In this link on how to write Serbian, the word "overscore" is used. Due to my mathematical background, I used the word "overline" (which is also the name of a LaTeX command).
I've seen similar distinguishing lines in some examples of Russian handwriting. What would they be called in Russian?
I love this one [шутка, ‘joke’]:
This article in Wikipedia mentions над- and подчeркивание [nad- and podcherkivanie; ‘over- and underlining’; or ‘over- and underscoring’] as disambiguation tools. One example offered is
• надчёркивание и подчёркивание похоже выглядящих при письме от руки букв т (m) и ш (ш).
⟨…⟩ as Maxim pointed out the form of this distinguishing mark may differ from that of the macron, and the sign isn't an accent indicating a change in phonetic value.
But addressing phonetic values is not the sole purpose of diacritics. What about French a and à, ou and où, etc.
That article I referred to, says, among other things,
The use of an element of writing system as a diacritical mark is, to a large extent, conventional. Thus, in current Russian writing one may find ‘diacritics’ of varying degree of [im]plausibility, from absolute to near zero: ⟨…⟩.
@Nikola Kostic An other interesting question is what's happen with „г, п, т“ in case we have not an italic but an oblique forms in Serbian and Macedonian script. Do „г, п, т“ lose the overline above? I have only one example and I'm not sure it's a decision of my question. I presume the overline is not needed in this case...
@John Hudson Sorry to say, but we are terribly short on original technical terminology in Serbia. We just call it "crta" which would translate to "a line" or "a dash".
Nikola Kostic Sorry to say, but we are terribly short on original technical
terminology in Serbia. We just call it "crta" which would translate to
"a line" or a "dash".
I'll call the problem "international". And as I'm a publisher, I dream for an international dictionary of typographic terms! It'll be a huge and very useful project – the Greenwich watch in typography
In Russian, at least, the lines that distinguish "sh" from "t" in certain handwriting styles could hardly be considered diacritical marks. Instead, they would be viewed, I would think, as integral to the letter, the way the dot in the lower-case letter I is viewed in languages using the Latin alphabet other than Turkish.
Thank you for the link, but at the risk of derailing this thread, I must note that when I visited the site, although I was able to download the PDF, I got a pop-up message from my computer stating that Microsoft Security Essentials was cleaning some threats that it had detected - although it advised me that no action was necessary on my part.
So the site hosting this document may have to be notified that it has been tampered with to spread harmful programs.
There is such a licensing message on the site: "The website is owned by the publisher of the electronic edition of the Spelling of the Macedonian language, the National and University Library "St. Clement of Ohrid". The free electronic version of the Spelling in Macedonian language is available exclusively for non-commercial purposes. Copying, breeding and selling is strictly prohibited." So, the site remain the only place to look at and download the book. I'm sorry...
Comments
This article in Wikipedia mentions над- and подчeркивание [nad- and podcherkivanie; ‘over- and underlining’; or ‘over- and underscoring’] as disambiguation tools. One example offered is
But addressing phonetic values is not the sole purpose of diacritics. What about French a and à, ou and où, etc.
That article I referred to, says, among other things,
I'll call the problem "international". And as I'm a publisher, I dream for an international dictionary of typographic terms! It'll be a huge and very useful project – the Greenwich watch in typography