Property:character

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Property
Description:	Refers to the normalised form, or archigrapheme, of a character used in epigraphically Raetic inscriptions.
Type:	Page

Definition

See Category:Character. The archigraphemes of the Raetic alphabets are defined with a view to alphabet history. Five groups can be distinguished:

• Letters. Each archigrapheme of a letter either corresponds to a graphical unit which can be traced back to the Greek alphabet (e.g. Alpha, Sigma), or represents a completely new unit (e.g. Þ). The units are defined by their graphical derivation, not by considerations of the grapheme–phoneme relations of Raetic. Hence, two different letters which happen to write the same sound in Raetic (e.g. Zeta and the special character) are kept distinguished on the graphematic level. On the other hand, letters which appear consistently in different form in the two Raetic alphabets (e.g. Pi), but share a common derivation, are treated as character variants. Every archigrapheme is consistently transcribed with one letter, e.g. Theta as θ, Tau as t, without regard to the phonetic realities of Raetic.
• Ligatures. Any two archigraphemes which occur in ligation are treated in the form of a new archigrapheme which is, however, transliterated as if the elements were not ligated.
• Punctuation. Syllabic punctuation or word separation by written element is treated as a single archigrapheme. It is transliterated as : where it is clear that the element separates words, but as · where it functions as a syllabic punct or where its function is unclear. space is treated as a separate archigrapheme, and appears as a space in the transliteration.
• Numerals. Theoretically, what is said above about letters also holds true for numerals, i.e. characters for the same number would be distinguished if they could be shown to be derived from different traditions. As yet, it has not been demonstrated that any characters in Raetic inscriptions represent numerals.
• Symbol. A single archigrapheme, transliterated as $, for recurring characters which, in conflict with the principles laid out above, cannot be shown to have anything to do with each other.

Elements in the transliteration which do not represent archigraphemes are:

?	Used when the archigrapheme cannot be identified.
̣	Placed underneath a transliteration letter, indicating doubts about the identification of the archigrapheme.
[]	Marking (potentially) missing parts of the inscription.
()	Marking a character whose presence is doubtful (most usually (?) in reconstructed parts of inscriptions).
/	Line break (see Property:line number).
§	Representing decorative elements and line fillers (only reflected in the transliteration if obviously associated with the inscription).

For more information and maps see Script, Non-script notational systems, Property:character_variant, as well as the individual character pages.

Statistics

Number of pages in the Category:Inscription (327) per "character":

character	occurrence