Typophile - The future of Cyrillics. - Comments

back on topic, i would love

paul d hunt — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:03:23 -0700

back on topic, i would love to see a bit more influence of the ustav and polustav styles in contemporary designs. If you could breathe a bit of this into the cyrillic lowercase, i think it could work with an innovative approach?

reimagined the Cyrillic

Nick Shinn — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 19:00:50 -0800

reimagined the Cyrillic alphabet based on renaissance forms

There is a word for this, taken from DC Comics (Superman etc.) and also applied to Star Wars(!) “retcon”, meaning retroactive continuity.

Regarding the Serbian

acnapyx — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 17:15:59 -0800

Regarding the Serbian cyrillics, I would recommend checking out the page of Cultural Secretariate of Serbian National Assembly. There you can get absolutely free two sample Serbian cyrillic fonts, made by the Serbian designer Olivera Stojadinović.

I’m finding a lot of

Jongseong — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 16:46:04 -0800

I’m finding a lot of valuable information on this thread, so thanks to all of you who contributed.

John Hudson’s explanation about Lazurski and others exploring a new idiom based on renaissance Latin typefaces cleared up a question I had on this subject. Does anyone know where I can find more info on Lazurski and others who reimagined the Cyrillic alphabet based on renaissance forms?

On a related note, what is the status of the Serbian alternate glyphs?
Should these be the default, or a stylistic set?

As I understand it, Serbian forms of both upright and italic б and the italic г, д, п, and т are mandatory for Serbian (and probably Macedonian) typesetting. So the locl feature should be used, but since software support for that feature is difficult to come by, adding a stylistic set for Serbian forms (in addition to the locl feature) would help the most users, I would guess. On a slightly related note, over at the Chinese Typography and Graphic Design thread, I discussed the possibility of a single CJK font that would substitute the appropriate Chinese ideograph forms as preferred by the Chinese, Japanese, or Koreans based on the language. This would require a similar solution.

I would like to learn more about the origins, usage status, and acceptance levels of Bulgarian forms, but let me state outright that I cannot stand ю with an ascender. It just looks wrong, as if one introduced an extender just for the sake of adding an extender.

aszszelp, I am not in any

acnapyx — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 16:16:54 -0800

aszszelp, I am not in any way an Unicode expert. I just say that in Bulgarian this way of using “i kratko” is very widespread - and this letter, surrounded by two spaces, has no other use here. So I considered this a way of correcting this behaviour. Yeah, I know these letters are different.

But the Unicode point you mentioned is correct, I admit. My bad. (Note: HermesSoft do not use it anyway, but name the glyph afii10074.alt01 with no Unicode reference)

It is clearly very wrong to

Nick Shinn — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 16:08:38 -0800

It is clearly very wrong to replace “i kratkoe” with the grave-accented glyph even as a stylistic alternate (a calt feature would be even more fatal), as they are (as even you stated it) different characters.

The glyphs I showed are for the character, U+0439.

I have been referring to a font I bought from Hermes, Helen Pro Thin, which has the glyph that looks like “u macron” at the “i kratko” codepoint.

However, that font is missing the characters U+040D and U+045D.

I already have those characters in my fonts, but without Bulgarian alternates, so I will now add the alternates!

***

On a related note, what is the status of the Serbian alternate glyphs?
Should these be the default, or a stylistic set?

acnapyx, a) there is a

aszszelp — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 15:38:35 -0800

acnapyx,

a) there is a unicode codepoint for the letters you wish:
U+040D CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER I WITH GRAVE
U+045D CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER I WITH GRAVE
b) even without them you could always represent it by the sequence
U+0418 CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER I, U+0300 COMBINING GRAVE ACCENT
U+0438 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER I, U+0300 COMBINING GRAVE ACCENT
(and OpenType capabilities placing those accents into the most aesthetic way...)

There is quite often the problem of people not understanding Unicode enough...

PS: Asparouh is a very nice old Bulgar name. I like it. :-)

@Nick: “So do you think it

acnapyx — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 15:14:52 -0800

@Nick: “So do you think it will be a mistake if my Cyrillic fonts, which I am about to release, have “Hermes-style” characters as the default for Bulgarian language in applications such as Adobe InDesign?”
No, not a mistake in any way, I just *think* they will be not used in most cases. It is better still to have it, than not, in case somebody is willing to use them. But I consider the idea about the stylistic set way better, so these who prefer using this “Hermes” standard can use it without much hassle.

the accented smallcase и (which is not the same as ugrave)
About the look of these glyphs please check this PDF (the Technical data part)
Both Nick and descom have posted the “i short” (i kratko, name:afii10075, Unicode:0439) in Bulgarian, which often is wrongly used in the place of the accented lowercase и, obviously due to the lack of adequate glyph in most fonts. That й is not in fact considered a diacritics, it is a regular letter and *is* available in (almost) all cyrillic alphabets, including Russian.

The case I am speaking about is (excuse me for the lame example):
I gave her the book of hers
which in Bulgarian is
Дадох и книгата и (both и should be accented in this way, but too often due to lack of adequate glyphs these are substituted with й or ugrave). I wish I could post here an example, but looks like there is no unicode point for such glyph, so it is provided as an alternate in HS fonts.

As far as I know, there is no way to provide some kind of automatic substitution of и via calt feature, because unaccented и is also used as a conjunction. But it is safe to suppose a separate й (afii10075) can be safely replaced via calt with the accented и glyph.

“the accented smallcase и

dezcom — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 14:28:41 -0800

“the accented smallcase и (which is not the same as ugrave).”

acnapyx, Is this what you mean?

ChrisL

So do you think it will be a

Nick Shinn — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 14:28:38 -0800

So do you think it will be a mistake if my Cyrillic fonts, which I am about to release, have “Hermes-style” characters as the default for Bulgarian language in applications such as Adobe InDesign?

Do you think it would be better if these were an option, as a Stylistic Set?

the accented smallcase и (which is not the same as ugrave)

This is the glyph substitution according to Hermes.
If the “Russian” glyphs are kept as standard, would this substitution be suitable as a Stylistic Alternate?

As a Bulgarian, I can say

acnapyx — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 14:05:48 -0800

As a Bulgarian, I can say there is not much upholding (excluding the media, of course!) to the HermesSoft’s idea of such Cyrillics reform. The long-standing tradition here is related with the Russian-style typography, which was in fact the only choice in printing during the whole “communist” period (and I do not see this as a disadvantage). Too many books and in fact all newspapers during these years were using Russian-tradition typefaces, and this is not going to change soon (long-standing habits die slowly).

In fact, I see the HermesSoft idea as a way of standing some market ground against the ubiquitous Russian fonts. But in the mainstream typography I do not see that much usage of upright italic-style fontage (excluding smallcase т, for which some newspapers here use an upright italic equivalent of latin m (which in fact I find extremely annoying, because of the named above habit). Same goes for the newspaper usage of hттp in front of hyperlinks, which often happens here. Well, this is a matter of personal taste, of course.

IMHO the important problem in Bulgarian typography is that too many western - and Russian - typographers do not pay attention is the Bulgarian equivalent of possession pronoun “hers” - the accented smallcase и (which is not the same as ugrave). Only a few typefaces include such glyph (namely the HermesSoft ones).

Regarding the Nick’s comment: rven if there are “Bulgarian”-style alternates in some fonts, I honestly doubt many people will break the typographic tradition (at least soon).

The typographer’s community is indeed small in Bulgaria, but in fact there is no problem to study typography in *respected* schools abroad (well, at least I remember I’ve seen Filip Zrantchev in the MATD alumni list). As a member of EU, the possibilities for studying in Europe are excellent. So the things are not that “cartel”-ish (but still close).

I’m not so sure that

Nick Shinn — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 12:10:09 -0800

I’m not so sure that understanding idiom is the major criterion here, although it may be for faces that fall into the clearly defined historical categories you have mentioned.
There are many Cyrillic faces, perhaps more hybrid, that successfully combine double-bowl ef with triangular el.
And then there is the De in Futuris (square) and Avant Garde (triangular); the influence of Lazurski has definitely opened the door for Yefimov to break the rule—but surely in a way that says the rule now only applies to revivals.

Idiomatically, I don’t see much difference between most of the ClearType faces and, say, Meta (semi-condensed, low contrast, squarish), which has a double-bowl ef. Of the ClearType faces, Calibri would probably be better with a double bowl ef—the single bowl shape seems a bit round, given the squarishness of the rest of the rounds in that face.

I note your point about vertical axis and high contrast being more conducive to the double bowl format, but a thin monoline face would also permit the double bowl.

I suspect that in future, Cyrillic faces designed for OpenType may include both flavours of el/de and ef, in the same way that several Latin faces include single- and double-bowl “a” and “g”, as stylistic alternates.

Nick: Nothing radical in the

John Hudson — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 11:17:08 -0800

Nick: Nothing radical in the Cyrillics, but note that the “single bowl” concept of the letter ef is used. Given the ubiquity of the Microsoft OS, won’t this have an influence in driving out the older, double-bowl form?

This is an idiomatic issue. The single bowl works best in type styles based on renaissance humanist models, the double bowl works best in neo-classical and romantic styles, i.e. styles with a more vertical axis and stronger stroke contrast. The double bowl form is chronologically ‘older’ in the context of Cyrillic typography because the Petrine reform took place in the 18th century and only later did Russian type designers, notably Lazurksi, explore stylistically older Latin models from the renaissance. Lazurski was a genius who successfully re-imagined the Cyrillic script in a new idiom, recognising that re-introducing certain Greek features — the triangular el, the single bowl ef — contributed to a more distinctive and also more unified style.

See my comments above about the need to understand idioms, i.e. to understand what form is appropriate in what context (which is not to say that, understanding the ’rules’ you can’t break them in clever and thoughtful ways, only that you shouldn’t break them through mere ignorance).

Bulgaria? A poster to

Nick Shinn — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 11:04:49 -0800

Bulgaria?
A poster to Typophile described a “cartel” situation there—with only one design school teaching typography, and a small community of typographers. Several type designers have gotten together in the HermesSoft foundry, and are promoting alphabet reform with their fonts. (The reform is to use italic or script letter forms in the Roman alphabet, which produces a latinized look, with more ascenders and descenders than usual in Cyrillic.)
How much support does this have within the country’s education system? If Bulgarian cyrillics are being taught in elementary schools, that would critical.
There is also the fact that Bulgaria is the only Cyrillic-using country in the EU, so Bulgarian cyrillics could become a de facto norm in the EU.

That’s all I know about the situation, but it was enough to persuade me to include a set of Bulgarian alternates in my Cyrillic fonts (along with five or six Serbian alternates). These glyphs are language-tagged, so are the default when the fonts are used (a) with Bulgarian language and (b) software that supports language tagging in OT fonts (that would be CS3—I don’t know about MS).

***

Speaking of Microsoft, consistent letter-forms were aplied to the whole range of ClearType faces. Nothing radical in the Cyrillics, but note that the “single bowl” concept of the letter ef is used. Given the ubiquity of the Microsoft OS, won’t this have an influence in driving out the older, double-bowl form? More evolution than reform.

I think you nailed it,

dezcom — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 07:01:01 -0800

I think you nailed it, Paul.

ChrisL

The future of Cyrillics.

oprion — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:09:52 -0800

There is a discussion going on between Russian type designers over the future of Cyrillics. The main question, is weather the alphabet should continue on it’s 300 year journey of forced latinization (launched by Peter I) which so far has failed to produce a result comparable to the perfection of the Latin form, or step back to it’s scribal roots and branch off in a fit of free-form evolution to become it’s own thing. The problem, is that there simply isn’t enought variety between the letterforms right now, with miniscules being near copies of majuscules, and letters like ШЩЧЦ sticking out like sharpened rakes. What do you guys think?