Glyphs, graphemes or symbols? ISWA terminology

[maria galea]

Yes - this is the problem the terms are used differently in different areas
- Maybe Steve Slevinski could tell us what they use in the area of
unicode...

As for the field of writing systems/linguistics, I've just found this in
Coulmas Enclyclopedia. there is no definition of 'symbol' so I am ruling
that term out. The term glyph is defined as:
"A term derived by contraction from HIEROGLYPH. It has sometimes been used
in the description of writing sytems whose units were not well understood.
For example, in Maya epigraphy, where teh phonetic component of the writing
system has long been in doubt, it is used as a collective designation to
indicate a logogram, a phonetic sign or a compound sign" (Coulmas, 1996, p.
168).

The term 'grapheme' is provided as follows:
"Coined on analogy with 'phoneme'this term deignates the unit of analysis
in the study of written langauge understood as an abstract entity (...)
Every analysis of a writing sytem tart out with compiling a complete list
of the graphemes of that system on the basis of a set of data that comprise
all of its GRAPHS, that is visually distinct formal elements. (...)"
(Coulmas, 1996, p. 174)

*SO* on the basis of this (and considering all the work i've done so
far)... I will be calling the symbols of the ISWA 'glyphs' and the symbols
used by a specific language (in this case maltese sign language)
as..'graphemes' -

Claudia -  it is a good justification for using the term 'glyph' - I have
not consulted with the Deaf in malta about this choice of term. Might be a
good idea to check this..

Thank you Ingvild and Claudia!
maria


On 19 June 2013 13:30, Ingvild Roald <iroald at hotmail.com> wrote:

> I think this has been discussed before - several years ago.
>
> My thoughts:
>
> Graphemes and morphemes belong to the same 'category': that of small units
> carrying meaning.
>
> Glyphs are the writable results of merging one or more graphemes, so that
> the glyph for a certain handshape will also reveal a certain rotation
> (placement of long axis of hand) and a certain fill (rotation along this
> long axix).
>
> The symbol for the back of the hand is black (fill), for the palm it is
> white (no fill), and so on.
>
> But maybe there are conventions for use of these words in connection with
> Unicode, which would of course be more important than my private houghts ...
>
> Ingvild
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:09:11 +0200
> From: signwriting.maria at GMAIL.COM
> Subject: Glyphs, graphemes or symbols? ISWA terminology
> To: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACOLLEGE.EDU
>
>
> Dear all,
> I'm trying to figure out which term to stick to when referring to the
> symbols of ISWA - any preferences and if so, why?
> Thank you very much!
> maria
>
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