|
Sponsored Links
A glyph is an element of writing. Two or more glyphs representing the same symbol, whether interchangeable or context-dependent, are called allographs; the abstract unit they are variants of is called a grapheme or character. Glyphs may also be ligatures, that is, compound characters, or diacritics. The term has been used in English since 1727, borrowed from glyphe in use by French antiquaries (since 1701), from Greek ???f? "a carving," from ???fe?? "to hollow out, engrave, carve" (cognate to Latin glubere "to peel" and English cleave). Compare the carved and incised "sacred glyphs" hieroglyphs, which have had a longer history in English dating from the first Elizabethan translation of Plutarch, who adopted "hieroglyphic" as a Latin adjective. But "glyph" first came to widespread European attention with the engravings and in lithographs from Frederick Catherwood's drawings of undeciphered glyphs of the Maya civilization in the early 1840s.
|
Glyph Subcategories
Glyph Articles
|
| 
