[DCRM-L] 7B9 Signatures in non-roman alphabets

[Beth Russell]

>I am forwarding comments from Predrag Matejic, curator of OSU's Hilandar 
>Research Library, with his disclaimer that "it's just [his] gut reaction 
>after a quick read of the discussion" and my disclaimer that I was the 
>ignorant one who attempted to present the discussion to him in the first 
>place, forwarding Joseph Ross's suggestions.
>
>Beth
>>>>>         As far as I can tell, two different resolutions were offered 
>>>>> for representing the "number" found in early printing (and yes, in 
>>>>> most Slavic manuscripts well into the 19th century), when the 
>>>>> original "number" could not be represented. In this case, they are 
>>>>> discussing cultures where letters of the alphabet were used also to 
>>>>> represent numbers. The resolutions for the three scripts/cultures 
>>>>> used as examples -- Hebrew, Greek, Cyrillic -- were not always the 
>>>>> same in those situations where it was not possible to actually 
>>>>> represent the script.
>>>>>
>>>>>         I agree that the same principle should always be used, and 
>>>>> think it is logical to use the proper LC transliteration (this 
>>>>> transliteration is a standard with which most are familiar). He is 
>>>>> also correct in that simply representing the grapheme-numeral with 
>>>>> its Arabic numeral equivalent is not really a good solution. Using 
>>>>> the "name" of the grapheme (in these cultures the letters have names, 
>>>>> i.e., in Greek, alpha, beta, gamma, etc.) because sometimes there is 
>>>>> insufficient awareness on the part of users as to the names of these 
>>>>> characters. In some cases, the numerical value of the grapheme 
>>>>> changes (the "a" in Cyrillic can be "1" or "1000"). The Cyrillic uses 
>>>>> two different graphemes of "i." In one case, the grapheme represents 
>>>>> "10," and the other grapheme represents "8." In later manuscripts, I 
>>>>> have observed the scribe incorrectly writing the teens, because the 
>>>>> scribe has conflated the two graphemes and is using the "8-character" 
>>>>> for the "10-character."
>>>>>
>>>>>         In general, I agree with the statements he gave below.
>>>>>
>>>>>         I'm not sure how much that clarified for you...
>>>>>
>>>>>Pred

----------------------
Beth M. Russell
Head, Special Collections Cataloging
Assistant Professor
The Ohio State University Libraries
1858 Neil Avenue Mall
Columbus OH 43210-1286
614-247-7463
FAX 614-292-2015
russell.363 at osu.edu
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