From: Alexej Kryukov (akrioukov@newmail.ru)
Date: Sun Jul 03 2005 - 05:19:57 CDT
First, a small introduction to the glyph history for those
who are not familiar with Greek typography. There is a
French typographic rule, which requires 2 separate forms
of beta to be used at the beginning and at the middle/end
of a word. This rule is also sometimes applied in Greece
itself. Although I am not a Frenchman, I love this rule too,
because I love fine Greek typography. I think, this rule
is the only reason, why the curled beta, U+03D0, was introduced
into the Unicode in addition to standard beta with descender
(AFAIK, this glyph form is completely unknown to mathematicians).
Now, the problem follows. If you have a look at classical typefaces
designed by Monotype (which were most commonly used both in France
and in Greece before the arrive of the computer era, especially
for texts in classical Greek), you can see that in these typefaces
curled beta has a specific form, so that its upper loop or curl doesn't
reach the x-height, and so doesn't join the lower loop. The examples
of these typefaces are available at
http://omega.enstb.org/fluxus-virus/en/what-greek.html.
Note that the form I described was used in Times New Roman as well
as in Linotype Times Ten, and so it is appropriate not only for
"classical" typefaces, but also for Times-styled fonts.
However, the Unicode code chart shows at 03D0 a slightly different
form, more similar to Latin script "b", where two loops are joined.
Well, this shape is also possible in *some* fonts (but not in
Times-styled, as I have shown above). Sometimes it is really used in
Greek printing *instead of* the standard beta with descender.
However, I have never seen it in any editions where the French
rule is applied, i. e. both beta with descender and curled beta
are present. Consequently, if one thinks beta with joined loops
is appropriate for his font, he may well place it to 03B2, but
if he really wants to design a font suitable for typesetting
classical texts according to French rules, he should make 03D0 similar
to the glyph present in Monotype fonts, rather to one shown in
Unicode.
Well, I understand the glyph shape shown in the code chart is not
mandatory, but, unfortunately, most font designers don't. And even
worse, some people just take the standard beta, remove its
descender, and place the resulting glyph (which looks extremely
ugly and is absolutely useless) to 03D0. In fact, currently
there are just no Unicode fonts with useable curled beta, just
because most designers follow the standard too strictly.
So my question is: is it possible to make one small change in
the code chart, i. e. redraw the 03D0 glyph in order to make
its shape more "classical"? I think, such a change will not
contradict to the Unicode policy :)
-- Regards, Alexej Kryukov <akrioukov at newmail dot ru> Moscow State University Historical Faculty
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