The uncial is a particular C-W communication of the Latin alphabets and Greek.

Uncial Latin

History

It is especially for the Latin alphabet that the term is adapted. Indeed, the uncial word (E) indicates there a precise type of C-W communication, which develops between Christian era, starting from the capital Quadrata and of old the Cursive Roman. It is the writing par excellence Codex, adapted to the feather because much less angular than the quadrata , which is (still currently) that of the inscriptions.

The uncial one remained into force until the beginning of the 9th century, from which the Minuscule Caroline tends to replace it. Between, it is especially preserved to trace the beginnings of books, of chapters or of sections, with the manner of our capital letters, in the manuscripts as a tiny Gothic Caroline or , two C-Ws communication which owe him certain forms, like those of the D or the has .

Although generally confined after its golden age to a decorative role, the uncial one however continued to be employed for whole codices well afterwards; only the Imprimerie definitively made it disappear from the everyday usages; it is however still very appraisal of the calligraphers.

To note that the named C-W communication Half-uncial is not derived from uncial but Roman cursive news and that the national writings developed after the fall of the Roman Empire (lombarde, wisigothic, mérovingienne, islander, etc) result mainly from this cursive news or half-uncial for the insular writings (Irish and Anglo-Saxon).

Layouts

Note: the image above represents only one possibility of layout of the uncial one. Indeed, evolving/moving with the liking of the centuries and the places (not to say scribes), it does not offer a fixed and invariant appearance.

Uncial Latin is characterized by its curves. The most characteristic letters are has , D , E , H , M , Q and V , which is distinguished from their equivalent in quadrata and will leave their print in the layout of tiny current ( via a complex course, however: our tiny does not derive indeed directly from uncial). There does not exist yet of letter J distinct from I (which does not have either still a not); U and V is not either separate. Lastly, W did not make its appearance yet.

The letters inevitably any more do not have a regular height of eye: some exceed line, which one easily sees with D , H , K and L for the Eye level and F , G , NR , P , Q , R , X and Y (sometimes surmounted of a Point superscribed) for the base Line. According to the manuscripts, some of these letters are however more regular: it is the case of NR , for example, which can remain circumscribed with the two lines.

The words are not at the beginning not separate but a small space is used sometimes as separator of sentences, or a not. The punctuation is, except this point, almost absent and as the writing is not yet bicameral, one makes use sometimes of large letters to mark the beginnings of page even of sentence but not of different natures.

The Abréviation S remain rare in the old manuscripts: the are generally concerned nominated crowned , the nasal suspension ( M at the end of the line is replaced by a superscribed feature accompanied or not by a point, NR by a superscribed feature). The Enclitique - that (meaning and in Latin) and the Ending - buses of Dative/Ablatif Pluriel, as in capitals, are sometimes noted by Q. and B. ; the manuscripts of right, however, are already rich in abbreviations.

One finds some binding S at the end of the line as well as the '' E '' caudata ( Ę ) which can replace AE , making his appearance as from the 6th century.

Uncial Greek

When one speaks about the Greek alphabet, it is of use to indicate one of its C-Ws communication by the term of uncial . It is a denomination much less precise than for the Latin alphabet: indeed, it is not so much the layout and the type of letters which one indicates only the destination of the text writes thus. Uncial Greek is indeed a type of capitals used for the writing of bookstore starting from the hellenistic time, very near to the concise capitals, which one would gain to name “book”. She is opposed in that to the writing of chancellery and the tiny ones. Moreover, for a few years, the name of uncial has been abandoned with the profit of that of capital letter, more suitable.

It is starting from the half of one attends a separation, altogether rather little marked, between the concise capitals and those which one uses for the books, term by which one indicates public and nonprivate documents, which are written in various types tending more or less towards the cursive one. The features more striking relate to letters little; as in uncial Latin, the right features tend to be curved, which more easily allows the writing on parchment:

• the sigma takes the form of the lunar Sigma: Σ → С;
• epsilon is curved (lunar epsilon): Ε → Є;
• the Omega takes the form which will give rise to the tiny one: Ω → Ѡ.

For the other letters, one notes, as for Latin, a irregularity height (which appears especially in the going beyond of the base line) and an increasing simplification of the layout of certain letters, like Α which, at the beginning, remained close to the concise model and which, gradually, came from there to be traced with the manner of the has uncial Latin, the Ξ, whose three cross-pieces are connected, or Λ, whose left haste is shortened. These the last two layouts are, one sees it, very close to tiny current the λ and ξ (tiny which is tributary of a mixture of forms being spread out over more than two millenia).

Note: for reasons of compatibility with the current font faces, one chose to represent the uncial Greek letters by characters drawn from the Cyrillic one.

Once the fixed model, it will remain invariant during more than one millenium in the book handwritten uses, replaced then in printing works by the concise capitals given to the last style while the tiny ones had been essential.

Here a theoretical example of uncial Greek letters:

Concerning the uncial word (E)

The French word comes from the Latin Adjectif uncialis , “of a twelfth”. In the beginning, they would be characters of a twelfth of foot, that is to say of an inch, before indicating smaller letters. It is at Saint Jerome that a first certificate of the term is found, in his foreword with its translation of the Livre of Job :

Habeant which volunt veteres libros, vel in membranis purpureis auro argentoque descriptos, vel uncialibus C vulgo aiunt litteris ONERA magis exarata quam codices.

“There are some who want of old books, either in coloured parchment of crimson and with the traced letters with the gold and the money, or in uncial , like one usually says, which are more of the burdens written than of the codices”.

It seems there that one should see only one term indicating any type of large letters (capital) and not precisely the uncial one. It is necessary to await Charles-François Toustain and Rene Prosper Tassin (at the 18th century) so that uncial specializes in the current direction.

The word also makes it possible to indicate codices (generally Christian) writings in this C-W communication or at least in Greek capital letters, in opposition to the cursive , written in small letters Greek. One knows many codices into uncial, of which:

• the Codex Vaticanus;
• the Codex Sinaiticus;
• the Codex Alexandrinus;
• the Codex Coislinianus;
• the Codex Bezae (bilingual Latin Greek/, into uncial also);
• the Codex Petropolitanus.

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