Online orthographies

The representation in online environments of non-Roman-based script languages has proved problematic. During the initial years of Computer-mediated Communication, the American Standard Code for Information Interchange character set only supported Roman-alphabeted languages. The solution for speakers of languages written in non-Roman scripts was to employ unconventional writing systems, in an effort to represent their native language in online discourse. The first aim of this chapter is to present the different ways that internet users choose to transliterate or even transcribe their native languages online, using Roman characters. With technological development, and consequently the availability of various writing scripts online, internet users now have the option to either use Roman characters or their native script. If the latter is chosen, internet users still seem to deviate from conventional ways of writing, in this case, however, with regards to spelling. The second aim, therefore, is to bring into light recent developments, by looking at the ways that internet users manipulate orthography, to achieve their communicative purposes.

Sermon notes and manuscript communities

Any reader of manuscript catalogues knows how common the unhelpfully vague entry “sermon notes, 17th-century” can be. This essay explores whether we can find in sermon notes the kinds of textual communities that have been found through the reconstruction of other routes of manuscript circulation. It will unpick what those laconic catalogue entries mean, and distinguish the different kinds of sermon notes found in our archival collections (some derived from the original preacher, some from hearers, some from readers of manuscript and printed copies). The physical forms of different sorts of “sermon notes” alerts us to the different types of authors who created these manuscripts, and the different purposes involved in preserving an oration in textual form, purposes which included fostering the creation and maintenance of communal identities among the self-consciously godly or Catholic recusants.