[DCRM-L] Reconsidering digraphs

[J.J. Hall]

Is not the transcription of I J U V i j u and v a case parallel to the 
transcription of the ae and oe digraphs? It seems to me very difficult to 
regard a printer's use of vv for w, or medial u where modern usage would 
put v, as a matter of "content", but the use of digraph ae as "form"; but 
DCRB 0H indicates that vv and u should be transcribed as found in in the 
source. I can see no good reason for departing from the rule "in general 
transcribe letters as they appear ... as exactly as possible", and 
therefore prefer transcribing digraph ae and oe as digraphs.

    John Hall
Rare Books Department,
Cambridge University Library,
West Road,
Cambridge CB3 9DR,
England

On Feb 22 2005, Deborah J. Leslie wrote:

> 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
> 
>  
> 
>  
>