The tie is a symbol in the shape of an
arc similar to a large
breve
A breve (, less often , neuter form of the Latin "short, brief") is the diacritic mark ˘, shaped like the bottom half of a circle. As used in Ancient Greek, it is also called , . It resembles the caron (the wedge or in Czech, in Slo ...
, used in
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 ...
, phonetic alphabets, and
Z notation
The Z notation is a formal specification language used for describing and modelling computing systems. It is targeted at the clear specification of computer programs and computer-based systems in general.
History
In 1974, Jean-Raymond Abria ...
. It can be used between two characters with spacing as
punctuation
Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. An ...
, non-spacing as a
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 ...
, or (underneath) as a
proofreading
Proofreading is the reading of a galley proof or an electronic copy of a publication to find and correct reproduction errors of text or art. Proofreading is the final step in the editorial cycle before publication.
Professional
Traditional ...
mark. It can be above or below, and reversed. Its forms are called tie, double breve, enotikon or papyrological hyphen, ligature tie, and undertie.
Uses
Cyrillic transliteration
In the
ALA-LC romanization for Russian The American Library Association and Library of Congress Romanization Tables for Russian, or the Library of Congress system, are a set of rules for the romanization of Russian-language text from Cyrillic script to Latin script.
The ALA-LC Roman ...
, a tie symbol is placed over some combinations of roman letters that are represented by a single letter in the Cyrillic alphabet, e.g., T͡S for Ц and i͡a for я. This is not uniformly applied, however: some letters corresponding to common digraphs in English, such as sh for ш and kh for х do not employ the tie. In practice, the tie ligature is often omitted.
Greek
The enotikon (, ''henōtikón'',
"uniter", from "a serving to unite or unify"), papyrological hyphen, or Greek hyphen was a low tie mark found in late
Classical and
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
papyri
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, ''Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a d ...
.
[Nicholas, Nick.]
Greek Unicode Issues: Greek /h/
. 2005. Accessed 7 Oct 2014. In an era when Greek texts were typically written ''
scripta continua'', the enotikon served to show that a series of letters should be read as a single word rather than misunderstood as two separate words. (Its companion mark was the
hypodiastole
The hypodiastole (Greek: , , ), also known as a diastole,''Oxford English Dictionary'', "diastole, ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1895. was an interpunct developed in late Ancient and Byzantine Greek texts before the separation o ...
, which showed that a series of letters should be understood as two separate words.
[Nicolas, Nick.]
Greek Unicode Issues: Punctuation
. 2005. Accessed 7 Oct 2014.) Although
modern Greek
Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
now uses the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
hyphen
The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. ''Son-in-law'' is an example of a hyphenated word. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (figure d ...
, the
Hellenic Organization for Standardization The Hellenic Organization for Standardization ( el, Ελληνικός Οργανισμός Τυποποίησης, ''Ellīnikós Organismós Typopoíīsīs''; abbreviated ΕΛΟΤ in Greek and ELOT in English) is the national standards organizatio ...
included mention of the enotikon in its
romanization standard[ [''Ellīnikós Organismós Typopoíīsīs'', "]Hellenic Organization for Standardization The Hellenic Organization for Standardization ( el, Ελληνικός Οργανισμός Τυποποίησης, ''Ellīnikós Organismós Typopoíīsīs''; abbreviated ΕΛΟΤ in Greek and ELOT in English) is the national standards organizatio ...
"]. [''ELOT 743, 2ī Ekdosī'', "ELOT 743, "]. ELOT (Athens), 2001. . and Unicode is able to reproduce the symbol with its characters and .
The enotikon was also used in Greek musical notation, as a slur under two notes. When a syllable was sung with three notes, this slur was used in combination with a double point
In geometry, a singular point on a curve is one where the curve is not given by a smooth embedding of a parameter. The precise definition of a singular point depends on the type of curve being studied.
Algebraic curves in the plane
Algebraic curv ...
and a diseme overline.[''Ancient Greek music'', Martin Litchfield West, 1994, p. 267.]
Vocal music scores
In musical score engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ...
, the undertie symbol is called an "elision slur" or "lyric slur", and is used to indicate synalepha
A synalepha or synaloepha is the merging of two syllables into one, especially when it causes two words to be pronounced as one.
The original meaning in Ancient Greek is more general than modern usage and includes coalescence of vowels within a w ...
: the elision of two or more spoken syllables into a single note; this is in contrast to the more common melisma
Melisma ( grc-gre, μέλισμα, , ; from grc, , melos, song, melody, label=none, plural: ''melismata'') is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referr ...
, the extension of a ''single'' spoken syllable over ''multiple'' sung notes. Although rare in English texts, synalepha is often encountered in musical lyrics written in the Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
.
In use, the undertie is placed between the words of the lyric that are to be sung as one note to prevent the space between them being interpreted as a syllable break. For example, in the printed lyric "the‿im - mor - tal air", the undertie between "the" and "im-" instructs the singer to elide these two syllables into one, thus reducing five spoken syllables into four sung notes.
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...
uses two type of ties: the ligature tie (IPA #433), above or below two symbols and the undertie (IPA #509) between two symbols.
Ligature tie
The ligature tie, also called double inverted breve, is used to represent double articulation
In linguistics, double articulation, duality of patterning, or duality is the fundamental language phenomenon consisting of the use of combinations of a small number of meaningless elements (sounds, that is, phonemes) to produce a large number of m ...
(e.g. ), affricates
An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. ...
(e.g. ) or prenasalized consonant
Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant such as ) that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rathe ...
s (e.g. ) in the IPA. It is mostly found above but can also be found below when more suitable (e.g. ).
On computers, it is encoded with characters and, as an alternative when ascenders might be interfering with the bow, .
Undertie
The undertie is used to represent linking (absence of a break) in the International Phonetic Alphabet. For example, it is used to indicate liaison
Liaison means communication between two or more groups, or co-operation or working together.
Liaison or liaisons may refer to:
General usage
* Affair, an unfaithful sexual relationship
* Collaboration
* Co-operation
Arts and entertainment
* Li ...
(e.g. ) but can also be used for other types of sandhi
Sandhi ( sa, सन्धि ' , "joining") is a cover term for a wide variety of sound changes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. Examples include fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of one sound depending on near ...
.
On computers, the character used is . This is a spacing character
In ISO/IEC 646 (commonly known as ASCII) and related standards including ISO 8859 and Unicode, a graphic character is any character intended to be written, printed, or otherwise displayed in a form that can be read by humans. In other words, it i ...
, not to be confused with the alternative (below-letter) form of the ligature tie (a͜b ), which is a combining character
In digital typography, combining characters are characters that are intended to modify other characters. The most common combining characters in the Latin script are the combining diacritical marks (including combining accents).
Unicode also ...
.
Uralic Phonetic Alphabet
The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet
The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) or Finno-Ugric transcription system is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription and reconstruction of Uralic languages. It was first published in 1901 by Eemil Nesto ...
uses several forms of the tie or double breve:
* The triple inverted breve or triple breve below indicates a triphthong
In phonetics, a triphthong (, ) (from Greek τρίφθογγος, "triphthongos", literally "with three sounds," or "with three tones") is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement of the articulator from one vowel q ...
* The double inverted breve, also known as the ligature tie, marks a diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
* The double inverted breve below indicates a syllable boundary between vowels
* The undertie is used for prosody
* The inverted undertie is used for prosody.
Other uses
The double breve is used in the phonetic notation of the American Heritage Dictionary
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
in combination with a double o, o͝o, to represent the near-close near-back rounded vowel
The near-close near-back rounded vowel, or near-high near-back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some vocal languages. The IPA symbol that represents this sound is . It is informally called "horseshoe u". Prior to 1989, there was ...
( in IPA).
The triple breve below is used in the phonetic writing Rheinische Dokumenta
The Rheinische Dokumenta () is a phonetic writing system developed in the early 1980s by a working group of academics, linguists, local language experts, and local language speakers of the Rhineland.
It was presented to the public in 1986 by the L ...
for three-letter combinations.
In the field of computing, the Unicode character is used to represent concatenation of sequences in Z notation
The Z notation is a formal specification language used for describing and modelling computing systems. It is targeted at the clear specification of computer programs and computer-based systems in general.
History
In 1974, Jean-Raymond Abria ...
. For example, "s⁀t" represents the concatenation sequence of sequences called ''s'' and ''t'', while the notation "⁀/q" is the distributed concatenation of the sequence of sequences called ''q''.''The Z Notation: a reference manual''
, J. M. Spivey.
In
proofreading
Proofreading is the reading of a galley proof or an electronic copy of a publication to find and correct reproduction errors of text or art. Proofreading is the final step in the editorial cycle before publication.
Professional
Traditional ...
, the undertie was used to indicate that word in a manuscript had been divided incorrectly by a space. (See
Hyphen#Origin and history). The indicator used in modern practice is convention is .
Encoding
The diacritic signs triple inverted breve, triple breve, and double inverted breve have not yet been encoded for computers.
Unicode has characters similar to the tie:
* and
* and
* , which is a
proofreading mark
See also
*
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 ...
*
Legato
In music performance and notation, legato (; Italian for "tied together"; French ''lié''; German ''gebunden'') indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly and connected. That is, the player makes a transition from note to note wit ...
*
Breve
A breve (, less often , neuter form of the Latin "short, brief") is the diacritic mark ˘, shaped like the bottom half of a circle. As used in Ancient Greek, it is also called , . It resembles the caron (the wedge or in Czech, in Slo ...
*
Inverted breve
Inverted breve or arch is a diacritical mark, shaped like the top half of a circle ( ̑ ), that is, like an upside-down breve (˘). It looks similar to the circumflex (ˆ), which has a sharp tip (''Â â Ê ê Î î Ô ô Û û''), whil ...
*
Underscore
An underscore, ; also called an underline, low line, or low dash; is a line drawn under a segment of text. In proofreading, underscoring is a convention that says "set this text in italic type", traditionally used on Manuscript (publishing), man ...
References
{{navbox punctuation
Greek-script diacritics
Palaeography
Phonetic transcription symbols
Punctuation
Typography
Ancient Greek punctuation