Linguist Forum
Specializations => Historical Linguistics => Topic started by: Daniel on September 14, 2014, 04:21:37 PM
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I've come across the symbol <ɔ> in several texts written in German or Scandinavian languages from about the 1800s. I have no clues about why it is used that way or what it means. I'm guessing it's something like "or" or "i.e". Any ideas?
As an example, here's the end of a paragraph of examples in a book in/about Danish/Norwegian from 1848:
... el. han va ve (ɔ: ved).
Rough translation: "... or he was with (ɔ: with)."
I'm attaching an image of that text (see the end of the first paragraph).
Note: it's entirely possible that this has nothing to do with the IPA symbol, but it certainly looks like it and doesn't appear to be any other symbol I've seen or any letter in any European alphabet.
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I'd have to look this up to be sure, but I seem to recall that there is an old scribal abbreviation that looks like this for either con- or contra-. I believe it is intended to be a backwards c rather than an open o. I have no idea if that's what's happening here, or if it makes sense in context.
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Seems plausible.
The only thing I could find online was that it is a very old scribal abbreviation for 'with' (com-?) in Irish. So that would make sense. A backwards C is logical, and might technically be a different character in Unicode, explaining why I got no hits online.
What would "con-" or "contra-" mean in that context?
Edit: there is a different Unicode symbol: <ↄ>
Apparently they were introduced in Roman times: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudian_letters
That didn't reveal any specific explanation of what the symbol means, but it does appear here, in a Swedish text (p231):
http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:233382/FULLTEXT01
Nu sa sem <hann uill þetta/þetta uill> ly
giligt kalla. þa lesi han fyrri historiam scholasticam. en hann segi þetta þann logit hafa eðr diktat sem snarat hefir (Stjórn 40.30–32)
[Den som nu vill kalla detta lögnaktigt, må han då läsa Historia Scholastica innan han påstår att den har ljugit eller diktat som har vänt [ↄ: översatt].]
[Anyone want to call this a lie, let him read the history Scholastica before he claims to have lied or dictation that has turned [ↄ: translated].]
It appears to mean something broad like "note".
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I couldn't do more than guess here, since I can't read the text, but is there some kind of contrast being drawn between "ve" and "ved"?
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My best guess is that it's saying they're equivalent in this context, possibly even that 've' is a misspelled version of 'ved'. So it might mean something like [sic]+correction. Or just that they're both possible.
I don't think 've' is a separate word, just a variant. But my 1800s Danish knowledge is basically nonexistent unfortunately.
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Some consonants have a habit of disappearing finally, so in this case literary "veð" (from Old Norse við, viðr "at; with" from Proto-Germanic *wiþr "again; against") becomes "ve" in speech; similar to how Swedish literary "med" becomes "me" in speech.
I don't think I've seen these "Claudian" letters before, though.
And EGADS am I horrible at reading blackletter!
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And EGADS am I horrible at reading blackletter!
I think it's incredibly difficult, especially with the not so perfect scans. The worst ones were the <y> (as in 'Fylde') and <x> (as in 'ex'=example) symbols, which didn't appear too often and had me confused for about 20 minutes. In fact I was only convinced of the values I had assigned those letters after I finished translating the paragraph :)
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Hmmm... more uses of the strange symbol on pages (by the same author as in the first post) here:
https://archive.org/stream/norskordbogmedda00aase#page/920/mode/2up
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It might be a bit of a stretch, but the Tironian "et" <⁊> was fairly common in Old Norse manuscripts, I think. Perhaps it was later used to introduce notes with "and, also".
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The backwards C is an et? That's as good a guess as any. What I don't understand is why there would be a special symbol used so rarely. If it just said "c" and no one knew what that meant it could just be a strange author. But a backwards C that no one else knows? That's a really strange author :)
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https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Tironian_Notes_Codex_Casselanus.png
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Ok, so it looks like the meaning is 'con' or 'contra', as MalFet thought earlier.
Also found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribal_abbreviation
Letters lying on their sides, or mirrored (backwards), often indicate female titles, however, a mirrored C, Ɔ, stands generally for con or contra (the latter sometimes with a macron above, "Ↄ̄").
So I guess in this case it means "as opposed to" (contra) in the sense of "as a vernacular form of", so "ve" is used instead of "ved"?
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"ve" is used instead of "ved"?
Seems like the best conclusion so far!