Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.10.2003, Blaðsíða 135

113*
4. Linguistic and textual features
1. PALAEOGRAPHY
The words of the text are heavily abbreviated. Familiar abbreviations are
used, and the initials, accompanied by a point or points, often substitute for
words that have been recently used; sometimes the reader is left to guess
the word - not only words that are regularly suspended like ‘s(on)’ and
‘k(vad)’ but also words such as ‘d(ominum)’ 17.46, ‘d(ag)’ 19.2. A more
unusual feature, however, is that letters are often written superscript, espe-
cially towards the end of a line, even when this results in no reduction of
letters, economy of vellum rather than time being presumably the object. In
particular, the word um is often written with <m) directly above <u)/<v);
this circumstance is too frequent for the adoption of the rendering ‘u'm'’ to
be appropriate and so the combination is transcribed as ‘um’. In this, fifth,
quire f. 29 is half the usual width, while in the second quire f. 13, roughly
triangular in shape, tapers from 120mm at the head to 25mm at the foot;
this, too, suggests thrift.
The pen has been held at a comparatively oblique angle; thick horizontal
strokes such as at the crossing of <t> are thus common.
Stock of letters
Individual letters The basic letter <o> often has a pointed top, resulting
from the angle at which the pen was held. The tops of the tall letters <b>,
<h>, <k>, <1>, <þ> are, to a greater or lesser extent, looped.
<a> has its two-storeyed form. The vertical of <d> sometimes curves
down to the right, giving the letter a delta-like appearance, <e>’s tail is
short, as the loop joins the stem low down; consequently it often looks like
<o> and poses an initial ambiguity over words like ‘engu’/‘ongu’. <f> has
the Insular form and its lower loop is often longer than its upper. The tail of
<g> curves up towards the body but does not always meet it. <i) usually has
an oblique stroke above it (not transcribed, as being without significance).
<j>, which is the form most used word-initially, also has an oblique stroke;
its loop is sometimes filled in in red. The uprights of <m> and <n) all turn
slightly to the right. After describing the bow of <p> the pen traces a short
horizontal stroke to the right. <q> is absent. <r> always has the rotunda
form, except in the case of the abbreviation symbol used for ‘ar’ (and for
‘adr’ in ‘madr'). In <t> the stem protrudes well above the crossbar, which is
usually rather long. It is doubtful whether there is a significant difference