Blackwell Reference Online

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[Lat. notatio ‘designation’, ‘description’] Systems of graphic signs constituting a descriptive or meta-language, for example the notation of formal logic, calculus or chemical formulae. numerals are notations to express numbers. Several notation systems have been developed to write down music ( figures 6 , 7 ). Linguistics makes use of various notations, such as the international phonetic alphabet or the visible speech notation, both systems designed to represent speech. In a wider sense, writing systems too can be viewed as notations, since by representing languages they at the same time function as descriptions of languages which single out certain aspects rather than others. See also transcription ; transliteration . Figure 6 Musical notation: autographed manuscript of Johann Sebastian Bach's ‘Ricercar’ of his Musical Offering , composed 1747 Figure 7 Chinese musical notation using a combination of standard Chinese characters and specially designed characters referring to stops (gupu) and tones (lülüpu) . The notation begins in the fourth and fifth columns from right, the smaller characters indicating tones, the bigger ones stops Source: Reinhard 1956 ... log in or subscribe to read full text