The word "sagittal" (pronounced "SAJ-i-tl") means "arrow-like". Think of Sagittarius the archer.
The Sagittal notation system is a comprehensive system for notating musical pitch in all possible scales and tunings - a universal set of microtonal accidentals, equally suited to extended just intonation, equal divisions of whatever (including EDOs), and anything in between. It is called Sagittal because it uses various arrow-like symbols, pointing up or down to indicate raising or lowering of pitch.
Sagittal was developed by George Secor and Dave Keenan, with a major early contribution from Gene Ward Smith, and in cooperation with many others on the Yahoo Groups tuning and tuning-math.
[Note from Monzo: the table below shows the ASCII version of the sagittal accidentals, with the ratios they represent.]
ratio [ 2 3 , 5 7 11, 13 17 19, 23]-monzo '| )| (| /| ~| |~ |\ |) |( symbol comma name
32768 / 32805 [ 15 -8, -1 0 0, 0 0 0, 0> 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 '| 5-schisma
512 / 513 [ 9 -3, 0 0 0, 0 0 -1, 0> 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 )| 19-schisma
5103 / 5120 [-10 6, -1 1 0, 0 0 0, 0> 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 |( 5:7-kleisma
2176 / 2187 [ 7 -7, 0 0 0, 0 1 0, 0> 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 ~| 17-kleisma
891 / 896 [ -7 4, 0 -1 1, 0 0 0, 0> 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 )|( 7:11-kleisma
4096 / 4131 [ 12 -5, 0 0 0, 0 -1 0, 0> 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 ~|( 17-comma
729 / 736 [ -5 6, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, -1> 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 |~ 23-comma
2025 / 2048 [-11 4, 2 0 0, 0 0 0, 0> -1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 ./| 25-comma
19456 / 19683 [ 10 -9, 0 0 0, 0 0 1, 0> 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 )|~ 19-comma
80 / 81 [ -4 4, -1 0 0, 0 0 0, 0> 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 /| 5-comma
524288 / 531441 [ 19 -12, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0> 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 '/| 3-comma
40960 / 41553 [ 13 -7, 1 0 0, 0 0 -1, 0> 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 )/| 5:19-comma
63 / 64 [ -6 2, 0 1 0, 0 0 0, 0> 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 |) 7-comma
54 / 55 [ 1 3, -1 0 -1, 0 0 0, 0> 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 |\ 55-comma
45056 / 45927 [ 12 -8, 0 -1 1, 0 0 0, 0> 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 (| 7:11-comma
44 / 45 [ 2 -2, -1 0 1, 0 0 0, 0> 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 (|( 5:11-S-diesis
6400 / 6561 [ 8 -8, 2 0 0, 0 0 0, 0> 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 //| 25-S-diesis
35 / 36 [ -2 -2, 1 1 0, 0 0 0, 0> 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 /|) 35-M-diesis
32 / 33 [ 5 -1, 0 0 -1, 0 0 0, 0> 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 /|\ 11-M-diesis
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