Old, Historic, And Archaic Letter Forms

[JonA]

Today I was practicing my handwriting and I began to practice some of my more archaic letter forms (archaic to English that is). First I started with the edh (Ðð), then the lower-case ash (æ). Something I noticed about all these letters is the difficulty in deciding how to make them. The edh, for example, can be made as a d with a stroke or a back-ward 6 with a stroke. Which one should be used? Font faces do not use either form consistently. Some may make the lower-case edh look quite different from the lower-case d, while others might make them nearly indistinguishable save for a small stroke on the staff. Some languages distinguish them as individual letters (with đ and ð being separate).

 

The ash is an even more difficult one it would seem. First off, it is sort of letter combination that requires one, for just a moment, to ignore their previous spacing and shove these two together. Easiest way is to form them in a single stroke. But this makes another problem. If you commonly use a more Greek a (α) in your writing, do you then switch to a two-story a for this letter? It is easier to form when made with a two-story a (the upstroke on the finishing of the lower story leads nicely into the e, whereas the tail of a single-story a would almost get in the way of the e, not to mention create possible confusions with œ).

 

There are, of course, many other letters such as these that can cause problems, especially if one is unfamiliar with them. Further examples include the thorn (Þþ), and, my favorite, long s (ſ). Folk who are familiar with the German language will be familiar with the long s-s combo (ß).

 

So, my question is:

 

1) How frequently do you encounter the need to write such letters?

2) When/if you encounter the need to use these letters, how do/would you form them? Would you make them according to similar-looking letters? Do they have their own space in your letter inventory, or are they something that require special consideration upon encountering?

3) Of the more archaic letters that are replacements of modern letter forms, such as ash or long s, are there any here that prefer/frequently use the older forms, such as long s?

4) Those answering yes to 3, do you find it decreases the ability of others to read what you write, or are most folk able to figure it out?

 

This is just a topic for fun. I am something of a 'typophile', and letter forms, especially historical ones, fascinate me.

 

Jon

[FrankB]

As I read your post, I am reminded that I sincerely wish English still had ways to differentiate the voiced and voiceless "th" sounds. In normal writing, though, I use standard letters. On some occasions, I might use some archaic letters paranthetically to indicate how a word or name is pronounced. In those instances, I write edh as simply a "d" with a stroke through it, but I indicate the voiceless "th" with a Greek theta rather than a thorn.

 

I find archaic letters fascinating, but I seldom use them in everyday writing. Most of the people I know would find those letters unintelligible.

Edited September 30, 2009 by FrankB

[escribo]

Jon,

 

I am at work right now, and as such don't have time to fully explore your post,

but I will later.

For now, you may be interested in the Beowulf1 font.

There is also a Beowulf Modern font out there; I've only just glanced at it -- it uses the modern "W."

 

Enjoy,

-Jon

Edited September 30, 2009 by escribo

[Kurtorius]

Whenever someone complains about some of the modern "innovations" in the English language, such as the pervasiveness of Americanisms or Txtspk, and laments the imminent passing of "original English" I sometimes try to write a rebuttal in Fuþorc. If only I was fluent enough in sēo Angelseaxisce sprǣc to really make the point!

[escribo]

OMG, NO! Not fuþorc.

I have enough trouble w/ A-S written in its Roman-ish character set...

8^o

[kps]

The edh, for example, can be made as a d with a stroke or a back-ward 6 with a stroke. Which one should be used? Font faces do not use either form consistently. Some may make the lower-case edh look quite different from the lower-case d, while others might make them nearly indistinguishable save for a small stroke on the staff. Some languages distinguish them as individual letters (with đ and ð being separate).

Icelandic lettermaster Gunnlaugur Briem has some discussion on eth and thorn on his site, but I'm afraid I don't remember exactly where.

[JonA]

As I read your post, I am reminded that I sincerely wish English still had ways to differentiate the voiced and voiceless "th" sounds. In normal writing, though, I use standard letters. On some occasions, I might use some archaic letters paranthetically to indicate how a word or name is pronounced. In those instances, I write edh as simply a "d" with a stroke through it, but I indicate the voiceless "th" with a Greek theta rather than a thorn.

 

I do the same, but that is from IPA convention. However, I am not sure if thorn and edh were ever much in distinguishing voicing in English spelling (OE fricative voicing was predictable and the edh was rather discontinued by ME), especially after the switch to the Latin alphabet, and I am not quite prepared to switch back to Runes. Of course, I would certainly support the introduction of a modern distinction using the thorn and edh letters.

 

I find archaic letters fascenating, but I seldom use them in everyday writing. Most of the people I know would find those letters unintelligible.

 

One thing I do use that is not so much archaic as it is non-technical, i.e., something that existed standardly before the age of computers but has since fallen out of use with the preference of fast word-processing, is the fi ligature. I simply see no need to double-dot an i.

[FrankB]

Jon wrote:

 

"One thing I do use that is not so much archaic as it is non-technical, i.e., something that existed standardly before the age of computers but has since fallen out of use with the preference of fast word-processing, is the fi ligature. I simply see no need to double-dot an i."

 

How interesting. My second language is German and umlauts are second nature to me. I breeze through the double dot "i" without even thinking twice. Now I will, of course.

[escribo]

Today I was practicing my handwriting and I began to practice some of my more archaic letter forms (archaic to English that is). First I started with the edh (Ðð), then the lower-case ash (æ). Something I noticed about all these letters is the difficulty in deciding how to make them. The edh, for example, can be made as a d with a stroke or a back-ward 6 with a stroke. Which one should be used?

Glad to see this post. That your interest is mainly typographic while mine is more linguistic matters very little.

Anyway, I can't answer that, except that when I am writing archaic text I use the character set found in Beowulf. How I form the letters, not having any instruction therein, is whatever it takes to make them look right. So I form the "d" or the edth by first forming the err.. bulb or whatever it's called, like making half of an "o" or a "c." Then I start at the top of the stem and arc it into the bottom of the said semicircle.

You can see what I try to do here in this thread. Obviously, I'm not very good at calligraphy, but that minor detail does not stop me from having fun.

 

Font faces do not use either form consistently. Some may make the lower-case edh look quite different from the lower-case d, while others might make them nearly indistinguishable save for a small stroke on the staff. Some languages distinguish them as individual letters (with đ and ð being separate).

As you can see from the above link, the lettering style I try to emulate uses the same for "d" or edth. (See that Beowulf1 font or the MS itself.)

 

The ash is an even more difficult one it would seem. First off, it is sort of letter combination that requires one, for just a moment, to ignore their previous spacing and shove these two together. Easiest way is to form them in a single stroke. But this makes another problem. If you commonly use a more Greek a (α) in your writing, do you then switch to a two-story a for this letter? It is easier to form when made with a two-story a (the upstroke on the finishing of the lower story leads nicely into the e, whereas the tail of a single-story a would almost get in the way of the e, not to mention create possible confusions with œ).

I do the greek-style "a," making its tail a bit longer to form the "tail" of the "e." Then the top of the "e" part of the ash rises above the "a." Then I generally make a real thin line crossmember for the "e" part. Longer if it's at the end of a word.

 

There are, of course, many other letters such as these that can cause problems, especially if one is unfamiliar with them. Further examples include the thorn (Þþ), and, my favorite, long s (ſ). Folk who are familiar with the German language will be familiar with the long s-s combo (ß).

OMG, I took German in high school and never realized that the "ess-tsett" was a ligature until just now! Thanks!

 

So, my question is:

 

1) How frequently do you encounter the need to write such letters?

2) When/if you encounter the need to use these letters, how do/would you form them? Would you make them according to similar-looking letters? Do they have their own space in your letter inventory, or are they something that require special consideration upon encountering?

3) Of the more archaic letters that are replacements of modern letter forms, such as ash or long s, are there any here that prefer/frequently use the older forms, such as long s?

4) Those answering yes to 3, do you find it decreases the ability of others to read what you write, or are most folk able to figure it out?

 

This is just a topic for fun. I am something of a 'typophile', and letter forms, especially historical ones, fascinate me.

 

Jon

 

1. Never. It's solely for my own amusement. However, my everyday "r" now looks a lot more like the Anglo-Saxon one.

2. As I said, however necessary to make it look right. I try to make them not look like other modern letters. The thorn and the old "W" should be distinguishable from a "p" or "P." The yogh should not look a cursive "z."

3. No, not really. Except that I am now trying to make my cursive "s" look more like I believe it was intended - a printed "s" that is flowed into and out of.

4. I think very few people (at least in my experience) recognize the archaic characters, with the possible exception of the long "s." But, I think that that type of "s" belongs in the proper context.

I never use any of these old characters except for my own entertainment, not for writing anything I want someone else to be able to read.

 

Thanks for posting; I've had a blast!

 

-Jon

 

P.S. @ Kurtorius -- The futhorc fascinates me; I just haven't learned it yet.

[JonA]

How interesting. My second language is German and umlauts are second nature to me. I breeze through the double dot "i" without even thinking twice. Now I will, of course.

 

Does German umlaut i? I know of at least one English word in which it is used, naïve, but this is hardly a mandatory usage. I cannot find any Internet resources that speak of an umlauted i in German. Of course, I am not challenging your claim that it exists, but I would be interested in seeing some examples if you can think of any

 

But yes, my reference was in regards a single-dotted i not needing two. If the i needs two dots, then it does perhaps become an issue. Does one use the ligature with a dot? Does one place the umlaut above the i and have it straddling both the f and the i? Does one forgo the ligature completely and alter the f to keep its distance from the i? Or maybe one simply ignores the umlaut and uses a standard fi ligature assuming the meaning will be clear from context.

 

With so many decisions, how do folk even manage to get from the first word to the end of the page without running into a decision-making meltdown?

 

Jon

Edited October 1, 2009 by JonA

[FrankB]

Jon wrote:

 

"With so many decisions, how do folk even manage to get from the first word to the end of the page without running into a decision-making meltdown?"

 

Far too many people can barely spell, let alone even consider the esoterics we are batting about here. (Eye wink. I really miss the emoticons.)

 

And, "No," there is no umlauted "i" in German. I was just saying I can transfer the use of the umlaut with ease.

[JonA]

The edh, for example, can be made as a d with a stroke or a back-ward 6 with a stroke. Which one should be used?

 

You can see what I try to do here in this thread. Obviously, I'm not very good at calligraphy, but that minor detail does not stop me from having fun.

 

Very fine! You'd make quite the Spear Dane .

 

 

 

There are, of course, many other letters such as these that can cause problems, especially if one is unfamiliar with them. Further examples include the thorn (Þþ), and, my favorite, long s (ſ). Folk who are familiar with the German language will be familiar with the long s-s combo (ß).

OMG, I took German in high school and never realized that the "ess-tsett" was a ligature until just now! Thanks!

 

Yup. Actually, now that you bring it up, despite our use of ß, my German language professor has never once made any overt mention of it. In highschool we were taught it as the last letter of the German alphabet, but currently we have not learned it at all, except passively. Of course, this likely reflects recent German spelling reform seeking to do away with it as a redundant character (the digraph <ss> has the same phonetic associations).

 

 

1. Never. It's solely for my own amusement. However, my everyday "r" now looks a lot more like the Anglo-Saxon one.

2. As I said, however necessary to make it look right. I try to make them not look like other modern letters. The thorn and the old "W" should be distinguishable from a "p" or "P." The yogh should not look a cursive "z."

3. No, not really. Except that I am now trying to make my cursive "s" look more like I believe it was intended - a printed "s" that is flowed into and out of.

4. I think very few people (at least in my experience) recognize the archaic characters, with the possible exception of the long "s." But, I think that that type of "s" belongs in the proper context.

I never use any of these old characters except for my own entertainment, not for writing anything I want someone else to be able to read.

 

The 'old W' is called a wynn, and the list of requisites you mentioned regarding the formation of p, þ, and ƿ are the primary reasons they fell from use - too confusing, especially when þ started being written without the top of its loop, thus looking like y (hence 'ye olde shoppe' for 'þe olde shoppe' using a modified thorn). Your mention of the long s as being recognizable is interesting. I think I do not so much agree with you, though, since many folk would not be able to distinguish it from an f. Of course, I am sure you are aware of the 'dark ages' we are living in regarding education and history - for this being the information age, I am constantly shocked at how uninformed folk seem to be :blink:. But I will stop that rant there.

 

 

 

Thanks for posting; I've had a blast!

 

I am glad. And thank YOU for your detailed reply.

 

Jon