4 ms·

Devanagari looks like separate characters to me, just like English. Are you talking about a cursive script where each character's shape has to be modified to li

Devanagari looks like separate characters to me, just like English. Are you talking about a cursive script where each character's shape has to be modified to link to it neighbors? I'm specifically only talking about cursive scripts, not just any non-English alphabet.

svat 4y ago
For example, in Devanagari, the sequence • U+0915: DEVANAGARI LETTER KA (क) • U+093F: DEVANAGARI VOWEL SIGN I (ि) gives कि where the vowel sign not only attaches to the letter, but (in this case) happens to be to the left of it. Similarly, the sequence • U+‎0915: DEVANAGARI LETTER KA (क) • U+‎094D: DEVANAGARI SIGN VIRAMA ( ्) • ‎U+0937: DEVANAGARI LETTER SSA (ष) • ‎U+0941: DEVANAGARI VOWEL SIGN U ( ु) gives क्षु where the shapes of the "characters" are indeed modified based on which characters appear next to them. This is kind of touched upon in the second section in the original post titled "Indic scripts": https://manishearth.github.io/blog/2017/01/15/breaking-our-latin-1-assumptions/#indic-scripts https://manishearth.github.io/blog/2017/01/15/breaking-our-l... This is handled in traditional printing (and in modern Opentype fonts) by simply having separate pieces of type for every possible combination of consonants (there are a few hundred, see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Devanagari_conjuncts&oldid=1076864346 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Devanagari_conjun...), and then having separate pieces of type for vowel signs (which have to have different lengths depending on the width of the consonant cluster, but a handful of lengths for each will do), the same way any good Latin-script font will include ligatures like ﬁ, and will also include separate glyphs for the accent marks (things like ´ ` ¨ ˆ ˜ which can be placed over letters to give é à ü î ñ and so on). Incidentally, Gutenberg's very first Bible itself used nearly 300 letter forms, including ligatures and variants of several letter (see e.g. https://www.oldbookappreciator.com/libraryofhistoricaltype/exhibits/show/gutenbergsb42/b42type https://www.oldbookappreciator.com/libraryofhistoricaltype/e... ) (About "cursive" vs "separate" letters: conceptually it's not such a big difference, because there are only finitely many letters/characters in the script, so as long as you carefully specify the ending position of each glyph for each possible choice of following glyph, you produce the appearance of everything being joined. Indeed that's how traditional printing and modern fonts do it too. And for that matter, cursive fonts in English: try playing with https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Cedarville+Cursive https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Cedarville+Cursive which if it had been made with slightly better kerning rules would likely modify shapes of letters depending on adjacent letters. Maybe one of these fonts do it? https://fontsgeek.com/search/?q=cursive https://fontsgeek.com/search/?q=cursive )
- sacrosancty 4y ago
  OK, I just multiplied 26 by 26 and realized that you would only need a few hundred different forms of letters, at worst, to print cursive English that way. Printers could have done that just as they did with Devanagari, so perhaps my whole idea is wrong.

svat 4y ago

For example, in Devanagari, the sequence • U+0915: DEVANAGARI LETTER KA (क) • U+093F: DEVANAGARI VOWEL SIGN I (ि) gives कि where the vowel sign not only attaches to the letter, but (in this case) happens to be to the left of it. Similarly, the sequence • U+‎0915: DEVANAGARI LETTER KA (क) • U+‎094D: DEVANAGARI SIGN VIRAMA ( ्) • ‎U+0937: DEVANAGARI LETTER SSA (ष) • ‎U+0941: DEVANAGARI VOWEL SIGN U ( ु) gives क्षु where the shapes of the "characters" are indeed modified based on which characters appear next to them. This is kind of touched upon in the second section in the original post titled "Indic scripts": https://manishearth.github.io/blog/2017/01/15/breaking-our-latin-1-assumptions/#indic-scripts https://manishearth.github.io/blog/2017/01/15/breaking-our-l... This is handled in traditional printing (and in modern Opentype fonts) by simply having separate pieces of type for every possible combination of consonants (there are a few hundred, see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Devanagari_conjuncts&oldid=1076864346 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Devanagari_conjun...), and then having separate pieces of type for vowel signs (which have to have different lengths depending on the width of the consonant cluster, but a handful of lengths for each will do), the same way any good Latin-script font will include ligatures like ﬁ, and will also include separate glyphs for the accent marks (things like ´ ` ¨ ˆ ˜ which can be placed over letters to give é à ü î ñ and so on). Incidentally, Gutenberg's very first Bible itself used nearly 300 letter forms, including ligatures and variants of several letter (see e.g. https://www.oldbookappreciator.com/libraryofhistoricaltype/exhibits/show/gutenbergsb42/b42type https://www.oldbookappreciator.com/libraryofhistoricaltype/e... ) (About "cursive" vs "separate" letters: conceptually it's not such a big difference, because there are only finitely many letters/characters in the script, so as long as you carefully specify the ending position of each glyph for each possible choice of following glyph, you produce the appearance of everything being joined. Indeed that's how traditional printing and modern fonts do it too. And for that matter, cursive fonts in English: try playing with https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Cedarville+Cursive https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Cedarville+Cursive which if it had been made with slightly better kerning rules would likely modify shapes of letters depending on adjacent letters. Maybe one of these fonts do it? https://fontsgeek.com/search/?q=cursive https://fontsgeek.com/search/?q=cursive )

sacrosancty 4y ago
OK, I just multiplied 26 by 26 and realized that you would only need a few hundred different forms of letters, at worst, to print cursive English that way. Printers could have done that just as they did with Devanagari, so perhaps my whole idea is wrong.