- published: 13 Nov 2015
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Scribal abbreviations (sigla [plural], siglum and sigil [singular]) are the abbreviations used by ancient and mediæval scribes writing in Latin and, later, in Greek and Old Norse. Modern manuscript editing (substantive and mechanical) employs sigla as symbols indicating the location of a source manuscript and to identify the copyist(s) of a work.
Abbreviated writing, via sigla, arose partly from the exigencies of the workable nature of the materials — stone, metal, parchment, et cetera — employed in record-making, and partly from their availability. Thus, lapidaries, engravers, and copyists made the most of the available writing space. Scribal abbreviations were infrequent when writing materials were plentiful. Consequently, scribes recorded texts in long form. However, by the third and fourth centuries AD, when writing materials were scarce and costly, the scribe-artists became sparing in their use of the limited writing surface when inscribing long texts to record.