Carolingian Minuscule: Abbreviations

To return to the page you were working on, click the BACK button.

You should have no trouble at all with the actual letter forms. To make up for it, this text has more abbreviations than you have yet met.

Nomina sacra
ds for deus, 'God'. dns for dominus, 'Lord'. dne for domine, 'O Lord'. dno for domino 'to the Lord'. spc for spiritus, 'spirit',
instead of sps.

Suspensions
strictly speaking are abbreviations of the ends of words. However, the same signs can be used in the middle of a word as well.
This stands for ur as in dominabitur (section 2, line 2).
This stands for us as in eius (section 3, lines 4 & 6).
This stands for rum as in filiorum (section 1, line 3) and mandatorum (section 1, line 5)
This stands for que as in neque (section 6, line 9)..

Contractions are shortenings of other parts of the word:
p with a stroke through the descender stands for per, as in super (section 1, line 2, and section 5, line 10) and opera (section 3, line 4).
The ampersand & stands for et, 'and'. But it is also used as an abbreviation for et in other words. This stands for ab eterno (section1, line 1).
The horizontal line over a letter shows that an m or n has been missed out. This frequently happens in the word omnis, 'all', which is reduced to an om followed by the appropriate grammatical ending. This is omni (section 3, line 5).
However, this straight line is sometimes replaced by a zigzag flash. This is omnium, 'of all' (section 2, line 2).
q with a superscript i stands for qui, 'who'.
Some common words have their own abbreviations: among these is sclm for saeculum, 'era' (section 5, line 8). The full word appears next to it, in the genitive case as saeculi.



Return to Index Page.

© MEG TWYCROSS 1998