From: John Hudson (john@tiro.ca)
Date: Thu Jan 03 2008 - 20:22:25 CST
Michael Everson wrote:
> But the dot n that capital form is not significant.
I don't think you can determine that by fiat. Someone went to the trouble of creating this
special letter with a dot, and that indicates that they thought the dot *was* significant.
Consider: without the dot the letter would be much more legible, would cause few problems
of inkspread filling in the narrow gaps above and below the dot, and yet the dot was
considered so significant that it was maintained despite these considerations.
You are right that the dot does not need to be there *if* this were an uppercase script
style G, but the very fact that the dot is there -- that someone decided that it needed to
be there -- is a good indication that the letter is something distinct. An uppercase
script style G is not used contrastively in the single document in which we have so far
seen this letter used, but that shape of G would have been known in various guises, and
yet the makers of this book decided that they needed a distinctive letter with this
significant dot.
JH
-- Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com Gulf Islands, BC tiro@tiro.com The Lord entered her to become a servant. The Word entered her to keep silence in her womb. The thunder entered her to be quiet. -- St Ephrem the Syrian
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