On the question of whether we should call
a certain collection marks "roman" or "latin", I would like to mention a
paper that I published recently. It's entitled "Toward Disambiguating the Term
'Roman'", and it appears in Visible Language, 33:102-127 (1999).
(There is also a letter to the editor commenting on my paper and my reply
to that letter in the same journal, 35:207-215 (2001).) One of the four meanings
of "roman" that I try to deal with in this paper is the one that
involves the name of this collection of marks. I suggest that since
"roman" and "latin" have both been used with so many different meanings,
and since this collection of marks is the only one for which both of these
terms have been used, it can be unambiguously referred to be calling it the
"roman/latin" script. These papers are not available on line, but if there's
anyone who can't find Visible Language in a library, I'll be glad to
snailmail a copy of this paper (and the comments).
Earl M. Herrick, professor emeritus of linguistics,
Texas A&M University-Kingsville.