Re: Hooks and Curls and Bars, oh my (was: New contribution)

From: D. Starner (shalesller@writeme.com)
Date: Thu May 06 2004 - 18:34:45 CDT


"Ernest Cline" <ernestcline@mindspring.com> writes:

> In dubious hopes of ending this argument, let me offer up the following
> thought experiment. Normal Latin script, Gaelic, and Fraktur while they
> have all diverged to a certain extent, have not diverged to the point
> where additions made to one of them is unimplementable on the other.
> To wit, altho the various hooked, curled, and barred letters added to
> the normal Latin script to accommodate other languages could be
> implemented in Gaelic or Fraktur. LATIN SMALL LETTER D WITH CURL
> would look peculiar in Gaelic, but it looks peculiar in normal Latin too,
> and it would be distinctively recognizable as such to anyone who
> knew both Gaelic and normal Latin.

I don't buy it. If you are creative enough, of course you can add new
letters to any script. I could add LATIN SMALL LETTER D WITH CURL to
Arabic, too. On the flip side, there are many Latin letters that don't
fit with all Latin fonts. When U-breve was written in Sutterlin, it
was effectively unified with U. When IPA tap is written in my personal
handwritting, it's unified with r. Many fonts write i and g like dotless i
and script g. As is, many Latin letters require a specialized font to
distinguish between other Latin letters.

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