Script Recognition by Statistical Analysis of the Image Texture

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Script Recognition by Statistical Analysis of the Image Texture X International Symposium on Industrial Electronics INDEL 2014, Banja Luka, November 0608, 2014 Script Recognition by Statistical Analysis of the Image Texture Invited Paper Darko Brodić Technical Faculty in Bor University of Belgrade Bor, Serbia [email protected] Abstract—The paper proposed an algorithm for the script The proposed approach incorporates the statistical analysis identification using the statistical analysis of the texture obtained of the texture. Texture is suitable for extracting similarities and by script mapping. First, the algorithm models the script sign by dissimilarities between images. However, the novelty of the the equivalent script type. The script type is determined by the proposed approach [8] is given by specific text modeling and position of the letter in the baseline area. Furthermore, the 1-D texture analysis. During text modeling the number of extraction of the features is performed. This step of the algorithm variables is substantially reduced. Furthermore, the image is is based on the script type occurrence and co-occurrence pattern replaced with text. Hence, the image which represents a 2-D analysis. Then, the resultant features are compared. Their image is replaced with the text given by 1-D "image". All differences simplify the script feature classification. The aforementioned contributes to the algorithm's speed. algorithm is tested on the German and Slavic printed documents incorporating different scripts. The experiment gives the results The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the that are promising. proposed algorithm. Section 3 explains the experiment. Section 4 presents the results and gives the discussion. Section 5 makes Keywords - Coding, Cultural heritage, Historical documents, conclusions. Script recognition, Statistical analysis. II. THE METHODS I. INTRODUCTION The proposed algorithm is a multi-stage method. It includes Script recognition is a part of document image analysis [1]. the following stages: Many techniques have been proposed for the script recognition. They are typically classified into global or local ones. 1. Coding, Global methods characterize the processing of the large 2. Feature extraction, image areas, which are subjected to the statistical or frequency- 3. Feature classification, domain analysis [2]. However, the image area normalization is mandatory. [3]. On contrary, the local methods split up text 4. Script identification criteria. into small pieces. They typically represents characters, words or lines. After that, the black pixel runs analysis is performed Figure 1 illustrates the multi-stage method flow. [4]. A. Coding The proposed algorithm integrates the local and global The first step of the algorithm represents a coding. It is approach. First, it extracts characters from the text. Then, it established using into account the position of the letter in the codes the characters according to their script type [5]. The text line. To explain it, the text line needs to be considered. It coded text is obtained, which is an input to an occurrence consists of three vertical zones [9]: (frequency analysis) and co-occurrence (statistical analysis) similarly as in global methods. As the results of • Upper zone, aforementioned analysis, statistical measures of the gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) are extracted [6],[7]. To classify • Middle zone, the results a linear discrimination function is proposed. It • Lower zone. represents a key point in a decision-making process of the script discrimination. Figure 2 illustrates the vertical zones that belong to the text line. 168 Čuvaj uši svoje da slušaju samo svete i časne razgovore, a ne Input document ružne i svjetovne, jer je napisano: (a) Coding 2 1 1 1 4 1 2 2 1 1 1 4 1 2 1 1 2 1 2 1 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 4 1 2 1 1 1 1 4 1 1 4 1 1 1 3 2 1 1 1 1 Feature (b) extraction Чувај уши своје да слушају само свете и Feature classification часне разговоре, а не ружне и свјетовне, јер је написано: Criteria for decision- (c) making 3 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 Script 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 3 1 1 2 1 1 identification (d) Figure 1. The multi-stage method flow Чувај уши своје да слушају само свете и часне разговоре, а не ружне и свјетовне, јер је написано: (e) 2 3 1 1 4 3 1 1 1 1 1 4 1 3 1 1 1 3 1 1 4 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 3 3 1 1 1 1 1 Figure 2. Vertical zones in text line 1 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 1 3 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 (f) Using into account text line zones, one can distinguish four different script types [9]: Figure 3. Same text given in different Slavic scripts: (a) Original text in • Base letter (B), Latin script, and (b) its coded counterpart; (c) Original text in Glagolitic script, and (d) its coded counterpart; (e) Original text in Cyrillic script, and (f) • Ascender letter (A), its coded counterpart. • Descendent letter (D), Füllest wieder Busch und Tal Still mit Nebelglanz, • Full letter (F). Lösest endlich auch einmal Meine Seele ganz; Base letters (B) like the letter x, occupy a middle zone only; (a) ascender letters (A), like the letter t, spread over the middle and upper zones; while descendent letters (D), like the letter p, 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 include the middle and lower zones. Few letters like the capital 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 1 2 3 2 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 1 letter Lj (in Serbian or Croatian Latin alphabet) comprise all 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 3 1 1 1 three zones. They are classified as a full letter (F). This way, all (b) letters are coded according to their script type classification. To organize data, the following mapping is made [5,10]: Füllest wieder Busch und Tal Still mit Nebelglanz, Lösest endlich auch einmal Meine Seele ganz; B→→ 1, A 2, D →→ 3, F 4 (1) (c) This way, the coded text is established (Appendix contains 4 2 2 2 1 4 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 4 1 4 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 the alphabets and equivalent codes [10]). 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 1 2 3 2 1 1 3 2 2 4 1 4 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 4 1 1 1 4 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 3 1 1 3 B. Feature Extraction (d) Feature extraction is based on statistical analysis of the coded text. Figure 3 illustrates the text written in different Figure 4. Same text given in different German scripts: (a) Original text in Slavic scripts and their coded text, while Figure 4 shows Latin script, and (b) its coded counterpart; (c) Original text in Fraktur script, German text written in Fraktur and Latin with their coded text. and (d) its coded counterpart 169 In the first step, the script type distribution of coded text is GG 2 (8) analyzed. As a result, four script features are extracted. After Contrats = ∑∑Ci(,jj )⋅− (i ) the script type distribution analysis, the coded text is subjected ij to the co-occurrence analysis [6,7]. This way, the texture features are calculated. They use the conditional joint probabilities of all pair wise combinations of grey levels in the GG = +−2 (9) window of interest (WOI). WOI is determined by the inter- Inverse Different Moment ∑∑Ci( , j ) / [1 ( i j ) ] ij pixel distance ∆x and ∆y shown in Figure 5. GG Homogenei ty = ∑∑Ci( , j ) / [1+− ( i j )] (10) ij GG (11) Correlation = ∑∑(i−µx ) ⋅− (j µ y ) ⋅Ci (, j )/( σσ xy ⋅ ) ij Figure 5. Window of interest (WOI). The method starts from the top left corner and counts C. Feature Classification number of each reference pixel occurrences in respect to According to the aforementioned script type distributions neighbour pixel relationship. At the end of this process, the and GLCM features, the text examples from Figures 3 and 4 element (i, j) gives the number of how many times the gray are analyzed. levels i and j appears as a sequence of two pixels located at ∆x and ∆y. This way, GLCM P for an image I with M rows and N Table I shows the script type distributions, which are columns is given as [6,7]: obtained from the same text written in different Slavic scripts [11]. MN1, ifIxy ( , )= i , Ix ( +∆ xy , +∆ y ) = j Pi(, j )= ∑∑ TABLE I. SCRIPT TYPE DISTRIBUTIONS BETWEEN SLAVIC SCRIPTS = = 0, otherwise xy11 (2) Different Slavic Scripts Script Type Furthermore, matrix P is normalized giving a matrix C: Cyrillic Glagolitic Latin Base 0.7786 0.8015 0.6336 G Ascender 0.0153 0.1679 0.2595 Cij(, )= Pij (, )/∑ Pij (, ) Descendent 0.1298 0.0305 0.0229 ij, (3) Full 0.0763 0.0000 0.0840 In our case, the coded text is given as 1-D image, which leads to following: ∆x = ± 1, ∆y = 0 [10].
Recommended publications
  • Sinitic Language and Script in East Asia: Past and Present
    SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS Number 264 December, 2016 Sinitic Language and Script in East Asia: Past and Present edited by Victor H. Mair Victor H. Mair, Editor Sino-Platonic Papers Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 USA [email protected] www.sino-platonic.org SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS FOUNDED 1986 Editor-in-Chief VICTOR H. MAIR Associate Editors PAULA ROBERTS MARK SWOFFORD ISSN 2157-9679 (print) 2157-9687 (online) SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS is an occasional series dedicated to making available to specialists and the interested public the results of research that, because of its unconventional or controversial nature, might otherwise go unpublished. The editor-in-chief actively encourages younger, not yet well established, scholars and independent authors to submit manuscripts for consideration. Contributions in any of the major scholarly languages of the world, including romanized modern standard Mandarin (MSM) and Japanese, are acceptable. In special circumstances, papers written in one of the Sinitic topolects (fangyan) may be considered for publication. Although the chief focus of Sino-Platonic Papers is on the intercultural relations of China with other peoples, challenging and creative studies on a wide variety of philological subjects will be entertained. This series is not the place for safe, sober, and stodgy presentations. Sino- Platonic Papers prefers lively work that, while taking reasonable risks to advance the field, capitalizes on brilliant new insights into the development of civilization. Submissions are regularly sent out to be refereed, and extensive editorial suggestions for revision may be offered. Sino-Platonic Papers emphasizes substance over form.
    [Show full text]
  • Old Cyrillic in Unicode*
    Old Cyrillic in Unicode* Ivan A Derzhanski Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences [email protected] The current version of the Unicode Standard acknowledges the existence of a pre- modern version of the Cyrillic script, but its support thereof is limited to assigning code points to several obsolete letters. Meanwhile mediæval Cyrillic manuscripts and some early printed books feature a plethora of letter shapes, ligatures, diacritic and punctuation marks that want proper representation. (In addition, contemporary editions of mediæval texts employ a variety of annotation signs.) As generally with scripts that predate printing, an obvious problem is the abundance of functional, chronological, regional and decorative variant shapes, the precise details of whose distribution are often unknown. The present contents of the block will need to be interpreted with Old Cyrillic in mind, and decisions to be made as to which remaining characters should be implemented via Unicode’s mechanism of variation selection, as ligatures in the typeface, or as code points in the Private space or the standard Cyrillic block. I discuss the initial stage of this work. The Unicode Standard (Unicode 4.0.1) makes a controversial statement: The historical form of the Cyrillic alphabet is treated as a font style variation of modern Cyrillic because the historical forms are relatively close to the modern appearance, and because some of them are still in modern use in languages other than Russian (for example, U+0406 “I” CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER I is used in modern Ukrainian and Byelorussian). Some of the letters in this range were used in modern typefaces in Russian and Bulgarian.
    [Show full text]
  • Learning Cyrillic
    LEARNING CYRILLIC Question: If there is no equivalent letter in the Cyrillic alphabet for the Roman "J" or "H" how do you transcribe good German names like Johannes, Heinrich, Wilhelm, etc. I heard one suggestion that Johann was written as Ivan and that the "h" was replaced with a "g". Can you give me a little insight into what you have found? In researching would I be looking for the name Ivan rather than Johann? One must always think phonetic, that is, think how a name is pronounced in German, and how does the Russian Cyrillic script produce that sound? JOHANNES. The Cyrillic spelling begins with the letter “I – eye”, but pronounced “eee”, so we have phonetically “eee-o-hann” which sounds like “Yo-hann”. You can see it better in typeface – Иоганн , which letter for letter reads as “I-o-h-a-n-n”. The modern Typeface script is radically different than the old hand-written Cyrillic script. Use the guide which I sent to you. Ivan is the Russian equivalent of Johann, and it pops up occasionally in Church records. JOSEPH / JOSEF. Listen to the way the name is pronounced in German – “yo-sef”, also “yo-sif”. That “yo” sound is produced by the Cyrillic script letters “I” and “o”. Again you can see it in the typeface. Иосеф and also Иосиф. And sometimes Joseph appears as , transliterated as O-s-i-p. Similar to all languages and scripts, Cyrillic spellings are not consistent. The “a” ending indicates a male name. JAKOB. There is no “Jay” sound in the German language.
    [Show full text]
  • Turkmen Language: Alphabet, Structure and Writing
    International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Growth Evaluation www.allmultidisciplinaryjournal.com International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Growth Evaluation ISSN: 2582-7138 Received: 03-07-2021; Accepted: 19-07-2021 www.allmultidisciplinaryjournal.com Volume 2; Issue 4; July-August 2021; Page No. 663-664 Turkmen Language: Alphabet, structure and writing Homayoun Mahmoodi Lecture, Department of Turkmani, Education Faculty, Jawzjan University, Sheberghan, Afghanistan Corresponding Author: Homayoun Mahmoodi Abstract The Turkmen Language is classified as one of the Turkic people worldwide, with approximately 1 million more languages which are all in the Ural-Altaic language family. speaking it as a second language. The majority of Turkmen Like all Turkic languages, the Turkmen Language is an speakers are located in Eurasia and Central Asia, with the agglutinative language that has productive inflectional and highest concentrations located in Turkmenistan, Iran, and derivational suffixes which are affixed to a word like “beads Afghanistan. on a string”. Turkmen is spoken natively by about 7 million Keywords: Turkmen, Afghanistan, Alphabet, structure 1. Introduction Turkmen are part of the ethno-linguistic Turkic continuum that stretches from western China to western Turkey. They share a claim to western-Turkic (Oguz) heritage along with Azerbaijanis and Turks in Turkey (Golden 1972) [4]. Despite a distinct twenty-first century identity, Turkmen culture and traditions historically overlapped with that of other Turks. The term “Turkic” refers to this cultural and linguistic heritage that all Turkic-language speaking groups share. Nevertheless, a separate Turkmen sense of identity was born out of their particular historical experience. A nomadic heritage, distinctively Oguz dialects, and tribal traditions contribute greatly to the identity that sets Turkmen apart from other Turkic groups and shape a specifically Turkmen sense of ethnic identity.
    [Show full text]
  • Proposal for Generation Panel for Latin Script Label Generation Ruleset for the Root Zone
    Generation Panel for Latin Script Label Generation Ruleset for the Root Zone Proposal for Generation Panel for Latin Script Label Generation Ruleset for the Root Zone Table of Contents 1. General Information 2 1.1 Use of Latin Script characters in domain names 3 1.2 Target Script for the Proposed Generation Panel 4 1.2.1 Diacritics 5 1.3 Countries with significant user communities using Latin script 6 2. Proposed Initial Composition of the Panel and Relationship with Past Work or Working Groups 7 3. Work Plan 13 3.1 Suggested Timeline with Significant Milestones 13 3.2 Sources for funding travel and logistics 16 3.3 Need for ICANN provided advisors 17 4. References 17 1 Generation Panel for Latin Script Label Generation Ruleset for the Root Zone 1. General Information The Latin script1 or Roman script is a major writing system of the world today, and the most widely used in terms of number of languages and number of speakers, with circa 70% of the world’s readers and writers making use of this script2 (Wikipedia). Historically, it is derived from the Greek alphabet, as is the Cyrillic script. The Greek alphabet is in turn derived from the Phoenician alphabet which dates to the mid-11th century BC and is itself based on older scripts. This explains why Latin, Cyrillic and Greek share some letters, which may become relevant to the ruleset in the form of cross-script variants. The Latin alphabet itself originated in Italy in the 7th Century BC. The original alphabet contained 21 upper case only letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, Z, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, V and X.
    [Show full text]
  • On Digitization of Romanian Cyrillic Printings of the 17Th–18Th Centuries
    Computer Science Journal of Moldova, vol.25, no.2(74), 2017 On Digitization of Romanian Cyrillic Printings of the 17th–18th Centuries Svetlana Cojocaru Alexandru Colesnicov Ludmila Malahov Tudor Bumbu Ștefan Ungur Abstract The paper describes in details recognition of Romanian texts of the 17th–18th centuries printed in the Cyrillic script, and their conversion to the modern Latin script. The challenges are dis- cussed, and solutions of problems are proposed. The elaborated technology and a tool pack include historical alphabets, sets of recognition patterns, and spelling dictionaries in the corresponding orthographies for ABBYY Finereader. In addition, virtual keyboards, fonts, a transliteration utility, and the user manual were developed. This permits successful recognition of old Romanian texts in the Cyrillic script. Transliteration to the Latin script grants no- barrier access to historical documents. 1 Introduction OCR of old books is a sophisticated task. The problems arose from peculiarities of historical typography, non-standardized spelling, and physical degradation of the documents due to their aging and usage. This paper describes digitization of the Romanian texts of the 17th– 18th centuries that were printed in the old Romanian Cyrillic script (RC). We need to OCR them, to present the recognized text in the fonts of the corresponding period, to transliterate then to the modern Romanian Latin script (MRL). Sometimes the reverse transliteration is also useful. We use the existing programs and develop our own pack of additional programs and data. ©2017 by S.Cojocaru, A.Colesnicov, L.Malahov, T.Bumbu, Ș.Ungur 217 S.Cojocaru et al. In the literature, we met the opinion that commercial software like ABBYY Finereader (AFR) is not fully suitable for OCR of old print- ings.
    [Show full text]
  • Glagolitic Script in the UCS Source: Michael Everson, EGT (IE) Status: Expert Contribution Action: for Consideration by JTC1/SC2/WG2 and UTC Date: 1998-11-24
    ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N1931 1998-11-24 Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set International Organization for Standardization Organisation Internationale de Normalisation Œåæäóíàðîäíàß îðãàíèçàöèß ïî ñòàíäàðòèçàöèè Doc Type: Working Group Document Title: Revised proposal for encoding the Glagolitic script in the UCS Source: Michael Everson, EGT (IE) Status: Expert Contribution Action: For consideration by JTC1/SC2/WG2 and UTC Date: 1998-11-24 This document is based on the proposal written by Joe Becker and published in UTR#3, and the proposal written by me in N1659. It is a revision of N1659, and contains the proposal summary. A. Administrative 1. Title Revised proposal for encoding the Glagolitic script in the UCS. 2. Requester’s name Michael Everson, EGT (WG2 member for Ireland). 3. Requester type Expert contribution. 4. Submission date 1998-11-24. 5. Requester’s reference 6a. Completion This is a complete proposal. 6b. More information to be provided? No. B. Technical – General 1a. New script? Name? Yes. Glagolitic. 1b. Addition of characters to existing block? Name? No. 2. Number of characters 92. 3. Proposed category Category B.1. 4. Proposed level of implementation and rationale As an alphabetic script, Glagolitic requires Level 1. 5a. Character names included in proposal? Yes. 5b. Character names in accordance with guidelines? Yes. 5c. Character shapes reviewable? Yes (see below). 1 6a. Who will provide computerized font? Michael Everson. 6b. Font currently available? Yes. 6c. Font format? TrueType. 7a. Are references (to other character sets, dictionaries, descriptive texts, etc.) provided? Yes. ISO 6861:1996 is a coded character set for Glagolitic, as well as the bibliography below.
    [Show full text]
  • Greek Type Design Introduction
    A primer on Greek type design by Gerry Leonidas T the 1997 ATypI Conference at Reading I gave a talk Awith the title ‘Typography & the Greek language: designing typefaces in a cultural context.’ The inspiration for that talk was a discussion with Christopher Burke on designing typefaces for a script one is not linguistically familiar with. My position was that knowledge and use of a language is not a prerequisite for understanding the script to a very high, if not conclusive, degree. In other words, although a ‘typographically attuned’ native user should test a design in real circumstances, any designer could, with the right preparation and monitoring, produce competent typefaces. This position was based on my understanding of the decisions a designer must make in designing a Greek typeface. I should add that this argument had two weak points: one, it was based on a small amount of personal experience in type design and a lot of intuition, rather than research; and, two, it was quite possible that, as a Greek, I was making the ‘right’ choices by default. Since 1997, my own work proved me right on the first point, and that of other designers – both Greeks and non- Greeks – on the second. The last few years saw multilingual typography literally explode. An obvious arena was the broader European region: the Amsterdam Treaty of 1997 which, at the same time as bringing the European Union closer to integration on a number of fields, marked a heightening of awareness in cultural characteristics, down to an explicit statement of support for dialects and local script variations.
    [Show full text]
  • Latin Alphabet for Kazakhstan: Turkification, Westernisation Or Useless Initiative?
    Latin Alphabet for Kazakhstan: Turkification, Westernisation or Useless Initiative? By 2025, five out of six Turkic-speaking countries will be using Latin alphabet. It’s the year when Kazakhstan will switch from Cyrillic to Latin alphabet. Follow us on LinkedIn The reasons for this switch and the need for it are diverse. Some experts think this decision highlights the cooling in relations between Kazakhstan and Russia, a desire to distance away from the Soviet past and to focus on the West. Others say this issue should not be politicised and explain the switch to Latin alphabet by the demand of the modern world and the need for cultural self-identity. Back in the Soviet period, the Kazakh alphabet changed twice. In 1929, it was changed to Latin alphabet and in 1940 to Cyrillic alphabet. The initiator of the language reform in Kazakhstan in 2017 was president Nursultan Nazarbayev, who claimed that introduction of the Latin alphabet was a step toward integration with the common developing information world and the global system of science and culture. He denied categorically a version of changes in the geopolitical preferences of the country: Someone sees it, without cause, as a kind of a “sign” of changes in the -geopolitical preferences of Kazakhstan. This is not the case. I can tell it clearly that a switch to Latin alphabet is a domestic need for development and modernisation of the Kazakh language. You should not look for a black cat in a coal cellar because it was never there.” (cited from Tengrinews) The implementation of this project will cost much to the national budget.
    [Show full text]
  • Writing System in Ukrainian
    Some properties of the Ukrainian writing system Solomija Buk1, Lviv Ján Mačutek2, Bratislava Andrij Rovenchak3, Lviv Abstract. We investigate the grapheme–phoneme relation in Ukrainian and some properties of the Ukrainian version of the Cyrillic alphabet. Keywords: Ukrainian, phoneme-grapheme relation, script analysis. 1. Introductory remarks Ukrainian is an East Slavic language spoken by about 40 million people in Ukraine and Ukrainian communities in neighboring states (Belarus, Moldova, Poland, Slovakia, Russia — especially in the so-called Zelenyj Klyn ‘Green wedge’ in the Far East Siberia from the Amur and Ussuri rivers eastwards to the Pacific), also in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, USA, and some others. The features typical for modern Ukrainian are found already in the texts from 11th- 12th cent. AD, they have been appearing systematically since 14th-15th cent. (Rusanivsjkyj 2004). Ukrainian uses the Cyrillic script. The Cyrillic alphabet, also known as azbuka (from old names of its first two letters ( ) and ( )), has been traditionally used to write East and South Slavic languages (with the exception of modern Croatian and Slovenian), and also Romanian until 1860 (Jensen 1969: 491). As a result of political decisions it spread over a much larger area covering most (but not all) of languages in the former USSR, many of them using Latin or Arabic script before (cf. Comrie 1996b for a more detailed historical overview). Obviously, being applied in so different languages like Russian, Abkhaz, Tatar, Tajik or Chukchi (to give just a few examples) it had to represent much more phonemes than those occurring in Slavic languages, hence there are/were many language specific modifications of the alphabet (modified particular letters, diacritic marks or completely new letters, cf.
    [Show full text]
  • World Writing Systems Other European and Middle Eastern Scripts a Large
    Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction, 5th edition, Chapter 16: World writing systems, 1 World writing systems Other European and Middle Eastern Scripts A large number of alphabetic systems other than those of Greece and Rome evolved and flourished in Europe and the Middle East. In this Web site, we briefly present some of the ones that are of historical significance or interest. Runic writing Germanic tribes occupying the north of Italy developed an early offshoot of the Greek/Etruscan tradition of writing into a script known as Runic writing. This system emerged shortly after the beginning of the Christian era, and its developments were eventually found as far north as Scandinavia. Runic writing persisted until the sixteenth century in some areas before giving way to the Roman alphabet. Figure 1 illustrates some signs from one of the oldest known Runic inscriptions, which dates from about the third century A.D. The angular style of the letters arose because the alphabet was carved in wood or stone, the former especially not readily lending itself to curved lines. The script is read from right to left. Cyrillic script Another offshoot of the Greek script was created for the Slavic peoples in the ninth century A.D. The Greek missionary brothers Constantine (Cyril) and Methodius introduced a writing system for the translation of the Bible that is now known as Glagolitic script. A later development, which combined adaptations of Glagolitic letters with Greek and Hebrew characters, has come to be known as the Cyrillic alphabet. The current Russian, Byelorussian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian alphabets, as well as those used to represent many non-Slavic languages spoken in the former Soviet Union, have evolved from this early Cyrillic script.
    [Show full text]
  • A Short History of Typography
    A short history of Typography By Roger Druet Unesco Courier, July 1988 letter or Gothic, as angular and narrow as the Gothic pointed arch, answered the needs of the moment in that it took up a minimum of ll typefaces, even the most modern digitized space. The expression of thought seemed to be channeled through characters designed with the help of a computer, a kind of grid. This design gave rise to two basic scripts: the rigid, are based on forms of writing. This link between vertical Textura, used primarily for liturgical texts; and a more flexible written and printed characters is particularly script, Rotunda. noteworthy in the history of European In the fifteenth century, the angular Gothic script, having been typographical design. appropriated by the lettered classes in France, became known as AThe Phoenicians and the Greeks, who invented the early batarde or Bastarda. The invention and use of spectacles also made alphabets from which Western scripts derived, were seafaring and it possible for writing to become smaller. It was not until the end of colonizing peoples who needed to carry precise and legible messages the sixteenth century that the Germans introduced capital letters into over very long distances.Consequently the priorities of Western the Gothic alphabet for woodblock printing. Hitherto, the place of the writing were speed of execution and simplicity of design. “dropped initials”--initial letters at the beginning of a page or chapter, The creation of phonetic alphabets (instead of ideographic which covered two or three lines of text--had been left blank, to be systems) using only twenty to thirty signs for thetranscription of filled in by the illuminators.
    [Show full text]