Uncial Script - Forms

Forms

In general, there are some common features of uncial script:

  • m, n, and u are relatively broad; m is formed with curved strokes (although a straight first stroke may indicate an early script), and n is written as to distinguish it from r and s.
  • f, i, p, s, t are relatively narrow.
  • e is formed with a curved stroke, and its arm (or hasta) does not connect with the top curve; the height of the arm can also indicate the age of the script (written in a high position, the script is probably early, while an arm written closer to the middle of the curve may indicate a later script).
  • l has a small base, not extending to the right to connect with the next letter.
  • r has a long, curved shoulder, often connecting with the next letter.
  • s resembles (and is the ancestor of) the "long s"; in uncial it looks more like r than f.

In later uncial scripts, the letters are sometimes drawn haphazardly; for example, double-l runs together at the baseline, bows (for example in b, p, r) do not entirely curve in to touch their stems, and the script is generally not written as cleanly as previously.

Read more about this topic:  Uncial Script

Famous quotes containing the word forms:

    “Being the dependents of the general government, and looking to its treasury as the source of all their emoluments, the state officers, under whatever names they might pass and by whatever forms their duties might be prescribed, would in effect be the mere stipendiaries and instruments of the central power.”
    —Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)

    “Anyone who seeks for the true causes of miracles, and strives to understand natural phenomena as an intelligent being, and not to gaze at them like a fool, is set down and denounced as an impious heretic by those, whom the masses adore as the interpreters of nature and the gods. Such persons know that, with the removal of ignorance, the wonder which forms their only available means for proving and preserving their authority would vanish also.”
    —Baruch (Benedict)

    “The atmosphere of orthodoxy is always damaging to prose, and above all it is completely ruinous to the novel, the most anarchical of all forms of literature.”
    —George Orwell (1903–1950)