Character (sign)
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A character is a
semiotic Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...
sign A sign is an object, quality, event, or entity whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else. A natural sign bears a causal relation to its object—for instance, thunder is a sign of storm, or me ...
or
symbol A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...
, or a
glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...
typically a letter, a numerical digit, an ideogram, a hieroglyph, a punctuation mark or another typographic mark.


History

The Ancient Greek word ('charaktīr') is an
agent noun In linguistics, an agent noun (in Latin, ) is a word that is derived from another word denoting an action, and that identifies an entity that does that action. For example, "driver" is an agent noun formed from the verb "drive". Usually, ''derive ...
of the verb (''charassō'') with a meaning "to sharpen, to whet", and also "to make cake", from a
PIE root The roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) are basic parts of words that carry a lexical meaning, so-called morphemes. PIE roots usually have verbal meaning like "to eat" or "to run". Roots never occurred alone in the lang ...
' "cut" also continued in Irish ''gearr'' and English ''gash'', which is perhaps an early loan ultimately from the same Greek root. A is thus an "engraver", originally in the sense of a craftsman, but then also used for a tool used for engraving, and for a stamp for minting coins. From the stamp, the meaning was extended to the stamp impression, Plato using the noun in the sense of "engraved mark". In Plutarch, the word could refer to a figure or letter,
Lucian Lucian of Samosata, '; la, Lucianus Samosatensis ( 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer Pamphleteer is a historical term for someone who creates or distributes pamphlets, unbound (and therefore ...
uses it of hieroglyphs as opposed to Greek ''grammata'' (''Herm''. 44) Metaphorically, it could refer to a distinctive mark, Herodotus (1.57) using it of a particular dialect, or (1.116) of a characteristic mark of an individual. The collective noun "characteristics" appears later, in Dionysius Halicarnassensis. Via Latin ', Old French ', the word passed into Middle English as ' in the 14th century.
Wycliffe Wycliffe (and other similar spellings) may refer to: People *John Wycliffe (and other spellings) (c.1320s – 1384), English theologian and Bible translator * Wycliffe (name), includes a list of other people with the name Places * Wycliffe, Count ...
(1382) has "To a ..in her " () for the
mark of the beast The number of the beast ( grc-koi, Ἀριθμὸς τοῦ θηρίου, ) is associated with the Beast of Revelation in chapter 13, verse 18 of the Book of Revelation. In most manuscripts of the New Testament and in English translations of t ...
(translating "imprinted or branded mark").


Graphemes, glyphs and hieroglyphs

The word "character" was used in the sense of letter or grapheme by William Caxton, referring to the Phoenician alphabet: (''Eneydos'' 6.25). As in Greek, the word was used especially for foreign or mysterious graphemes (such as
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
, Syriac, or Runic ones) as opposed to the familiar ''letters''; in particular of shorthand (in '' David Copperfield'' (chapter 38) sarcastically of shorthand, "a procession of new horrors, called arbitrary characters; the most despotic characters I have ever known"), and since 1949 in computing (see
character (computing) In computer and machine-based telecommunications terminology, a character is a unit of information that roughly corresponds to a grapheme, grapheme-like unit, or symbol, such as in an alphabet or syllabary in the written form of a natural lan ...
). As a collective noun, the word can refer to writing or printing in general ( Shakespeare's sonnet nr. 59: , meaning "since thought was first put into writing"). The word '' hieroglyph'' (Greek for sacred writing) dates from an early use in an English to Italian dictionary published by
John Florio Giovanni Florio (1552–1625), known as John Florio, was an English linguist, poet, writer, translator, lexicographer, and royal language tutor at the Court of James I. He is recognised as the most important Renaissance humanist in England. F ...
in 1598, referencing the complex and mysterious characters of the Egyptian alphabet. Egyptian hieroglyphs were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with a total of some 1,000 distinct characters.Antonio Loprieno, ''Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction'' (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995), p. 12.


Esotericism and magic

The word in Renaissance magic came to refer to any astrological, kabbalistic or magical sign or symbol.
John Dee John Dee (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609) was an English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, teacher, occultist, and alchemist. He was the court astronomer for, and advisor to, Elizabeth I, and spent much of his time on alchemy, divinatio ...
(1527 1608), a mathematician and occultist, designed an esoteric
symbol A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...
(right), which he described in his 1564 book, : the word hieroglyph is a composite of hiero (holy) and
glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...
(a distinct character). In the 19th century, this sense of the word appears mainly in Romantic poetry, such as Sir Walter Scott's ''Lay of the last minstrel'' (1805), where "A hallow'd taper shed a glimmering light / On mystic implements of magic might; On cross, and character, and talisman," (6.17).


Semiotics and epistemology

From the esoteric or mystical meanings, learned authors of the Early Modern period abstracted a notion of ''Character'' as a code or hierarchical system that embodied all knowledge or all of reality, or a written representation of a
philosophical language A philosophical language is any constructed language that is constructed from first principles. It is considered a type of engineered language. Philosophical languages were popular in Early Modern times, partly motivated by the goal of revising nor ...
that would recover the " true names" lost in the confusion of tongues. This idea had currency as a kind of epistemological
philosophers' stone The philosopher's stone or more properly philosophers' stone (Arabic: حجر الفلاسفة, , la, lapis philosophorum), is a mythic alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold (, from the Greek , "gold", a ...
for about a century, from the mid 17th century, with Francis Lodwick (1642) and
John Wilkins John Wilkins, (14 February 1614 – 19 November 1672) was an Anglican clergyman, natural philosopher, and author, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. He was Bishop of Chester from 1668 until his death. Wilkins is one of the fe ...
's ''Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language'' (1668), to the later 18th century and the '' Encyclopédie'' where in a long entry under the heading ''Charactère'', D'Alembert critically reviewed such projects of the past century.


See also

* Typeface anatomy, the graphic elements that make up letters in a typeface


References

{{reflist Etymologies Semiotics pt:Caractere