Figures
2.1 Lockean simple ideas as mental litterae 89
3.1 The direction of signification and alphabetisation 124
3.2 The principal path of alphabetisation 146
4.1 The ordo significationis in the late medieval tradition 160
4.2 Mutual adaptation of upper and lower link in the chain of signification 183
5.1 Ciphering and the principal path of alphabetisation 252
5.2 Two semiological perspectives on ciphering 255
5.3 Double signification: representation and mutual presentation in ciphering and orthography 258
5.4 From bilingual to monolingual lexicography 262
5.5 From representation to mutual presentation of sign and signified 263
5.6 Early 18th-century lexicography and the consequences of mutual signification 265
6.1 Representation and mutual signification in Wilkins’s phonetic character 321
Illustrations
0.1 Bullokar’s minimal pair analysis (1580: 23). Courtesy of Edinburgh University Library (Shelfmark De.3.113) 4
0.2 Minimal pairs in spelling books: An A.B.C. for chyldren (Anon. ?1561: A3v–A4r). Courtesy of Queen’s College Library, Oxford (Shelfmark Vault—Sel.d.81(5)) 11
0.3 Minimal pairs in Wilkins’s Essay Towards a Real Character (1668: 363). Courtesy of Staatsbibliothek München (Shelfmark RES 2 Graph 47) 13
0.4 Mersenne, Harmonie vniverselle: The first 60 out of 720 combinations from the minor hexachord (1636 II: 117). Courtesy of Herzog-August-Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel (Shelfmark 1.1.1 Musica 2°) 25
0.5 The musical cipher in Francis Godwin’s The Man in the Moone (1638: 94–5). Courtesy of Manchester University Library (Shelfmark SC 127770A) 26
0.6 Wilkins’s reconstruction of the key used by Godwin from Mercury (1641: 142). Courtesy of Cambridge University Library (Shelfmark M.18.18) 26
1.1 Abraham Bosse, Etcher and Engraver (Graveurs en taille-douce, 1642). Courtesy of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Kunstbibliothek 48
5.1 Albam and Atbash in Wilkins’s Mercury (1641: 70). Courtesy of Cambridge University Library (Shelfmark M.18.18) 221
5.2 A numerical nomenclator deciphered by John Wallis from Opera mathematica (1699: 663). Courtesy of Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen (Shelfmark Ba 37.2–3) 224
5.3 Babington’s acknowledgement of ciphers used in correspondence with Mary, Queen of Scots, September 1586. Courtesy of The National Archives, Kew—State Paper Office, SP 12/193 (54) 228
5.4 Anagrammatic transposition in Robert Hooke’s A Description of Helioscopes (1676: 31) and solution from Lectures de potentia restitutiva (1678: 1). Courtesy of Queen’s College Library (Shelfmark Vet. A3 e.2248) 230
5.5 The key to Bacon’s biliteral cipher and the alphabetum biformis (1623: 279–80). Courtesy of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Shelfmark 4”@Ak 5461–1: R) 231
5.6 Plaintext, bilateral cipher and covertext in alphabetum biformis (Bacon 1623: 281). Courtesy of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Shelfmark 4”@Ak 5461–1: R) 233
5.7 Tabula recta from Johannes Trithemius’s Polygraphiae libri sex (1600 [1518]: 555). Courtesy of Heidelberg University Library (Shelfmark B 624 B RES) 237
5.8 Della Porta’s polyalphabetic cipher in the pirated edition of De furtivis literarum notis (1602 [1591]: 120). Courtesy of Heidelberg University Library (Shelfmark B 684 Folio RES) 240
5.9 Polyalphabetic ciphering with keyword in Wilkins’s Mercury (1641: 74). Courtesy of Cambridge University Library (Shelfmark M.18.18) 241
6.1 The design of Wilkins’s real character of things and notions (1668: 387). Courtesy of Staatsbibliothek München (Shelfmark RES 2 Graph 47) 290
6.2 Section from the genus ‘discourse’ in the tables of things and notions (1668: 45). Courtesy of Staatsbibliothek München (Shelfmark RES 2 Graph 47) 291
6.3 Wilkins’s phonetic character (1668: 376). Courtesy of Staatsbibliothek München (Shelfmark RES 2 Graph 47) 306
6.4 The ‘natural’ character of articulate sounds (1668: 378). Courtesy of Staatsbibliothek München (Shelfmark RES 2 Graph 47) 307
6.5 The integration of the phonetic character (characters 31, 34) into the real character of things and notions (1668: 404). Courtesy of Staatsbibliothek München (Shelfmark RES 2 Graph 47) 310
6.6 The expression of vowel quality in shorthand schemes (Shelton 1647: 8). Courtesy of Cambridge University Library (Shelfmark L 32.57) 314
6.7 “A brief Table of such simple sounds as can be framed by men” (Wilkins 1668: 358). Courtesy of Staatsbibliothek München (Shelfmark RES 2 Graph 47) 317
7.1 Section from shorthand entry on ‘Speling’ in Locke’s Journal for 1676 [Lovelace Collection, MS Locke f. 1: 402]. Courtesy of Bodleian Library, Oxford 355