G21C (Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century, also called /gʁafematik/) is a biennial conference bringing together disciplines concerned with grapholinguistics and, more generally, the study of writing systems and their representation in written communication. The conference aims to reflect on the current state of research in the area and on the role that writing and writing systems play in neighboring disciplines like computer science and information technology, communication, typography, psychology, and pedagogy. In particular it aims to study the effect of the growing importance of Unicode with regard to the future of reading and writing in human societies. Reflecting the richness of perspectives on writing systems, G21C is actively interdisciplinary. It welcomes proposals from researchers from the fields of computer science and information technology, linguistics, communication, pedagogy, psychology, history, and the social sciences.

G21C aims to create a space for discussing the range of approaches to writing systems and specifically to bridge approaches in linguistics, informatics, and other fields. It will provide a forum for explorations in terminology, methodology, and theoretical approaches relating to delineating an emerging interdisciplinary area of research that intersects with intense activity in practical implementations of writing systems.

And, BTW, we didn't make the term “grapholinguistics” up; it first appeared in 1967 and was officially introduced with the current meaning in 2015 by Martin Neef. It is a straightforward translation of the German term »Schriftlinguistik«. It is not the first case of a mixed Greek neoclassical component prefixed to the word “linguistics,” famous precedents are “psycholinguistics” and “neurolinguistics,” less famous ones, “xenolinguistics,” “biolinguistics,” “cryptolinguistics,” etc.

The Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century Conference is kindly endorsed by ACL (Association for Computational Linguistics) and by ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale).

The first edition of G21C was held in Brest, France, on June 14-15, 2018, the second edition was held online on June 17-19, 2020, and the third edition of G21C was held in Palaiseau, on June 8-10, 2022.

Sponsored by IMT Atlantique and LabSTICC CNRS laboratory (UMR 6285)

October 23rd, 2024

• 08:50-09:00 CEST Conference Opening Greetings
• 09:00-10:00 CEST Keynote Presentation:
  Annick Payne (Ca' Foscari University, Venice). — Classifiers in the Anatolian Hieroglyphic Script
  
  This paper adresses the system of classification in the Anatolian Hieroglyphic script (ca. 1500-700 BCE), a mixed logo-phonetic writing system which uses both semantic and phonetic classifiers. The paper will give an overview of the script's structures, and discuss current research. Classifiers are an important source for approaching cognitive categories of original script user. Given the pictorial character of Anatolian Hieroglyphic, they can be activated on different levels, as signs of writing and to transport additional meaning through their iconicity.
  
• 10:00-10:20 CEST
  Bennett Bacon (Independent); Dan Harbour (QMUL); Sara Hockett (Boston University); Andrew Nevins (UCL). — Earliest traces of protowriting: A bipartite, compositional sign in the Magdalenian Upper Palaeolithic
  
  One Upper Palaeolithic sign, Lozenge <◊>, has an accepted meaning: a stylised salmon or seatrout (a vital Magdalenian food). We examined the cooccurrence of Lozenge with another sign, Pipe <I>. We constructed a corpus of animal images with Pipes. All occurred with adult female animals of various species (many visibly pregnant), with Pipe appearing in the belly region. Given quantitative correlations, we hypothesise that Pipe is a symbol for ‘(unborn) young’. The fused Lozenge + Pipe symbols are geographically found near spawning sites. This Lozenge+Pipe composite is conceptually contiguous with later (proto)writing, expanding evidence of writing-like production into the Palaeolithic.
  
• 10:20-10:40 CEST
  Kaveh Ashourinia (OCAD University). — Typographical revival of Proto-Elamite script
  
  
• 10:40-11:00 CEST Coffee break
• 11:00-11:20 CEST
  Perri Antonio (Università degli Studi Suor Orsola Benincasa - Napoli); Luciano Perondi (IUAV, Venice); Daniele Capo (Sapienza University, Rome). — Rethinking Unicode: how to digitally encode non-linear written artefacts? A tentative encoding of Codex Mendoza, folio 2r
  
  Unicode inherited the constraints of analogic and alphabetic typography: namely its analytic, linear, mechanical juxtaposition of characters. Elsewhere, following the digital method aimed at processing sets of basic graphic features as non-linear combinations of variables, we pointed out that Aztec system of pictorially agglutinated complexes display an overall structure similar to Unicode encoding of emoji: i.e. a combination of different layers of variables. In this paper we will sketch the guidelines for an exhaustive coding of the perhaps most iconic page of Aztec Codex Mendoza: the folio 2r, which relates the founding of Mexico-Tenochtitlan.
  
• 11:20-11:40 CEST
  Sina Fakour (ANRT - American University of Beirut). — Reviving Linear Elamite (2300–1880 BCE), The oldest known phonetic writing system.
  
  At the beginning of the 20th century, inscriptions containing simple and complex geometric signs were discovered in Susa. These inscriptions represented Linear Elamite, one of the earliest writing systems used in Elam (modern-day Iran) to transcribe the Elamite language. In 2021, following the announcement of its decipherment, Sina Fakour undertook a two-year research program at ANRT to design a typographic solution based on a detailed analysis of the inscriptions. The resulting typeface enables the digital transmission and reproduction of Linear Elamite, supporting archaeologists, linguists, philologists, historians, and type researchers in the process of redacting and publishing their research.
  
• 11:40-12:00 CEST
  Alexandre Solcà (ARLS); Francesco Perono Cacciafoco (Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University). — Clusters and syllabo-logographical classification models in Linear A/B tablets: lexical and visual analogies for a more comprehensive study of their properties and advanced Bronze Age trading-diplomatical correspondences.
  
  This paper (presenting our own analysis of Minoan Cretan Linear A and hieroglyphic scripts lexicology written by Alexandre Solcà) aims to collect three main elements. (1) Computer-enhanced tablets with a search on alike compounds in Luwian or proto-Greek and Anatolian related languages. (2) Our detailed study of morphemes and key words in Cretan Linear A and B and a cross-examination of theur occurrences (3) An overview of inscriptions which we present with interesting elements proving that those lines pf proto-Mino-Greek can be read perfectly.
  
• 12:00-12:20 CEST
  Duoduo Xu (Jiangsu Normal University). — Glyph Families in Dongba Script
  
  The present study explores the glyph families in Dongba script. It clarifies the Sinitic notion zizu 字族 (“glyph-family”) in establishing the iconographic indexed characters list of this unique pictographic writing system. In contrast to cizu (“word family”), zizu turns out to be a glyph-centered concept. The research on glyph families may contribute to a clearer illustration of the grammatical features of the Dongba glyphs and the semantic network among the glyphs.
  
• 12:20-14:00 CEST Lunch break
• 14:00-14:20 CEST
  Vasanta Duggirala (Retired Prof Osmania University, Hyderabad); Raju Surampudi Bapi (International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad); Soham G. Korade (IIIT Hyderabad). — Graphic Complexity and Orthographic Neighbors: Observations based on Telugu Writing System
  
  Telugu script makes use of an orthographic syllable known as akshara as its basic unit. We have designed a computer program that calculates four different parameters of graphic complexity for Telugu aksharas: Perimetric complexity, number of connected points, number of disconnected points, and number of simple strokes. With the help of an algorithm, we have also calculated orthographic neighbors for 200 words classified as simple, moderately complex and complex based on their syllable structure and estimated graphic complexity. In this paper, we will present our results pertaining to graphic complexity and its relationship to orthographic neighborhood size.
  
• 14:20-14:40 CEST
  Saiya L. Karamali (University of Washington). — The Developing Orthographic Conventions of Roman Hindi-Urdu
  
  The Roman script has become ubiquitous over the past few decades for writing Hindi-Urdu online. In this study, I use data from X (formerly Twitter) to identify the newly developing spelling conventions of Hindi-Urdu in the Roman script. After presenting a brief history of Roman Hindi-Urdu, I investigate how consistent these conventions have become and which psychological, sociocultural, and technological factors appear to shape how they develop. Finally, I explore some of the sociocultural considerations that may have led the Roman script to dominate even though it introduces more ambiguity than the traditional scripts.sv
  
• 14:40-15:00 CEST
  Jan Kučera (Charles University). — Tamil Orthography Reforms
  
  
• 15:00-15:20 CEST
  David A. Roberts (SIL International). — Linear featurality in Roman script African orthographies
  
  This paper uses the term “linear featurality” to describe the orthographic representation on the segmental (CV) tier of a unit lower on the phonological hierarchy than the phoneme. It is present, regularly or irregularly, in many of the world’s writing systems, and the Roman script orthographies of Africa are no exception. The paper surveys linear featurality in 180 languages from 30 countries, with data extracted from published and unpublished literature, responses to an on-line forum, and a perusal of Omniglot, the online database of writing systems and languages. Featurality will be exemplified in nasality, prenasalisation, back unroundedness, tone, aspiration, glottalisation, breathiness, labialisation, laterals, rhotics, clicks, and uvular articulation. The survey also illustrates some cases of simultaneous and irregular linear featurality, and ends by comparing the profiles of linear and multilinear featurality in Africa.
  
• 15:20-15:40 CEST
  Dan Harbour (QMUL). — Allo-, allo-, ALLO: Allography/allomorphy parallels and writing systems as Autonomous Language-Like Objects: An Ethiopic case study
  
  The Ethiopic script shows complex allography when consonant and vowel signs when combine into the CV units that make up the bulk of the script. Thir complexities closely mirror patterns of allomorphy in natural language. The Ethiopic script therefore provides a case study in how formal properties of scripts are shaped by the same forces as build the grammars of languages.
  
• 15:40-16:10 CEST Coffee break
• 16:10-16:30 CEST
  Behnoosh Namdarzadeh (Université Paris Cité); Nicolas Ballier (Université Paris Cité). — Audio LLM subtokens as encapsulated knowledge: the case of Persian subtoken graphemic representations in Whisper
  
  Whisper, an open-access audio multilingual Large Language Model (LLM), allows researchers to investigate how it encodes writing systems in its subtoken dictionaries. This study focuses on the grapholinguistic representations of Persian, an under-resourced language using the Perso-Arabic script. By analysing Whisper's subtokenisation of Persian's abjad writing system, the research aims to shed light on AI model's graphemic representations, especially for languages with intricate orthographic features. This exploration could enhance the awareness of the transformations of writing systems in the subtokenisation phase of Large Language models.
  
• 16:30-16:50 CEST
  Paul D. Ueda (The Ohio State University). — Characters, Romanization, and Anti-Colonialism: Historical Development of Taigi and Vietnamese
  
  Language and social revolution have a storied history—from the switch from Cyrillic to the Latin Alphabet in the former soviet bloc country Moldova after gaining independence to the simplification schemes of the People’s Republic of China in the 20th century. The present presentation conducts a comparative analysis of the historical and modern Romanized Taigi movement and the Quốc ngữ romanization movement of Vietnamese. Analysis of how these movements were both alike and differed provides insights on the role of colonialism and national identity creation on orthographic reform and proposes important considerations for future efforts of language activists in Taiwan.
  
• 16:50-17:10 CEST
  Ariq Syauqi (Atelier National de Recherche Typographique). — Southern Sumatran Scripts: The Transformation from 14th Century to Present
  
  Distinguished by its angular forms, the Southern Sumatran script group spans from Lampung to the highlands of Kerinci. Widely used for centuries, these scripts are now struggling to survive, facing decline due to the dominance of the Latin alphabet. The oldest manuscript identified dates back to the 14th century, yet scholarly research on these scripts remains rare. By identifying, gathering and analysing publicly available manuscripts and publications, this paper offers a comprehensive examination of the history and evolution of Southern Sumatran scripts, to trace their development from the 14th century to the present.
  
• 17:10-17:30 CEST
  Tomi S. Melka (Independent); Robert Schoch (Boston University). — The Persistence of the Grapholinguistic Rongorongo Tradition on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) during the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
  
  It is generally assumed that rongorongo inscriptions were not produced after the introduction of Christianity (1864–66) to Rapa Nui due to the breakdown of traditional Rapanui society. We document two newly recovered artifacts incised with indigenous rongorongo-like glyphs: a shell gorget collected in December 1886 and a miniature wooden tablet collected in 1914–15. Despite not exhibiting the engraving skill observed on various pre-1864/66 rongorongo artifacts, our analyses suggest that various aspects of the ancient and authentic rongorongo tradition continued (perhaps secretly or sporadically) into the early twentieth century, even as Christianity rose to ascendancy on Rapa Nui.
  
• 17:30-17:50 CEST
  Gordon G. Berthin (University of Toronto); Robert Schoch (Boston University). — The Antiquity and Timeframe of the Rongorongo Script on Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
  
  We review the timeframe of the Rapanui glyphic script (kohau rongorongo [KRR]) in consideration of recent contributions in radiocarbon dating and newly recognized artefacts. A central question is whether KRR originated before or after the Spanish visit to the island in 1770, at which time the Rapanui witnessed European writing. Provenance and physical assessment of artefacts, including botanical assessments and specimen condition, and methods of glyph-text analysis for estimating the relative ages of artefacts, are evaluated. We review accounts of early investigators and reports from indigenous eyewitnesses regarding the script. The cumulative evidence suggests a pre-1770 origin for KRR.
• 17:50-18:10 CEST
  Robert Schoch (Boston University); Tomi S. Melka (Independent). — Towards a Comprehensive Grapholinguistic Analysis of the Rongorongo Phenomenon of Rapa Nui (Easter Island): Suggestions Regarding a Reorganization of the Core and Extended Rongorongo Corpus
  
  An impediment to research on rongorongo is the sparce surviving corpus. Generally, 24 to 27 “authentic” or “genuine” rongorongo-bearing objects are recognized. However, various additional indigenous objects from traditional Rapa Nui (i.e., excluding modern tourist items) with short rongorongo inscriptions (two or several glyphs) or single or compound glyphs have been recently recovered. These artifacts provide insights into the rongorongo phenomenon. A first step towards a comprehensive analysis is a reorganization of the available artifacts; we propose an interim approach and classification, including addressing the issue of defining and distinguishing “authentic” and “genuine” versus “fake” and “modern” rongorongo-bearing objects.
  

October 24th, 2024

• 09:00-10:00 CEST Keynote Presentation:
  Camille Circlude (Bye Bye Binary collective and École de recherche graphique, Brussels). — Post-binary typography for a debinarised future
  
  Camille Circlude details the emergence of inclusive, non-binary, and post-binary typography, which, in the wave of inclusive writing, seeks to fight the gendered nature of the French language. Typography is seen as an emancipating technology that enables us to resist hegemony and embrace the hybridity of forms materializing queer, non-binary, genderfluid, agender, and genderfuck existences in the shared and symbolic spaces of language and writing. Exploring the possibilities of a post-binary future, the talk will look at the questions and issues raised by these new typographic forms in terms of their legibility, oralisation, and digital pollination.
  
• 10:00-10:20 CEST
  Janet Davey (Australian National University). — Beyond the alphabet, beyond the binary, maybe beyond “Chinese”? Exploring the emergence of gender-inclusive Chinese pronouns
  
  In this presentation I explore the emergence of gender-inclusive pronouns in written Chinese, examining the critical role of orthography in their development and potential for widespread adoption. Drawing on survey data and corpus analysis, I discuss how practical considerations—readability, pronounceability, and 'typeability'—influence pronoun preferences among queer Chinese speakers. I highlight the rise of 'TA' as a widely recognised gender-neutral/gender-inclusive option. Additionally, I examine the technological constraints impeding new Sinograph pronouns in digital writing systems. This analysis illuminates how the interplay between language evolution, orthographic conventions, and technological realities influences linguistic choices of contemporary Chinese language users.
  
• 10:20-10:40 CEST
  Amalia E. Gnanadesikan (University of Maryland). — Mind the Gap: Spaces and Boundaries in Spoken and Written Language
  
  Spaces and other text segmentation do not represent pauses and do not correspond directly to any phonological entity; yet text segmentation is a compensatory mechanism for recovering otherwise unwritten prosodic information, which indicates the location of boundaries between phonological entities in speech. Boundary indicators in written language include markers, spaces, and cues. This talk will survey these boundary indicators across writing systems and the domains to which they apply, which correlate strongly with levels of the prosodic hierarchy.
  
• 10:40-11:10 CEST Coffee break
• 11:10-11:30 CEST
  Dimitrios Meletis (University of Vienna). — Types of iconicity in phonographic writing systems
  
  This talk explores the various forms of iconicity in phonographic writing systems, focusing on the types of imagic, diagrammatic, and metaphoric iconicity. It examines how writing, as a secondary semiotic system, creates complex relationships among and between written units, spoken language, and extralinguistic reality. Through examples such as the Korean alphabet, Cree syllabics, and Roman script, the talk demonstrates how iconicity manifests and interacts within and across different linguistic modalities. Finally, it discusses the cognitive and cultural foundations of these iconic relationships, offering insights into the role of iconicity in the evolution of writing systems.
  
• 11:30-11:50 CEST
  Philippa M. Steele (University of Cambridge). — Thoughts on the visual-cultural fit of writing systems, and its intersections with linguistic fit
  
  This paper will argue that beyond linguistic suitability, a writing system can also have a relatively good or bad visual-cultural fit for the people who use it—one that is relevant to and conditioned by the visual habitus of a society. For instance, a writing system that makes reference to socially meaningful iconography could have a kind of cultural advantage, or visual distinctiveness from majority/colonial languages could be beneficial for a minority language.
  
• 11:50-12:10 CEST
  David L. Share (University of Haifa). — Blueprint for a Universal Theory of Learning to Read: Insights from Psycholinguistics and Grapholinguistics
  
  The presentation proposes a universal theory of learning to read that acknowledges global writing system diversity while identifying common patterns. The key principle is “writing system combinatoriality,” where learners combine basic elements (letters, syllabograms, etc.) into meaningful units like words. This process mirrors linguistic combinatorial patterns across spoken, signed, and tactile languages. I suggest that reading development resembles a growing tree, with both vertical (three-phase progression) and outward (knowledge expansion) growth. I criticize the field's overemphasis on English and a few Western European languages all written in the Roman alphabet, calling for more research into reading in diverse writing systems.
  
• 12:10-12:30 CEST
  Terry Joyce (Tama University, School of Global Studies). — Some tentative musings on the nature of morphography
  
  
• 12:30-14:00 CEST Lunch break
• 14:00-14:20 CEST
  Santhosh Thottingal (Swathanthra Malayalam Computing). — Parametric type design in the era of variable and color fonts
  
  While Donald Knuth's ideas in MetaFont and subsequently in MetaPost are often seen as legacy techniques from the pre-graphical user interface (GUI) era of type design, recent trends like variable fonts suggest a resurgence of certain principles. This paper explores a modern type design process built on parametric design principles, specifically using MetaPost. The author created two variable, color fonts with this method and released them under a free, open-source license. The paper details the methodology, workflow, and insights gained from this process.
  
• 14:20-14:40 CEST
  Jonas Romstadt (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn). — Looking for the crucial point(s) – Forms and functions of punctuation units in handwritten German school exams
  
  Using data from over 1,400 final exams from 1917–2018, the aim of this study is to show how writers actually use punctuation units (more precise: the forms & function(s) assoziated with them) in freely produced texts. They are written without the help of spell-checking or AI-text-generation by more or less ‘competent’ writers. The corpus-driven study focusses on those two punctuation units that only occur in pairs in German. These are the quotation marks ‹„“› and the parentheses ‹( )›. The variation that becomes apparent is described linguistically and the quantitative results obtained are then contextualized historically and comparatively.
  
• 14:40-15:00 CEST
  Yannis Haralambous (IMT Atlantique). — Masoretic Graphemics and Graphetics: Challenges and Solutions
  
  By Masoretic, we refer to the writing system of the Hebrew Bible. We describe the graphemic and graphetic system of Masoretic text, a particularity of which is the simultaneous co-presence of alternative cantillations (“high” and “low” systems) in the same text fragment. We provide a new font-independent algorithm for the optimal placement of vowels and cantillation marks on the word level, based on linear constraint optimization and greedy graph coloring.
  
• 15:00-15:20 CEST
  Avelino Corral Esteban (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid). — The process of graphization of the Scottish Gaelic language and the accuracy and effectiveness of the spelling reforms for its preservation and revitalization
  
  Despite the efforts to keep the Scottish Gaelic language – classified as “definitely endangered” by UNESCO - alive and revitalize it, just over 1.5 percent of Scottish population is able to speak Gaelic nowadays. In the recent years, however, there have emerged some signs of green shoots pointing to recovery, such as the increase in those groups aged under 20 years, the spread of Gaelic speakers beyond the Western Isles, the Highlands and Argyll & Bute, and the growth of Gaelic education throughout Scotland, which are certainly grounds for optimism and confirm, consequently, that the long-standing project of preservation and revitalization is now bearing fruit. An important pillar on which this project rested was the choice of a common standard orthography for the different dialects but the process of graphization of this language has, however, not been a bed of roses and even today since, despite the numerous reforms that spelling has undergone to find a balance between the respect for etymology and the achievement of greater accuracy, it is not uncommon to find allusions to the defects of the current writing system, which is obviously understandable, bearing in mind that the Gaelic language uses only 18 letters to represent more than 40 different phonemes, leading to unpredictable pronunciation; hence, further reforms are needed to make the system more uniform, accessible, and community-approved.
  
• 15:20-15:50 CEST Coffee break
• 15:50-16:50 CEST Poster Session:
  Tilly Guthrie (University of Sheffield). — Haptolinguistics? The multiscriptal requirements of blindness before the standardisation of Braille in Britain, c.1820-1905
  
  Blind communities in 19th century Britain faced an ever-expanding array of raised-print scripts to facilitate tactile literacy, before Braille was eventually standardised in 1905. This required blind readers to take on a much higher level of literacy than their sighted peers, in that they became multiscriptal. Similarly, different skills were required for writing. This poster will explore these scripts, with a focus on whether ‘grapho-’ is an appropriate term for tactile reading, and how the concept of ‘haptolinguistics’ might expand our understanding of how we experience text.
• 15:50-16:50 CEST Poster Session:
  Claire Danet (ESAD Amiens); Léa Chevrefils (ESAD Amiens); Claudia S. Bianchini (Université de Poitiers); Morgane Rébulard (ESAD Amiens); Adrien Contesse (ESAD Amiens); Chloé Thomas (Université de Rouen Normandie); Patrick Doan (ESAD Amiens). — Describing movement in Sign Language: from body multilinearity to transcription linearity
  
• 16:50-17:50 CEST Keynote Presentation:
  Donald E. Knuth (Stanford University, Palo Alto). — The Grapholinguistic Model of TeX (interview) and An “All Questions Answered” Session
  

October 25th, 2024

• 09:00-09:20 CEST
  James Myers (National Chung Cheng University). — Synchronic and diachronic ordering in Chinese character form patterns
  
  This study demonstrates that interactions among patterns in Chinese character form cannot be reduced to the diachronic order in which the patterns arose. In particular, lexically idiosyncratic patterns on the one hand, and articulatorily motivated patterns on the other, interact in the modern system as if ordered early and late, respectively, regardless of when they arose historically. The results help confirm that, just as with spoken and signed languages, historical change in writing systems involves a sequence of synchronic grammars, each restructured from the previous one in accordance with universal principles.
  
• 09:20-09:40 CEST
  Keisuke Honda (Dublin City University). — Rōmaji for romanisation and beyond: A non-phonemic adaptation of the Latin script
  
  The Latin script is closely associated with phonemic writing, characterised by the systematic use of monosegmental signs. While this applies to various writing systems, the paper discusses its applicability to rōmaji, the Latin script adapted for Japanese. Initially employed for romanising Japanese words, rōmaji has evolved to serve multiple functions, including abbreviations and loanword notation. A survey of rōmaji usage in the Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese revealed that only about 16.04% of rōmaji instances were for romanisation. This result indicates that its phonemic role is limited. Further research is necessary to understand its current functions better.
  
• 09:40-10:00 CEST
  Noah Hermalin (University of California Berkeley). — The Efficiency of Spelling-Sound and Spelling-Meaning Mappings in Two Logographic Writing Systems
  
  In many writing systems, a single character can map to multiple possible sound/meaning/morpheme reading values, and a given word/morpheme can have multiple possible spellings. This study asks whether such writing systems distribute reading values across characters in a way that ultimately facilitates efficient communication, despite the intuition that non-isomorphism is detrimental. Using written Sumerian and Japanese as case studies, the results suggest that, from an information theoretic perspective, these systems do show evidence of efficient tradeoffs between complexity (measured in characters and strokes) and informativity (calculated in terms of entropy, mutual information, and communicative cost), as compared with plausible hypothetical systems.
  
• 10:00-10:20 CEST
  Helen Magowan (University of Cambridge). — Towards reading in four dimensions
  
  
• 10:20-10:40 CEST
  Arvind Iyengar (University of New England). — Braille as writing: Evidence and lessons for grapholinguistic theory
  
  
• 10:40-11:10 CEST Coffee break
• 11:10-11:30 CEST
  Claudia S. Bianchini (Université de Poitiers); Ludovic Saint-Bauzel (Sorbonne Université). — Transcribing the body as we transcribe the voice: towards an automatic transcription of sign language and co-speech gestures
  
  Transcriptions are crucial for annotating and analyzing corpora. Speech recognition software enhances automatic transcription, facilitating oral corpora analysis. However, multimodal corpora face challenges due to the lack of tools for gestural transcription that capture body dynamics and integrate with linguistic software. Typannot offers detailed gesture descriptions, but manually transcribing a corpus with Typannot can be labor-intensive. Tools like AlphaPose improve Typannot’s efficiency by automating posture analysis. This approach, used in the ANR-LexiKHuM project for analyzing head movements, could serve as a model for automating transcription in multimodal corpora.
  
• 11:30-11:50 CEST
  Dennis Reisloh (Ruhr University Bochum); Tatjana Scheffler (Ruhr University Bochum). — On the linguistic status of emojis
  
  
• 11:50-12:10 CEST
  Lieke Verheijen (Radboud University). — Orthographic and Visual Alignment in Online Writing: Language Style Accommodation with Textisms, Emoji, and Emoticons
  
  Communication Accommodation Theory posits that people adapt their language style to that of their interlocutor, but much prior research is based on oral communication. This large-scale quantitative study (N = 797) presents new evidence of accommodation in online written communication based on experimentally elicited data. The analysis focuses on alignment with orthographic and visual elements that are characteristic of digital language: textisms (e.g., wassup, thx, omg), emoji (e.g., 😄👌☕), and emoticons (e.g., ^^, B-), :-O). The effects of age group (Gen Z vs. 40+) and first language (NSE vs. East-Asian EFL) were also explored.
  
• 12:10-12:30 CEST
  Michael Filhol (CNRS). — AZVD as a Sign Language writing system proxy, and the potential evolution
  
  AZVD is a graphical representation system for Sign Language. While designed as an input for SL synthesis, the fact that it determines a production makes it a possible proxy for a writing system, which signed languages are still deprived of. This work explores this opportunity, the similarities with spontaneous practice, the contrasts with existing writing systems and the potential avenues for evolution that could help the community converge towards an adoptable scripting system.
  
• 12:30-14:00 CEST Lunch break
• 14:00-14:20 CEST
  Florian Coulmas (Universität Duisburg-Essen). — Truth in the Linguistic Landscape
  
  In this paper, I will show that, in addition to its grapholinguistic features, linguistic landscaping is a political issue with many economic and cultural aspects, which reveal much about how a society is constituted. At the same time, the linguistic landscape is a repository of history that is often contested. Using examples from various contexts in Asia and Europe, I will show how and why language displayed in public texts may become and often is subject to legal restrictions designed to proscribe or, in the contrary, promote the visibility of languages in the public domain.
  
• 14:20-14:40 CEST
  Isabella Maurizio (University of Turin) and Fabian Strobel (Heidelberg NLP Group). — From Graphemes to Phonemes to Graphemes: Using Hexapla Secunda for Reconstruction
  
  This work introduces the concept of pseudophonemes to analyze historical transcription systems that use the graphemes of one language to represent the phonetics of another. Focusing on the Hexapla Secunda, a Greek phonetic transcription of the Hebrew Bible from late antiquity, it explores how phonetic and phonological patterns can be reconstructed despite gaps in explicit phonemic knowledge. Using rule-based computational models, the study demonstrates that the Secunda system of transcription is consistent and reveals insights into the position of Secunda Hebrew among other traditions of Hebrew language change.
  
• 14:40-15:00 CEST
  Titus Nemeth (Wiener Schriften); Martin Tiefenthaler (idiidiiidesign). — Prima — An innovative type, designed for learning to read and write
  
  The new didactic typeface Prima offers pedagogic and technical innovations that were developed in consultation with primary school teachers. The didactic and ergonomic considerations lead to a type that is easier to learn and faster to write. Its technical innovations enable its adoption in contemporary teaching, bridging the advantages of manual writing and the potential of screen-based learning. We present the approach taken in the making of Prima, demonstrating shortcomings of precursors, proposed improvements, and technical details and we offer a first glance at the new expansion of the typeface into a comprehensive typographic tool for didactic uses.
  
• 15:00-15:20 CEST
  Héctor Mangas Afonso (Typotheque). — Enhancing Distance Reading for Low Vision: A Reading Acuity Experiment on Letter Width
  
  Typotheque worked on a largest project up to date, developing a series of fonts to be easy to read by the widest range of readers. The project identifies and addresses situations where people are excluded from using certain technologies, and worked with digitally disadvantaged communities to support marginalized languages. For the Latin script Typotheque team carried out a series of laboratory acuity tests at the National Centre of Ophthalmology in France to determine the ideal letter proportions for their visually impaired patients, and developed fonts that benefit readers with declining vision. Zed Text is an exceptionally readable typeface that has been shown to benefit healthy readers as well as those with visual impairments such as age-related macular degeneration, loss of central vision, peripheral vision loss and blurred vision.
  
• 15:20-15:40 CEST
  Mary C. Dyson (University of Reading); David Březina (Rosetta Type Foundry). — Do we process characters as shapes, nothing special?
  
  Our talk picks up a debate stemming from psychology as to whether we process characters in the same way as shapes or objects, or whether we develop specialised perceptual mechanisms for recognising characters when we read. We address this question from two angles: the characters, outlining aspects that can be overlooked leading to an oversimplification of potential character shapes; the recognition process, describing properties associated with expert character recognition. Our multidisciplinary review aims to demonstrate and clarify the complexity of the process and its implications for graphemics.
  
• 15:40-16:10 CEST Coffee break
• 16:10-16:30 CEST
  Joseph Dichy (Canadian University of Dubai). — Written languages and the Mental Lexicon: a crucial aspect of grapholinguistics, exemplified by agglutinative word-form recognition in Arabic
  
  There are two cognitive approaches to the mental lexicon with regards written languages: psycholinguistic experimental tests and formal linguistic description consistent enough to allow computational implementation. This work pertains to the 2nd approach. The object is the complex and agglutinative structure of word-forms in Arabic and Biblical Hebrew. In Arabic, the formal representation publicly introduced here in its complete form for the first time, has been the basis of the DIINAR (DIctionnaire INformatisé de l’ARabe) dB and related software.
  
• 16:30-16:50 CEST
  Spyros Armostis (University of Cyprus); Marilena Karyolemou (University of Cyprus). — Creating a writing system for an endangered language: the graphisation of Cypriot Arabic
  
  Cypriot Arabic (CyAr), a severely endangered language in Cyprus, until recently lacked a written form. Initial informal attempts to write CyAr used the Greek script, while a more formal Roman-based alphabet enriched with Greek graphemes was proposed in 2007. However, inconsistent orthographic practices arose due to a lack of comprehensive orthographic rules. A revised system, developed by a research program on CyAr, incorporated explicit orthographic rules balancing linguistic soundness with usability. An experimental study confirmed community acceptance and revealed different preferences for orthographic depth for different phenomena. The final writing system also respected historical morphophonemic/etymological information of consonantal roots.
• 16:50-17:10 CEST
  Guy Boursier (Université de Lorraine). — Why the abjad suits the Arabs
  
  The initiators of the Wikipedia Egyptian Arabic edition strived to differentiate it from the Standard Arabic edition, notably via the way of writing. Some proposed a script adapted from the Latin alphabet used phonographically, thus repeating previous attempts at systematically transcribing vowels, which the traditional Arabic abjad does not do. Oddly enough, most Egyptian Arabic Wikipedians, despite their desire to cultivate their difference from Standard Arabic, chose the Arabic script used as an abjad for writing their encyclopedia’s articles. Beside the weight of habit, the diglossic status of Arabic may explain this choice. Yet, they have managed to adapt the script to give it a specific “Egyptian” flavor.
  
• 17:10-17:30 CEST
  Adeli V. Block (University of Michigan). — Inscribing Multilingualism: Lifemaps and “Trans-scripting” Among Moroccan Amazigh Youth
  
  In this talk, I examine script and writing practices after Tamazight officialization and standardization in the broader linguistic landscape of Morocco. Drawing on over 300 lifemaps, whereby students in Tamazight classes in public elementary schools draw the places they frequent and label them, I consider script contact (contact between scripts) and the emergent ways students in southeast and southwest Morocco are expressing themselves multimodally with their entire semiotic repertoire.
  

Yannis Haralambous, IMT Atlantique & CNRS Lab-STICC, Brest, France
Sveva Elti di Rodeano, Dipartimento di Studi umanistici, Università Ca' Foscari, Venice, Italy

The conference will be held in hybrid mode: participants can present and interact in videoconference mode or attend physically. The physical location will be Aula Geymonat at Palazzo Malcanton Marcorà, Calle Contarini, Dorsoduro 3484/D, 30123 Venezia, Italy.

Submission deadline: June 15th 23rd 2024 
Notification of acceptance: July 15th 25th, 2024
Conference: October 23-25, 2024
Submission of paper for Proceedings: early 2025
For more information on the conference please visit 

https://grafematik2024.sciencesconf.org
and follow
https://twitter.com/grafematik_conf

To submit a presentation proposal, please connect to CMT and provide an extended ANONYMOUS abstract of at least 500 and at most 1,000 words, followed by at least 10 (ten) bibliographical references in a PDF file.

Proposals that do not respect these constraints will not be considered.

The registration fee is

• 160€ for onsite presence
• 40€ for online presence

Please pay using this link.

The Proceedings will be published by Fluxus Editions publishing house (Brest, France) as a volume of the Grapholinguistics and Its Applications Series. Articles in the Proceedings can be 12-60 pages long (LaTeX “article” document class) and can be written in English, French, or German. Instructions can be found here. The submission deadline is February 28th, 2025.