What is a glyph, apart from a strange-sounding word. Street talk for "hieroglyphic." The best known example of a glyph today is the New Orleans fleur de lis. The two symbols are synonymous, you just can't picture one without the other. American football fans recognize it immediately as the icon for the NFL football team, the New Orleans Saints. It may come as a surprise that the glyph has its roots hundreds of years ago in ancient Egypt.
It is hard to pin down a decent definition of the word, "glyph." Some people define it as a typographical mark that has a specific meaning. For instance, if you leave the dot off of the lower case letter "i, " most languages still read it as the letter it is meant to be. In Turkey, however, the letter "i" without the dot means something different from the same letter with the dot. So, in the English language, "i" without the dot is not a glyph; in Turkish, it is a glyph.
Some languages, like Japanese, use what are called syllabaries, a set of written symbols that make up the individual characters that make up words. The individual marks, or syllabaries, that make up a Japanese word are not glyphs, because they are meaningless. That is, unless there are additional marks that perform the role of diacritics. When diacritics differentiate characters, they qualify as glyphs.
This brings us back to the role of the fleur de lis as an icon for New Orleans. Where did it come from? What did it mean to our ancestors way back when? When did it ever mean anything other than beer, football and the Super Bowl?
It goes back to the 11th century, when France came out of the Dark Ages. Clovis I, the first king of the civilization that was to later become the French, who had never heard of football or the Astrodome, was said to have received a fleur straight from Heaven. His eventual successor, King Philip I of what we now call France, incorporated the lovely lily into his insignia.
The United Kingdom liked it so much they tweaked it and adapted it for its own royal family. Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, uses it today. His version looks like three fluffy white feathers sticking out of a crown.
Now, the glyph is getting closer to home. The French explorer, Sieur de La Salle, came over and laid claim to the Mississippi valley, albeit temporarily, as French territory. In the process, he stuck a flag at the mouth of the river of the same name. The flag bore a fleur de lis. The banner that he used consisted of a patch of white cloth bearing a golden flower of life.
French settlers who founded New Orleans used the flag. The fleur thus became a very early symbol of New Orleans. For centuries, it has been celebrated in art, architecture, jewelry and football uniforms. There is no single, "correct" fleur de lis. The symbol has taken on many different forms over the years and there are now hundreds of different styles.
It is hard to pin down a decent definition of the word, "glyph." Some people define it as a typographical mark that has a specific meaning. For instance, if you leave the dot off of the lower case letter "i, " most languages still read it as the letter it is meant to be. In Turkey, however, the letter "i" without the dot means something different from the same letter with the dot. So, in the English language, "i" without the dot is not a glyph; in Turkish, it is a glyph.
Some languages, like Japanese, use what are called syllabaries, a set of written symbols that make up the individual characters that make up words. The individual marks, or syllabaries, that make up a Japanese word are not glyphs, because they are meaningless. That is, unless there are additional marks that perform the role of diacritics. When diacritics differentiate characters, they qualify as glyphs.
This brings us back to the role of the fleur de lis as an icon for New Orleans. Where did it come from? What did it mean to our ancestors way back when? When did it ever mean anything other than beer, football and the Super Bowl?
It goes back to the 11th century, when France came out of the Dark Ages. Clovis I, the first king of the civilization that was to later become the French, who had never heard of football or the Astrodome, was said to have received a fleur straight from Heaven. His eventual successor, King Philip I of what we now call France, incorporated the lovely lily into his insignia.
The United Kingdom liked it so much they tweaked it and adapted it for its own royal family. Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, uses it today. His version looks like three fluffy white feathers sticking out of a crown.
Now, the glyph is getting closer to home. The French explorer, Sieur de La Salle, came over and laid claim to the Mississippi valley, albeit temporarily, as French territory. In the process, he stuck a flag at the mouth of the river of the same name. The flag bore a fleur de lis. The banner that he used consisted of a patch of white cloth bearing a golden flower of life.
French settlers who founded New Orleans used the flag. The fleur thus became a very early symbol of New Orleans. For centuries, it has been celebrated in art, architecture, jewelry and football uniforms. There is no single, "correct" fleur de lis. The symbol has taken on many different forms over the years and there are now hundreds of different styles.
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