[DCRM-L] Reconsidering digraphs

[ellen.ellickson at yale.edu]

I offer the following simply as a point of information: Norwegian and 
Danish (but not Swedish) each contain 29 letters, the 26 we know plus 
the AE digraph, the letter O with a diagonal slash through it 
(sometimes called the Scandiavian O; often transcribed as OE if the 
slash O is not available) and the letter A with a circle (an angstrom) 
on top. If the latter is not available, the angstrom A is often 
transcribed as AA. 

Swedish also uses the angstrom A but not the other two.

Cheers,

Ellen

Ellen Ellickson
Catalog Librarian
Rare Book Team
Yale University Library

Quoting "Deborah J. Leslie" <DJLeslie at folger.edu>:

> 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
> 
>  
> 
>  
>