The Roman emperor Claudius was also interested in things linguistic. He invented three letters that never caught on with the rest of the Romans. They are antisigma Ↄ, digamma inversum Ⅎ, and Ⱶ. They stood for bs/ps (as in urbs 'city'), v (versus u), and Greek υ (like German /ü/).
posted by:
|
SF Bay Area
|
-
-
Re: Claudian letters
Sat, January 5, 2008 - 9:07 AMand i'm sure you know this, but (from wikipedia)
A dotted lunate sigma (sigma periestigmenon, encoded at U+03FE Ͼ) is used by Aristarchus of Samothrace as an editorial sign indicating that the line so marked is at an incorrect position. Similarly, an antisigma (encoded at U+03FD Ͻ) may mark a line that is out of place. A dotted antisigma (antisigma periestigmenon, encoded at U+03FF Ͽ) may indicate a line after which rearrangements should be made, or to variant readings of uncertain priority. -
-
Re: Claudian letters
Sat, January 5, 2008 - 10:14 AMI am fascinated by these editorial marks used in the scholia (I believe obelos / obelisk, or dagger, † (U+2020), started out life as one of them). Why does Aristarchus of Samothrace not have his own tribe of adulation or fan website? Also, in the WP, I see that aristarch is an eponym for a judgmental critic. For more fun, see:
www.stoa.org/sol/
-
-
