Quantifying Scripts: Defining metrics of characters for quantitative and descriptive analysis

Analysis of scripts plays an important role in paleography and in quantitative linguistics. Especially in the field of digital paleography quantitative features are much needed to differentiate glyphs. We describe an elaborate set of metrics that quantify qualitative information contained in characters and hence indirectly also quantify the scribal features. We broadly divide the metrics into several categories and describe each individual metric with its underlying qualitative significance. The metrics are largely derived from the related area of gesture design and recognition. We also propose several novel metrics. The proposed metrics are soundly grounded on the principles of handwriting production and handwriting analysis. These computed metrics could serve as descriptors for scripts and also be used for comparing and analyzing scripts. We illustrate some quantitative analysis based on the proposed metrics by applying it to the paleographic evolution of the medieval Tamil script from Brahmi. We also outline future work.