(29-06-2020, 11:45 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Strikeouts are uncommon in medieval manuscripts. I rarely see them even though I look at manuscripts every day.

What you might be perceiving as "strikeouts" is actually highlighting. They ran a colored line across a word to make it stand out. It's hard to read, but it's not a correction.

If something was to be corrected, they put dots underneath the word (occasionally above the word).

Quote:The small superscripted 9 shape is the most common medieval abbreviation in languages that use Latin characters. It was so common that pen tests often included it in the alphabet after the letter z. So common that even unabbreviated text sometimes used this one abbreviation. So common that the modern apostrophe is shaped somewhat the same way.

It didn't make any difference whether it was written large and in line with the other characters, or if it was written small and superscripted, both forms meant the same thing (con/com/us/um symbol).


Most of the time, the 9 character (in the VMS) is in line with the other letters, as in oly, but it shows up superscripted about 3 or so times (I can't remember exactly how many).


Some scribes chose to write it one way or the other (superscripted or inline). Some scribes alternated between the two positions without any particular pattern.


If you look closely at the curved shape above sh, you will notice that some of them are also written quite clearly as the common 9 symbol (the small version). Others are written like a semicircle (which was a different abbreviation symbol, a curved macron, which meant the same thing as a straight macron). I don't know if the "caps" above sh are intended to be different or if they are simply pen variations (I tend to think they are pen variations), but the scribes may have sometimes unconsciously written them as a 9 char because it is so common in medieval texts. The hand gets used to writing certain shapes in certain ways.

Quote:[quote="-JKP-" pid='38552' dateline='1593799438']

bunny, if you run your cursor across the part you quoted (in post #22) and then click the mouth bubble icon, it will turn it into a quote. The way you have it now, readers can't tell which part is the quote and which part is your reply.

Quote:Bunny, I never said anything about reading the VMS in Latin. I pointed out shapes in the VMS that have shape-mates in Latin and informed readers about what it means in languages that use the Latin character set. Please do not confuse my comments about shape-mates with assumptions about language.

Also, when I am talking about Latin characters, I am not necessarily talking about Latin language. The Latin characters were used (and are still used) to write many languages.


Also shorthand is not the same as medieval scribal abbreviations. The scribal abbreviations were common and known by almost all scribes. Shorthand systems existed also, but they are quite different from the regular scribal abbreviations and many scribes did not know them.