,,semi-virgula''

From: Janusz S. Bień (jsbien@mimuw.edu.pl)
Date: Tue Aug 31 2010 - 09:57:25 CDT

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    I apologize for possible duplication. I've send this message already
    yesterday, but it hasn't appeared on the list...

    Enclosed please find a quotation from

    Die Altpolnischen Orthographien des 16. Jahrhundrerts
    Eingeleitet und herausgegeben von Stanisław Urbańczyk unter Mitwirkung von Reinhold Olesch
    Böhlau Verlag 1983

    which mentions a diactritic called there "semi-virgula" and
    illustrates its use with the letter e.

    The diacritic has been definitely used also with the letter a,
    although sometimes it had a slightly different shape as illustrated in
    the next attachment.

    It was used also with a letter which I interpret as the latin alpha.
    Unfortunately I don't have a good scan of the original usage, so I
    demonstrate it in the last attachment by a contemporary rendering in
    the dictionary of 16th century Polish.

    I have two questions.

    First, is "semivirgula" a good name? Google shows that it often refers
    to semicolon. "Caudatum" seems to me even more misleading because it
    should refer simply to ogonek (to the best of my knowledge, the
    distinction caudatum/ogonek is made only internally by the editors of
    the dictionary of 16th century Polish).

    The characters with "semi-virgula" were replaced later by ± and ę and
    usually are transcribed this way, but sometime the distinction should
    be preserved, as in the dictionary mentioned above. So the second
    question concerns of course encoding. Can the diacritic be interpreted
    as an already exisiting combining character? I didn't find a
    appropriate one.

    I will appreciate very much your opinion.

    Best regards

    Janusz 



    -- 
                     ,   
dr hab. Janusz S. Bien, prof. UW -  Uniwersytet Warszawski (Katedra Lingwistyki Formalnej)
Prof. Janusz S. Bien - Warsaw University (Department of Formal Linguistics)
jsbien@uw.edu.pl, jsbien@mimuw.edu.pl, http://fleksem.klf.uw.edu.pl/~jsbien/
    semi-virgula in Die Altpolnischen Orthographien
    a with stroke/semi-virgula
    alpha with stroke/semi-virgula/caudatum

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