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{{Short description|First few words of a text used instead of a title}}
{{more footnotes|date=January 2017}}
[[File:Decorated Incipit Page - Google Art Project (6850309).jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Decorated incipit page to the [[Gospel of Matthew]], 1120–1140]]
The '''incipit''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɪ|n|s|ɪ|p|ɪ|t}} {{respell|IN|sip|it}}){{efn|Recommended by the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'',<ref>{{OED|incipit}}</ref> but competes in everyday usage with several others: {{
Before the development of [[title (publishing)|titles]], texts were often referred to by their incipits, as with for example ''[[Agnus Dei (liturgy)|Agnus Dei]]''. During the [[medieval period]] in Europe, incipits were often written in a different [[Typeface|script]] or colour from the rest of the work of which they were a part, and "incipit pages" might be heavily decorated with [[Illuminated manuscript|illumination]]. Though the word ''incipit'' is Latin, the practice of the incipit predates [[classical antiquity]] by several millennia and can be found in various parts of the world. Although not always called by the name of ''incipit'' today, the practice of referring to texts by their initial words remains commonplace.
==Historical examples==
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In the [[clay tablet]] [[archive]]s of [[Sumer]], catalogs of documents were kept by making special catalog tablets containing the incipits of a given collection of tablets.
The catalog was meant to be used by the very limited number of official [[scribe]]s who had access to the archives, and the width of a clay tablet and its resolution did not permit long entries.
{{
Honored and noble warrior
Where are the sheep
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Many books in the [[Hebrew Bible]] are named in [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] using incipits. For instance, the first book (Genesis) is called ''Bereshit'' ("In the beginning ...") and [[Book of Lamentations|Lamentations]], which begins "How lonely sits the city...", is called ''Eykha'' ("How"). A readily recognized one is the "Shema" or ''[[Shema Yisrael]]'' in the [[Torah]]: "Hear O Israel..." – the first words of the proclamation encapsulating Judaism's monotheism (see beginning [[Deuteronomy]] 6:4 and elsewhere).
All the names of [[Weekly Torah portion|Parashot]] are incipits, the title coming from a word, occasionally two words, in its first two verses. The first in each book
Some of the [[Psalms]] are known by their incipits, most noticeably [[Psalm 51]] (Septuagint numbering: Psalm 50), which is known in [[Western Christianity]] by its Latin incipit ''[[Psalm 51|Miserere]]'' ("Have mercy").
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===Ancient Greek===
The final book of the [[New Testament]], the [[Book of Revelation]], is often known as the Apocalypse after the first word of the original Greek text, [[wikt:ἀποκάλυψις|ἀποκάλυψις]] ''apokalypsis''
=== Classical Arabic ===
Each chapter in the Quran, with the exception of the ninth, begins with [[Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahim]] -- meaning "in the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful."<ref>{{Cite web |title=9. Tauba |url=https://www.iium.edu.my/deed/quran/intro/i009.html |access-date=2024-07-19 |website=www.iium.edu.my}}</ref>
===Medieval Europe===
[[File:Excerpt from ms. 25516 fr. of the BnF, fol. 96r.png|thumb|Incipit, [[miniature (illuminated manuscript)|miniature]] and first four lines of ''Aiol and Mirabel'', ms. 25516 fr. of the BnF, fol. 96r.
Incipits are generally, but not always, in red in medieval manuscripts. They may come before a miniature or an [[illuminated initial|illuminated]] or [[historiated initial|historiated letter]].
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===Papal bulls===
{{main|List of papal bulls}}
Traditionally, [[Papal Bull|papal bulls]] and [[Encyclical|encyclicals]], documents issued under the authority of the [[Pope]], are referenced by their [[Latin]] incipit.
===Hindu texts===
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The space-filling, or place-holding, text [[lorem ipsum]] is known as such from its incipit.
Occasionally, incipits have been used for humorous effect, such as in the [[Alan Plater]]-
==In music==
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| style="padding:0.5em;" | Incipit for Chopin's [[Nocturnes, Op. 9 (Chopin)|Nocturne in B-flat minor, Op. 9, No. 1]], full-score version
|}
{{see also|
Musical incipits are printed in standard music notation. They typically feature the first few [[bar (music)|bars]] of a piece, often with the most prominent musical material written on a single [[staff (music)|staff]] (the examples given at right show both the single-staff and full-score incipit variants). Incipits are especially useful in music because they can call to mind the reader's own musical memory of the work where a printed title would fail to do so. Musical incipits appear both in catalogs of music and in the tables of contents of volumes that include multiple works.
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==See also==
{{wiktionary}}▼
{{wikiquote|Opening lines}}▼
* [[Opening sentence]]
* [[Epigraph (literature)|Epigraph]]
* [[Exordium (rhetoric)]]
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* [[Rubrication]]
==
{{Notelist}}
==References==
{{reflist}}
'''Other sources'''
▲{{wiktionary}}
▲{{wikiquote|Opening lines}}
* Barreau, Deborah K.; Nardi, Bonnie. "Finding and Reminding: File Organization From the desktop". ''SigChi Bulletin''. July 1995. Vol. 27. No. 3. pp. 39–43
* Casson, Lionel. ''Libraries in the Ancient World''. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2001. {{ISBN|0-300-08809-4}}. {{ISBN|0-300-09721-2}}.
* Malone, Thomas W. "How do people organize their desks? Implications for the design of Office Information Systems". ''ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems''. Vol. 1. No. 1 January 1983. pp. 99–112.
* Nardi, Bonnie; Barreau, Deborah K. "Finding and Reminding Revisited: Appropriate metaphors for File Organization at the Desktop". ''SigChi Bulletin''. January 1997. Vol. 29. No. 1.
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:Latin literary phrases]]
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[[Category:Publishing]]
[[Category:Formal sections in music analysis]]
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