Levels of analysis

The analysis of written documents can be undertaken on various levels, not all of which are relevant to linguistics.

1. The individual features of the original manuscript.

2. Individual handwriting described on the basis of recurring features (problems of ascription, graphology as a means of interpreting character traits, etc.).

3. Geographically or chronologically restricted writing conventions attributable to certain schools/traditions (dating and localization of manuscripts, transmission of manuscripts, palaeography).

4. Letter types, such as EModE secretary script vs. italic (see t27–t29) or (in the printed book) typefaces of varying size and shape, as in the T20 facsimile (cultural history, palaeography).

5. The writing system, i.e. its distinctive features and their distribution determined by the analysis of minimal pairs (linguistics).

6. Type of writing system, such as alphabetic or syllabic, ideographic or logographic, or various mixtures (linguistics, the history of writing).

Manuscripts and prints (Petti 1977: 15ff.)

We normally read EModE texts in edited form. Editing entails the transliteration of manuscript texts, which means that often widely varying graphs must be identified as realizations of the appropriate graphemes, in accordance with the writer's intention.

This is not always easy, especially with texts written in sixteenth century secretary script (compare t27 in Elizabeth I's own handwriting with the transliteration beneath).

Secretary script predominated (at least in private writing) until 1630, but from 1550 italic gained ground. This script was based on Italian humanist printing types and it was, accordingly, at first restricted to Latin texts written by scholars.