From: Hans Aberg (haberg-1@telia.com)
Date: Wed Apr 13 2011 - 05:59:22 CDT
On 13 Apr 2011, at 10:12, Julian Bradfield wrote:
> On 2011-04-12, Asmus Freytag <asmusf@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>> (Mathematics has agreed upon semantics for black letter forms, that are
>> independent of an actual font choice, hence the decision to encode these
>> as symbols).
>
> I disagree (speaking as a mathematician in a field prone to extensive
> use of semantically distinct letterforms). There is no agreed
> semantics for black letter forms, though there are a number of fields
> and subfields where general conventions have been established, and
> there's a kind of general woolly feeling that if you need a type style
> for something big and complicated (relative to your setting), then
> black letter is appropriate.
> Nobody would bat an eyelid if someone chose to use both a simple German
> fraktur typeface, and also (for something even more complicated)
> a fancy traditional "Old English" black letter. Maybe I'll do it in my
> next paper!
The principle for adding the mathematical styles is that they can be used side-by-side (i.e., the same letter) in the same text but with different semantic meaning.
Is that what you do with Fraktur and Old English typefaces?
There was a similar discussion with the script styles. AMS Fonts use a different style than the one used in Europe which is based on English script, originally a handwriting style, still taught today in Sweden (I think). But in the end, only one script style was added.
Hans
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