation but not how. The marks are placed above or across the ascender of the letters. : : The final three of the series are knot-like and are used in papal or regal documents. ; Specific: indicating that a truncation has occurred. : :The third case is a stylistic alternative found in several fonts, here Andron
Unicode chart extended D
. The largest class of suspensions consists of single letters standing in for words that begin with that letter. A dot at the baseline after a capital letter may stand for a title if it is used such as in front of names or a person's name in medieval legal documents. However, not all sigla use the beginning of the word. For plural words, the siglum is often doubled: ''F.'' = and ''FF.'' = . Tripled sigla often stand for three: ''DDD'' = . Letters lying on their sides, or mirrored (backwards), often indicate female titles, but a mirrored ''C'' (Ↄ) stands generally for or (the latter sometimes with a macron above: Ↄ̄). To avoid confusion with abbreviations and numerals, the latter are often written with a bar above. In some contexts, however, numbers with a line above indicate that number is to be multiplied by a thousand, and several other abbreviations also have a line above them, such as (Greek letters chi + rho) = or = ''Jesus''. Starting in the 8th or the 9th century, single-letter sigla grew less common and were replaced by longer, less ambiguous sigla with bars above them.


Contraction

Abbreviations by contraction have one or more middle letters omitted. They were often represented with a general mark of abbreviation (above), such as a line above. They can be divided into two subtypes: ; pure: keeps only the first (one or more) and last (one or more) letters but not intermediate letters. Special cases arise when a contraction keeps only the first and last letter of a word, resulting in a two-letter sigla ; mixed (impure): keeps one or more intermediate letters of the word that is abridged


Marks with independent meaning

Such marks inform the reader of the identity of the missing part of the word without affecting (independent of) the meaning. Some of them may be interpreted as alternative contextual glyphs of their respective letters. *The straight or curved macron above a letter means that an ''n'' or ''m'' is missing. A remnant can be seen in Spanish where an ''n'' with a tilde ( ñ) is used for . In Visigoth texts before the 9th century, however, a dot is placed above the macron to indicate ''m'', and the same mark without a dot meant ''n''. The line with a dot became the general mark after the 9th century in Visigoth texts. *A mark, resembling the
Arabic numeral Arabic numerals are the ten numerical digits: , , , , , , , , and . They are the most commonly used symbols to write Decimal, decimal numbers. They are also used for writing numbers in other systems such as octal, and for writing identifiers ...
nine (9) or a mirrored ''C'' in Gothic texts, is one of the oldest signs and can be found in the texts of Marcus Valerius Probus and Tironian notes with the same meaning as ''con''. *Another mark, similar to a bold comma or a superscript ''9'', placed after the letter on the median line, represented ''us'' or ''os'', generally at the end of the word, being the nominative case
affix In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They ar ...
of the second declension, sometimes ''is'' or simply ''s''. The
apostrophe The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one o ...
used today originated from various marks in sigla, which caused its current use in elision, such as in the
Saxon genitive In English, possessive words or phrases exist for nouns and most pronouns, as well as some noun phrases. These can play the roles of determiners (also called possessive adjectives when corresponding to a pronoun) or of nouns. For nouns, noun ph ...
. *A wave-like or omicron-like mark stands for a missing ''r'' (rhotic consonant) or ''ra''. Sometimes, a similar wave-like mark at the end of a word indicated a missing ''-a'' or syllable ending in ''-a''. This is, however, a coincidence, as one of the marks stems from a small ''r''-like mark and the other from an ''a''-like one. In later texts, it became a diaeresis (two dots), or a broken line. *A mark, resembling the Arabic numeral two (2) and placed on the median line after the letter, indicates ''tur'' or ''ur'', which occurs generally at the end of the word. Alternatively it could stand for ''ter'' or ''er'' but not at the end of the word. (Nordic languages, such as Old English, have a lightning-bolt-like mark for words ending in ''er''.) *The r rotunda with a cut generally stood for ''-rum'', but it could also stand for a truncation after the letter ''r''. *A last mark, which could either be the Tironian note (⁊) or the ampersand (&), was used with equal frequency as the conjunction ''et'' ('and') or as ''et'' in any part of the word. The symbol ⁊ at the end of a word indicates the enclitic ''-que'' ('and'). A corruption occurs in some manuscripts between it and the ''us''/''os'' mark.


Marks with relative meaning

The meaning of the marks depends on the letter on which they appear. *A macron not fully above the character but crossing the descender or ascender: *: b̵, b̄ – ''bre-, ber-, -ub'' *: c̄'' – (with a link on the right) – ''cum, con, cen-'' *: ꝯ̄ – (above) – ''quondam'' *: d̵, d̄ – ''de-, der, -ud'' (a crossed ''d'', not ''ð'' = eth) *: h̵, h̄ – ''haec, hoc, her'' *: ꝉ – ''vel, ul-, -el'' *: m̄ (above) – ''mem-, mun-'' *: n̄ (above) – ''non, nun-'' *: ꝋ (crossed horizontally, not
Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...
''ø'') – ''obiit'' (see:
Theta infelix The theta nigrum ("black theta") or theta infelix ("unlucky theta") is a symbol of death in Greek and Latin epigraphy. Isidore of Seville notes the letter was appended after the name of a deceased soldier and finds of papyri containing milita ...
) *: p̱ – ''per, par-, por-'' *: p̄ (above) – ''prae, pre-'' (alternatively, a mark similar to ''-us'' comma above but with a small spiral glyph could be used for this meaning, and it is also valid above the letter ''q'') *: p̄p̄ (above), p̱p̱ (below) – ''propter, papa'' *: q̱ – ''qui'' and, in Italy, , but in England ''quam, quia'' *: q̄ (above) – ''quae'' *: q̄q̄ (above) or ''q̱q̱'' (below) – ''quoque'' *: q̱̃ (tilde above and line below) – ''quam'' *: t̵ – ''ter-, tem-, ten-'' *: ū, v̄ (above) – ''ven-, ver, -vit'' *A dot, two dots, comma and dot (different from a semicolon), and the mark like an Arabic numeral three (ꝫ) were generally at the end of a word on the baseline. After ''b'', they mean ''-us'' (semicolon-like and ꝫ also could mean ''-et''). After ''q'', they form the conjunction ''-que'' (meaning "and" but attached to the end of the last word) with semicolon-like and ꝫ the ''q'' could be omitted. Semicolon-like, in Lombard documents, above ''s'' meant ''-sis''. The dot above median line on an ''h'' – ''hoc''. Dot above ''u'' – ''ut'' or ''uti''. The ꝫ could mean ''-est'', or after ''a'', ''e'', ''u'' vowels meant ''-m'' not ''us'' or ''ei'', if after an ''o'' it meant ''-nem''. In certain papers the ꝫ mark can be confused with a cut ''r'' rotunda (handwritten 4-like). **A dot to the left and right of a letter gave the following meanings: ''e'' – ''.e.'' ''est'', ''i'' – ''.i.'' ''id est'', ''n'' – ''.n.'' ''enim'', ''q'' – ''.q.'' ''quasi'', ''s'' – ''.s.'' ''scilicet'', ''t'' – ''.t.'' ''tune'', .ꝯ. – ''quondam'', .⁊. ''etiam''. *A diagonal line, often hooked, mark crossing nearly all the letters gives a different meaning. Commonly a missing ''er'', ''ar'', ''re''. Variants of which were placed above and were ¿-like, tilde (crossing ascender) and similar to the ''us'' mark. These, used in various combinations, allow for various uses giving additional meanings. *2-like mark, after a ''q'' – ''qꝛ'' ''quia''. After 15th century alone ꝛ ''et'' (being similar to ⁊) and alone with line above ꝛ̄ ''etiam''. After ''u'' and ''a'' at the end of a word (''uꝛ'', ''aꝛ'') ''m'', after ''s'' – ''sꝛ'', ''ſꝛ'' ''et'' or ''ed''.


Stacked or superscript letters

A superscript letter generally referred to the letter omitted, but, in some instances, as in the case of vowel letters, it could refer to a missing vowel combined with the letter ''r'', before or after it. It is only in some English dialects that the letter ''r'' before another consonant largely silent and the preceding vowel is "
r-coloured In phonetics, an r-colored or rhotic vowel (also called a retroflex vowel, vocalic r, or a rhotacized vowel) is a vowel that is modified in a way that results in a lowering in frequency of the third formant. R-colored vowels can be articulate ...
". However, ''a'', ''i'', and ''o'' above ''g'' meant ''gͣ'' ''gna'', ''gͥ'' ''gni'' and ''gͦ'' ''gno'' respectively. Although in English, the ''g'' is silent in '' gn'', but in other languages, it is pronounced. Vowel letters above ''q'' meant ''qu'' + vowel: ''qͣ'', ''qͤ'', ''qͥ'', ''qͦ'', ''qͧ''. *''a'' on ''r'': ''rͣ'' – ''regula'' *''o'' on ''m'': ''mͦ'' – ''modo'' Vowels were the most common superscripts, but consonants could be placed above letters without ascenders; the most common were ''c'', e.g. ''nͨ''. A cut ''l'' above an ''n'', ''nᷝ'', meant ''nihil'' for instance.


Convention marks

These marks are nonalphabetic letters carrying a particular meaning. Several of them continue in modern usage, as in the case of monetary symbols. In Unicode, they are referred to as ''letter-like glyphs''. Additionally, several authors are of the view that the Roman numerals themselves were, for example, nothing less than abbreviations of the words for those numbers. Other examples of symbols still in some use are alchemical and zodiac symbols, which were, in any case, employed only in alchemy and astrology texts, which made their appearance beyond that special context rare.


Other

In addition to the signs used to signify abbreviations, medieval manuscripts feature some glyphs that are now uncommon but were not sigla. Many more
ligatures Ligature may refer to: * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure ** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry * Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...
were used to reduce the space occupied, a characteristic that is particularly prominent in blackletter scripts. Some letter variants such as r rotunda, long s and uncial or insular variants ( Insular G),
Claudian letters The Claudian letters were developed by the Roman emperor Claudius (reigned 41–54). He introduced three new letters to the Latin alphabet: *Ↄ or ↃϹ/X (''antisigma'') to replace BS and PS, much as X stood in for CS and GS. The shape o ...
were in common use, as well as letters derived from other scripts such as Nordic runes: thorn (þ=th) and eth (ð=dh). An
illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the ...
would feature miniatures, decorated initials or ''littera notabilior'', which later resulted in the bicamerality of the script (case distinction).


Typographic replication

Various typefaces have been designed to allow scribal abbreviations and other archaic glyphs to be replicated in print. They include "
record type Record type is a family of typefaces designed to allow medieval manuscripts (specifically those from England) to be published as near-facsimiles of the originals. The typefaces include many special characters intended to replicate the various s ...
", which was first developed in the 1770s to publish Domesday Book and was fairly widely used for the publication of medieval records in Britain until the end of the 19th century.


Unicode encoding

In the Unicode Standar
v. 5.1
(4 April 2008), 152 medieval and classical glyphs were given specific locations outside of the Private Use Area. Specifically, they are located in the chart
"Combining Diacritical Marks Supplement"
(26 characters)
"Latin Extended Additional"
(10 characters)
"Supplemental Punctuation"
(15 characters)
"Ancient Symbols"
(12 characters) and especiall
"Latin Extended-D"
(89 characters). These consist in both precomposed characters and modifiers for other characters, called combining diacritical marks (such as writing in LaTeX or usin
overstrike
in MS Word). Characters are "the smallest components of written language that have semantic value" but glyphs are "the shapes that characters can have when they are rendered or displayed".


Examples of 8th- and 9th-century Latin abbreviations across Europe

File:Notaelatinae 01.jpg File:Notaelatinae 02.jpg File:Notaelatinae00linduoft Page 03.jpg File:Notaelatinae 04.jpg File:Notaelatinae00linduoft Page 05.jpg File:Notaelatinae 06.jpg


See also

* Acronym *
Claudian letters The Claudian letters were developed by the Roman emperor Claudius (reigned 41–54). He introduced three new letters to the Latin alphabet: *Ↄ or ↃϹ/X (''antisigma'') to replace BS and PS, much as X stood in for CS and GS. The shape o ...
*
List of acronyms Lists of acronyms contain acronyms, a type of abbreviation formed from the initial components of the words of a longer name or phrase. They are organized alphabetically and by field. Alphabetical * List of acronyms: 0–9 * List of acronyms: A ...
* List of classical abbreviations * List of medieval abbreviations * Macron § Other uses *
Monogram A monogram is a motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbols or logos. A series o ...
* Palaeography * Textspeak – a similar phenomenon in modern text messaging *
Typographic ligature In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes or letters are joined to form a single glyph. Examples are the characters æ and œ used in English and French, in which the letters 'a' and 'e' are joined for the first li ...
* Palaeographic letters


References


Citations


Sources

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External links


Bibliography
on medieval abbreviations and other scribal conventions.

for the use of sigla * The abbreviations used in the 1913 edition of Webster's dictionary {{List of writing systems Abbreviations Data compression Latin script Medieval literature Palaeography Scribes Textual scholarship