Open moyogo opened 10 months ago
Denis do you have the alphabet for each of the languages we are doing?
Yes, 579 of them with 130 which I updated with sources.
Do you need all of them in a specific format? They are in gflanguages.
I need some of them populate my test documents. Looking at the sheer number of languages I should probably start with a dozen of them. I would need sample texts/corpus for each. Can you recommend such a short list?
aɑ: italic a and ɑ are identical, italic ɑ should be distinct from a. They are both used in a few Cameroon languages like Feʼfeʼ or Medumba. There are two options: design ɑ /alpha-latin more distinctly (more Greek-like, starting from top right, loop, ending bottom right) and/or have a slanted form of a as a stylistic variant if possible.
ꞵ: italic could have bottom serifs like p and others at opsz=5.
Ɩ and l, or ɩ and ı (idotless) are too similar, particularly in italic. Some sans serif fonts have a half-circular bottom hook. A similar 19th century English Phonotypic Alphabet i with hook had a drop-terminal hook to make it more distinct from i. Possibly the bottom hook terminal of ɖ ɋ ɽ ʈ, or a less prominent form of it, could be used on the baseline. The defining feature of the letter Latin iota is the bottom terminal, the top terminal can vary just like that of i (curved terminal, left serif, or naked stem). ᶥ /iotamod should be updated likewise.
For example with the hook tail from ɖ ɋ ɽ ʈ: | ||
---|---|---|
Ɥ is square, it’s better to use the same shape or a shape similar to Ч in both roman and italic. In the character Unicode proposal, the shape of Ɥ is as the uppercase of ɥ on page 3. See Doulos SIL and Charis SIL
See for example Tucker 1929 which uses the letter:
ʌ: italic ʌ could be like like a cursive small-cap A without stroke, somewhat similar to italic л in some other fonts (with sharp top instead of round). But all three shapes are fine, so you can keep it as is if you prefer.
Ꞷ may be better without the loop (mid & high opsz) as a Initial Teaching Alphabet makes the distinction between omega and omega with loop as two separate letters (Unicode only has omega at this time). The same is true for the small-cap.
ƘⱲƳ (or small-caps) and ƴ:
or from the 1990s
ƭ: should not be descending in italic.
Ɲ: can have n-shape or N-shape like Ŋ. Some orthographies use them together. Maybe make them consistent (even if not consistent with N). Or have alternate available if possible.
ʋ: italic should be distinct from v (low opsz). Since v won’t change to an angular v at this point, ʋ shouldn’t have a long in-stroke ; I guess the layers were copied but should be removed.The hanging ball, may be a good solution to make it more distinct. Another solution would be to have an almost closed loop with a narrow terminal.
Ⱥ ⱥ Ȼ ȼ Ɇ ɇ Ø ø Ⱦ ⱦ Ꞹ ꞹ: they are used together in some orthographies. Having different angles or lengths of the stroke is fine if necessary. The same is true for small-caps.
ʔ ɂ ʕ are missing small-caps. Ɂ is good.
Ɛ: italic /E.ss02 and Ɛ could actually be the same glyph, both are good shapes for Ɛ. The same goes for /e.smcp.
Ɇ ɇ: italic /Estroke and /estroke.smcp could also have ss02 variants.
ƴ: /yhook could have a ss06 variant.
Ⱦ: /Tdiagonalstroke could have a ss07 variant like Ŧ /Tbar/Tbar.ss07.
Consider adding: /Ramshorn or /uniA7CB, capital of ɤ /ramshorn (used in Côte d’Ivoire). : add /lambda-latin or /uniA7DB as ƛ /lambdastroke without stroke (used in Canada). : /Lambda-latin/Lambdastroke or /uniA7DA/uniA7DC as capitals of ƛ, shaped like turned Y and turned Y with diagonal or horizontal stroke (used in Canada). The current preference is diagonal in the Heiltsuk community that asked for character in Unicode. It’s not clear if the historical horizontal stroke they have also used is currently preferred in one other community using the capital letter. Italic would have to have the shape of slanted turned Y, as italic turned Y wouldn’t work.
From which application did you take the screenshots like this one?
Is there a model of the Ramshorn (A7CB) glyph somewhere?
Here is an interesting question about the latinised Lambda: Do I follow the reversed contrast of the LC, or do I use the Latin style?
For Ramshorn, the Eastern Dan community has been using a large lowercase. Some SIL fonts: Doulos SIL, Charis SIL, Gentium Plus or Andika, have the PUA character U+F26E for it:
If this helps, a 16th French author had suggested a French orthography using the same or a similar letter using italic:
For Lambda-latin and Lambdastroke-latin, it is typically a turned Y, without reversing the contrast, but there’s a few documents where it’s more like an inverted Y. The preference seems to be for the turned Y for the uppercase. See https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2023/23191-three-latin-additions.pdf
Can I get away with this form of vhook
? 028B
I’d like to do the same to the ƴ 01B4
and ⱳ 2C73
, but can see that this would a new and unexpected rendering. What do you think?
On the matter of the Italic form of iota-latin
0269
I have tried your suggestion, but it was too disruptive to the word shapes. I have currently reverted to my original form, but I can see that more disambiguation is needed. Work in progress…
For vhook ʋ 028B, it think that could work. The common shape used for roman in Loma language in Liberia is angular with a raised hook, the italic is typically the slanted equivalent. For other regions and languages the round shape is normally used. Having a shape that use idea from both could work.
For yhook ƴ 01B4 there are definitely many examples of it having a raised hook. That should work with whook ⱳ 2C73 as well as the Lobiri and Puguli languages that use whook also use yhook.
Several Latin African orthographies are based on the International African Alphabet, published in 1927 and in the 1930 Practical Orthography of African Languages, which is directly derived from the IPA of the time. The IPA has slightly evolved since but there are no major relevant differences.
Samples from the Practical Orthography of African Languages
The style used in Practical Orthography of African Languages may useful.
Notes:
TOD0
, Dan-GioDNJ
, Kpelle LiberiaXPE
language systems.EWE
, AvatimeAVN
, LelemiLEF
, Waci GbeWCI
language system. The ƒ and f are already good for these languages in Playfair. If that wasn’t the case an alternate /f would be needed for the locl feature in those language systems. Keep in mind that English, French or other languages used in the countries where those languages are used may have borrowed words or proper names with ƒ. So either the default f needs to not have a hook, or at least a ssXX or cvXX feature needs to also provide the alternative f without hook.NSM
or other Sami languages which may use it in borrowed names: Inari SamiISM
, Lule SamiLSM
, Skolt SamiSKS
, Souther SamiSSM
-- it’s not clear forKSM
as it used the n-form in the 1930s -- or other adjacent languages (Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish).GAD
, XhosaXHS
, ZuluZUL
language systems that used it between the 1930s and the 1950s or 1960s.TOD0
.GAD
language system.IPA consonants and vowels (only lowercase, note ɬ and ɮ are only used as IPA symbols)
Capital letters and written forms. Alphabetical order of the letters
Samples from The New Script 1930
See https://archive.org/details/the-new-script-and-its-relation-with-the-languages-of-the-gold-coast
This shows a lot of letters with a modern style.
Notes:
Sample from A. Burssens & G. van Bulck, "De Africa-spelling en de Kongoleesche talen", Kongo-Overzee, vol. 2, no. 2, December 1935, p. 65-93
(sorry for quality)
Samples from UNESCO Niamey meetings 1978
See https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000060064
These aren’t super useful for Playfair but are still an important reference for letter identity.
Notes:
Turned letters
Turned letters are not necessarily turned (also in IPA), these are actually nicer: ɥ /hturned can be a u with a q-terminal, ɯ /mturned can be a u-u ligature, ʌ /vturned can be angular even when v is round.
Ismall and its capital
Ɪ ɪ is used in at least on language in Côte d’Ivoire. Historically it’s a variant of Ɩ ɩ, at least ɪ and ɩ being variants in IPA as mentionned above.
Like in IPA, ɪ /Ismall should be noticeably distinct from i or ı. That seems straightforward in Playfair, the serif can still be slightly more pronounced on ɪ /Ismall. The capital /uniA7AE should have top and bottom bars instead of serifs. It’ a bit of a Frankenstein letter, it can be built from a narrow T and turned narrow T.
Vhook
Regarding the /vhook/v issue, in Le Maître phonétique, April-June 1932, p. 34, two solution are presented.
Here it is in print in Clement M. Doke, English-Lamba Vocabulary, 1933
This solution seems to not have been used recently, rather the distinction is made with angular-v for /v and round-v for /vhook. Since Playfair has a round-v for /v, one could consider this old form as a solution.
Alternatively, in italic, the /vhook could have a hook in-stroke terminal (like i, n, etc.) and a shape closer to a slanted roman.
Note the Toma
TOD0
locl variant with the angular-v shape and above-x-height hook mentionned above likely wouldn’t work in several languages as in many cases /vhook is used as a vowel (due to its similarity with Ʊ ʊ /Upsilon-latin/upsilon-latin).ramshorn and capital
ɤ /ramshorn is used in two languages in Côte d’Ivoire and the capital uniA7CB will be in Unicode 16 this year. Both should be distinct from Ɣɣ /Gamma-latin/gamma-latin. The IPA symbol ɤ used to be a "baby-gamma" (small capital Ɣ on the baseline) but since 1989 it has hook terminals on both in- and out-strokes.