stemma codicum

English

A typical stemma codicum

Etymology

Latin: stemma (“pedigree”, “geneagram”, “family tree”) + cōdicum (genitive plural form of cōdex, “book”, “manuscript”, “codex”) = “pedigree of codices”, “family tree of manuscripts”

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈstɛməˈkəʊdɪkəm/

Noun

stemma codicum (plural stemmata codicum)

(textual criticism) A schema, resulting from the stemmatological process of recension, in which all surviving manuscripts of a given text are represented with their derivation, via intermediary hyparchetypes, from a single archetype.

Translations

schema wherein a text’s MSS. are represented with their derivation from an archetype