Typological Differencesin the

Linked Writing of CursivesOKADA Kazuhiro

(Hokkaido University, Japan)

Summary

• This is an attempt at a typological analysis of writing systems, based on their graphical nature

• In cursive scripts letters are often linked (joined) together

• Cursives give rise to numerous scripts (e.g. Western Alphabets, Arabic, and Hiragana)

• Such cursives differ in terms of the degree of linkage between individual graphemes

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Summary

• Linkage degree will capture typological differences in the nature of cursives

• This naturally requires that such linkage is encoded in orthographic databases, noting in what manner they are linked, e.g., merged or not

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Some Terminology

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Some Terminology

• Cursive: More than one part of a letter is made in a single stroke, cf. Calligraphic scripts in which individual letters or parts of a letter are formed separately (Lowe 2006)

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Some Terminology

• Cursive: More than one part of a letter is made in a single stroke, cf. Calligraphic scripts in which individual letters or parts of a letter are formed separately (Lowe 2006)

• Linked writing: A manner in which graphemes are linked (joined) to one another

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Some Terminology

• Cursive: More than one part of a letter is made in a single stroke, cf. Calligraphic scripts in which individual letters or parts of a letter are formed separately (Lowe 2006)

• Linked writing: A manner in which graphemes are linked (joined) to one another

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An example

Some Terminology

• Cursive: More than one part of a letter is made in a single stroke, cf. Calligraphic scripts in which individual letters or parts of a letter are formed separately (Lowe 2006)

• Linked writing: A manner in which graphemes are linked (joined) to one another

• Linkage degree: Degree of linkage between individual graphemes

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An example

Starting Point

• ‘[C]ursive writing was the key to changes in scripts through the centuries’ (Bischoff 1990)

• Problems in changes in cursive:

• “More than one part of a letter is made in a single stroke” is not done by simple smoothing

• Cursive generation model using a certain smoothing method usually fails

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Starting Point

• Cursives are important not only in the Latin alphabet, but also in every other script

• However its details are elaborated independently

• Can we grasp the cursive phenomenon generally?

• An important common feature is linked writing

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Cursives and Linked Writing

• Cursives do often possess linked writing

• e.g. The ‘Uyghur’ Sogdian script (right; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

File:Bugut.jpg, by Yastanovog)

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Cursives and Linked Writing

• Cursives do not necessarily have linked writing: e.g. Uncial script (right), Modern Hiragana (あいう)

• i.e. no linkage degree

• Depends on writing material and tools, purpose, beauty, etc.

Book of Kells, 8c8

Cursives and Linked Writing

• Linkage degree can be illustrated in terms of graphic cohesion and the motivation of allographs

• Graphic cohesion is the degree to which graphemes are linked

• involving merger of graphemes?

• linkage related to word units?

• Motivation of allographs is related to how allographs are moulded in a script (not necessarily related to linked writing)

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Cursives and Linked Writing

• These two concepts will help in capturing the nature of cursives

• I will investigate and compare three cases with regard to graphic cohesion and motivation of allographs

• Latin alphabet, Arabic, Hiragana (Jpn)

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Latin Alphabet

• Contemporary Latin cursive usually links all the letters within a word

• Linkage even enables word unit recognition with narrow spaces between words

• Ligature use is limited (esp. in printing); though historically copious

• Some letters and diacritics which originate from ligatures, e.g. &, æ, ¨ (umlaut), å, and so on

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Latin Alphabet

Development of Ampersandfrom left to right: Old Roman Cursive [1], New Roman Cursive [2–3], to Carolingian minuscule [6]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_ampersand_evolution.svg by Alatius

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Latin Alphabet

The ing

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Latin Alphabet

• Contemporary Latin cursive relies heavily on linked writing to show word units, but mergers of graphemes are rare

• In addition, linked writing triggered many ligatures which are still used today

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Arabic

• Letters within a word are linked except after several letters (a, d, ḍ, r, z, w: e.g. الرسول al-rswl, ‘messenger’)

• Letters change shape depending on its position in a linkage: beginning, middle or end, or isolated

• Ligature use depends on style: widely used in handwriting, but limited use in printing

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Arabic

A Summary Explanation of the Pronouncements of the Scholars and Theologianshttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

File:A_Summary_Explanation_of_the_Pronouncements_of_the_Scholars_and_Theologians_WDL31.jpg

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Arabic

• Arabic relies on, but not entirely, linked writing to show word units. In addition, mergers of graphemes are common

• Bauer (1996) says ‘[w]ords are set apart by greater spaces [rather than by not-linking letters]’

• By contrast Arabic linked writing triggers contextual allographs, and in handwriting, ligatures

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Hiragana

• Contemporary Hiragana lost linked writing except calligraphic writing

• Older writing possesses extensive linkage (right, Kokin wakashū Kōya copy)

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Hiragana

• Old Hiragana has linked writing, and linkage is usually limited within phrase

• number of linked graphemes are often no larger than 4

• It has few ligatures: merger of grapheme does not remain stative (cf. Okada, 2013) (right, Ōtsubo, 1977)

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Hiragana

• It has copious allographs: for 47 basic categories, one source gives two or three possible allographs for each

• Figure shows characters with their source kanji characters (right, Aston, 1872)

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Hiragana

Chinese Cursives

• Hiragana is developed from the script on the right

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Hiragana

• Old Hiragana does not rely on linked writing or word spacing to show word units — determined by context

• Mergers of graphemes also limited

• It has few ligatures, with too many allographs to establish combinations of letters

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Comparison: Graphic Cohesion

Arabic

Latin

Hiragana

Merger

Word Unit

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Comparison: Motivation of Allograph

• Relationship between linked writing and the motivation of allographs tells us about the history and current structure of each script

• Allographs in Latin Alphabet and Arabic correspond to linked writing

• Allographs in Hiragana correspond to diversity of source characters

• Can this be applied to other scripts?24

Linkage and Database

• What is required for a typologically conscious orthographic database of cursives? What should be annotated?

• Grapheme is linked or not to neighbouring ones

• Allograph and ligature

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Cursive and Database

• Okada (2013) created a small diachronic corpus of hiragana graphemes, arguing that allographs in cursive can be distinguished by number, order, movement, etc. of strokes

• In this way, manner of linkage can be elaborated further than in this attempt

• Annotated database would help such an endeavour

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Conclusion

• Cursives can be categorised in terms of linked writing

• Linked writing can be illustrated in terms of linkage degree

• Latin alphabet, Arabic, and Hiragana differ in terms of linkage degree

• More detailed and comprehensive discussion would benefit from annotated databases

• correspondence: k-okada@let.hokudai.ac.jp

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Reference

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Magnes Press, The Hebrew U; Brill • Okada, K. 2013. For diachronic corpus of hiragana grapheme. Presented at the 24th Research Seminar on Computing in

Oriental Studies, Kyoto University• Ōtsubo, H. 1977. Katakana, Hiragana [Katakana and Hiragana]. Iwanami kōza Nihongo 8 [Iwanami lectures on the Japanese

language]. Tokyo: Iwanami• Takashina, Y. 2001. Arabia moji [Arabic script]. In Kōno R., Chino E., Nishida T. Eds. Gengogaku daijiten 7 [The Sanseido

encyclopaedia of linguistics] Sekai moji jiten [‘Scripts and writing systems of the World’]. Tokyo: Sanseidō• Tuttle, E. 1996. Romance languages (A subsection of Section 57 ‘Adaptations of the Roman Alphabet’). In P. T. Daniels, W.

Bright Eds. The world’s writing systems. OUP• Wang, F.-Y. 1958. Chinese cursive script: An introduction to handwriting in Chinese. Yale UP

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