sigla

[prettygoodword]

sigla (SIG-la) - n., (pl. of siglum) scribal abbreviations in manuscripts; (singular) the list of symbols used in a book, usually as part of the front-matter.


Scribes liked to abbreviate, because writing is long and hard, and in the early middle ages developed a complex shorthand system for abbreviating words and names (often using alternate letter-forms). Modern descendants of these shorthands include & (ampersand), % (percent), ₤/£/# (all forms of the pound sign), and $ (dollar). Sigla is the plural of Latin siglum, diminutive of signum, sign/symbol.

---L.

Comments

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

I wonder sometimes how English retains "sigil/s" alongside "siglum/a," given that "sigil" is rather niche, too. (I know why we have "siglum." Domain specialists insist upon it, including me.) Interesting to have the perspective of your post; I wouldn't put the former and latter senses together, and modern English really only calls abbrs of textual witnesses in a critical edition "sigla," IME.

Notable fictional use of "sigil": Diane Duane's Romulan Way, before which I think I hadn't met the word.

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the two senses are both technical jargon, from different fields, with the latter better known to lexicographers (in part I suspect because dictionaries usually have a sigla).

---L.