Re: definition for "script"

At 06:26 AM 8/15/2003, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

>Peter_Constable@... wrote:
> >
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...> wrote on 08/14/2003
> > 07:03:11 AM:
> >
> > > What's Latin about it? It wasn't spread by the Latin Empire!
> >
> > The fact that that's what it is conventionally called. Does it all have to
> > be directly linked to the Roman Empire to be called by convention "Latin"?
> > The connection is one of origin -- all ~200 characters of the Latin script
> > are derived from the alphabet used for the Latin language. That's enough of
> > a connection for me.
>
>In the literature it's generally called the roman alphabet, since the
>Latin alphabet is specifically the one for that language.

'Latin script' is preferred in typographic circles, because the term
'roman' has another, very particular meaning: upright humanist letters as
distinct from slanted italics. In this case, the terminology derives from
the fact that the first humanist (i.e. non-blackletter) types were cut at
Subiaco and Rome, so it has nothing to do with the empire or the language
and everything to do with the Eternal City.

John Hudson

Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com
Vancouver, BC tiro@...

The sight of James Cox from the BBC's World at One,
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