Peter Kirk scripsit: > But when does an unconventional use become a new convention? If a > particular community chooses to write English (for example) using e.g. > Cyrillic or Hebrew characters, with a one to one mapping, are they using > a cipher or are they transliterating? Does it depend on how regular the > use is?
I fear that all this talk of signifiers and signifieds (a very un-English construction, that "signifieds") misses the point of ciphers. A cipher of the relevant type (a "substitution cipher", technically) is a mapping of the usual symbols in a text or set of texts to other symbols WITH THE INTENT OF SECRECY. That is why Theban is a cipher, and so is the venerable "pig-pen", and Masonic Samaritan; but the ecclesiastical use of Samaritan is not, nor are > [l]anguages formerly written in Cyrillic are now > being written in Latin script with a one to one mapping. -- There is / One art John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> No more / No less http://www.reutershealth.com To do / All things http://www.ccil.org/~cowan With art- / Lessness -- Piet Hein
