[DCRM-L] Reconsidering digraphs

[Noble, Richard]

The instructions regarding ligatures are in LCRI 1.0E, 1st paragraph: "Separate ligatures that are occasional stylistic usages (Œdipus, alumnæ, etc.) rather than standard usages in the modern orthography of the language, e.g.,œ in French (as in œuvre) or æ in Danish (as in særtryk). If there is any doubt as to the correct conversion of elements to modern forms, transcribe them from the source as exactly as possible." I believe that ligatures are separately alphabetized, i.e. treated as distinct characters, in some languages--Danish among them, I seem to recall. Note the "in case of doubt" clause, which tells you to treat the ligatures as "content", in the terms you've adopted.
 

RICHARD NOBLE : RARE BOOKS CATALOGER : JOHN HAY LIBRARY : BROWN UNIVERSITY
PROVIDENCE, RI 02912 : 401-863-1187/FAX 863-2093 : RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU

-----Original Message-----
From: dcrm-l-admin at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-admin at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Deborah J. Leslie
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 9:33 AM
To: dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu
Subject: [DCRM-L] Reconsidering digraphs



Dear cataloging colleagues,

 

This weekend four of the five DCRM(B) editors are meeting at the Folger for intense editing sessions. I’m happy to report that so far we’re making good progress, but find there is an issue we want to re-open, and request guidance from the larger community. It has to do with the separation of ae and oe digraphs, or “ligatures” as the rules call them. Please keep in mind that we are not speaking of decorative ligatures, such as ct’s and st’s as a single type-body. We are only speaking of two letters written as one. 

 

As far as we can discover, AACR2 gives no guidance on digraphs. (One of us thought she had found an AACR2 instruction to separate all ligatures, but now cannot find it and wonders if she imagined it.) LCRI 1.0E says to separate ligatures into their component letters, but makes exceptions for modern French and Scandinavian, in which oe and ae are to be transcribed as a single character. DCRB adds Anglo-Saxon and ancient Scandinavian languages to the exception list. 

 

The current draft of DCRM(B) has simplified the instruction: separate all ligatures into their component letters, no exceptions. But we feel we need to reconsider that instruction given our desire to make the transcription more precise in terms of content. AE and oe digraphs have always been part of the MARC character set. We realize we are having a hard time justifying the separation of digraphs in transcription. 

 

An instruction to transcribe all digraphs as digraphs, in any language at all, goes against the grain of experience for many of us. The ESTC, on the other hand, has been transcribing digraphs as such all along. We need to winnow out the aesthetic arguments and focus on what we are trying to accomplish with transcription. (All other things being equal, aesthetic arguments count, but only if all other things really are equal). 

 

At its most basic level, the DCRM transcription principle is to transcribe the content, but not the form, of printed text. Thus, we retain archaic and incorrect spellings, but normalize capitalization and line endings -- the former being content, the latter form. The digraph question comes down to this: do digraphs represent content (does their joining together actually create a new letter) or do they represent form (just a conventional way of writing these combinations of letters)? We as a group are leaning more toward the consideration of digraphs as  content. What do you think? 

 

_________________________________
Deborah J. Leslie, M.A., M.L.S.
Head of Cataloging
Folger Shakespeare Library
djleslie at folger.edu
http://www.folger.edu

 

 

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