Character (computing)

Characters ( as a synonym of " linguistic sign " also Signe ) are the smallest consecutive flow units in the writing of a script ( for example, the Cyrillic alphabet, the Devanagari, the kana syllabary, or sinograms ).

Demarcation

Characters make up the inventory of a font (character set) independent of particular written languages ​​. Graphemes, however, form (analogous to phonemes ) the inventory of a single language writing system and need for their application to a control system ( orthography ). This distinction is difficult to apply if a font is used exclusively for a language. The common cultural separation of people, country, religion, language and writing was particularly widespread in the ancient world, but can also be seen today, for example, in the Hebrew Judaism in Israel.

Both characters and graphemes manifested by glyphs in the graph.

Types of characters

After phonographic aspects are differentiated according to correspondence to sounds:

According to the legislative history of graphic characters used for writing you can go to Peirce's semiotic terminology divided:

The classification is not each comprising.

Through development of written language there are intermediate forms of the function of characters and symbols that have changed their shape after the birth. The mechanical realization of writings ( lead type, typewriters, printers) display the characters defined in a font set by complete listing. The emergence of different font sets (including fonts ) indicate the development of characters, however, still room.