I see what you see there, but the joined ij looks like a strangely-styled y with a diaeresis or umlaut over it. If you want it to be clear that this is /ij/ and not that other thing, I'd avoid.

the joined ij looks like a strangely-styled y with a diaeresis or umlaut over it

Which is the historical style: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e2/Leesplankje_van_Hoogeveen_...

I say go for it. :)

(That's coming from a non-Dutch reader.)

It seems like if you made that join, you would want to also join the ti in the same way. Pretty soon you are going to be doing a full connected script! (do it!)

I figure if the standard formatting is i then j then the unconnected option is always available to them, but in a more display setting the user could choose to use the connected version if they so wished. I can't see it puzzling the Dutch reader any more than an st ligature puzzles an English reader. I just like the look of the connected version.

I can't see it puzzling the Dutch reader any more than an st ligature puzzles an English reader.

The Quaint ligatures st and ct do puzzle English readers, not in the sense of perplexing as to what characters they represent, but as to why such an affectation should have been used to frequently interrupt text.

…there are some super-funky "ij"s in the Netherlands,

But surely they are in type and lettering (especially scripts) that has a general funkiness, which this style doesn’t appear to.

It’s my opinion that for this particular typeface, an ij ligature would seem unwarranted and out of place to a Dutch reader.
But if the face also has some other quaints and oddities, maybe it would fit in.

At any rate, it could be a discretionary ligature, but if you make it default it would be sure to annoy typographers (and their clients) who might like the face but don’t think quaints are quite right for the job in hand.

It is too weird. Quirky, cute, but not an ij. Like Bart says, the ij is a running-script thing too, and is basically a /u/-shaped /y/ with two dots.

Will there be other discretionary ligatures, and if so, do you anticipate that a user wanting those will want this one? If the answers are yes and maybe not, it might be better simply as a stylistic set.

> It is [just] too weird.

This is where nativity kicks in, to correct assumers like me...
To rephrase something I've often said: without nativity, trying
to innovate is like Russian roulette.

hhp

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