A breviograph or brevigraph (from la, brevis, short, and
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
''grapho'', to write) is a type of
scribal abbreviation
Scribal abbreviations or sigla (singular: siglum) are abbreviations used by ancient and medieval scribes writing in various languages, including Latin, Greek, Old English and Old Norse. In modern manuscript editing (substantive and mechanica ...
in the form of an easily written symbol, character, flourish or stroke, based on a modified letter form to take the place of a common letter combination, especially those occurring at the beginning or end of a word. Breviographs were used frequently by stenographers, law clerks and scriveners, and they were also found in early printed books and tracts. Their use declined after the 17th century.
Examples
Examples of breviographs:
*
& — et (e.g. &c =
''et''c)
* ⋅i⋅ — id est
* ꝑ — per-, pre-, or par- (e.g. ꝑson = ''per''son)
* ß — ser-, sur-, or sir- (e.g. ßuaunt = ''ser''uaunt = ''ser''vant)
* X — Christ- (e.g. Xian = ''Christ''ian)
See also
*
Acronym and initialism
An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
*
Palaeography
Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US; ultimately from grc-gre, , ''palaiós'', "old", and , ''gráphein'', "to write") is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysi ...
*
Tironian notes
Tironian notes ( la, notae Tironianae, links=no) are a set of thousands of signs that were formerly used in a system of shorthand (Tironian shorthand) dating from the 1st century BCE and named after Tiro, a personal secretary to Marcus Tullius Ci ...
*
Classical abbreviations
*
Medieval abbreviations
*
Scribal abbreviation
Scribal abbreviations or sigla (singular: siglum) are abbreviations used by ancient and medieval scribes writing in various languages, including Latin, Greek, Old English and Old Norse. In modern manuscript editing (substantive and mechanica ...
s
References
Sources
* Elaine E. Whitaker, "Lacunae and the ''id est'' Brevigraph in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 283," ''Manuscripta'' 36, no. 3 (1992), 191-99.
Palaeography
Abbreviations
Scribes
Orthography
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