4 ms·
I think a lot about how the written English language has been altered by technology. Latin majuscule letterforms were designed, AFAICT, to be easy to chisel int
by kibwen 4y ago
I think a lot about how the written English language has been altered by technology. Latin majuscule letterforms were designed, AFAICT, to be easy to chisel into stone. Miniscule letterforms were later invented because they were faster to write, enabling monks to copy manuscripts more quickly. Printing press manufacturers saved money by getting rid of letters that could be replaced by combining others (the thorn), alternative letterforms (long S), and rejecting ligatures. Later, both typewriters/teletypes and low-resolution early computer displays would force English letterforms to be further simplified.
To tell the truth, mostly I'm just envious of all the beautiful calligraphic scripts that are standard in other languages, whereas with English it seems we're stuck with sterile Helvetica clones. Maybe someday we can re-beautify everyday English.
- bradrn 4y agoIt gets even more intricate! Until the 15th century or so, there were dozens of different styles of Latin script optimised for slightly different writing technologies [0], some so different to what we’ve now converged on that I hesitate to call them the same script. Our current handwritten lowercase letters developed around fountain pens and quills — something I realised when I started using fountain pens and realised that lowercase writing suddenly became much more natural. On the other hand, our printed lowercase letters have changed little since Charlemagne standardised his miniscule script for maximum legibility with a broad-edged nib. Meanwhile, in Germany, blackletter styles developed for fast writing with the same nib; this eventually ended up as Sütterlin [1], which looks quite different to the script we’re currently using. In England blackletter developed into ‘secretary hand’ instead [2], which again looks quite different. And of course there’s more! [0] is the best overview I’ve found. (Thinking about this I do often wonder what a form of handwriting optimised for the ballpoint pen would look like… probably quite different to our current handwriting styles!) [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20100403062849/http://guindo.pntic.mec.es/jmag0042/LATIN_PALEOGRAPHY.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20100403062849/http://guindo.pnt... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BCtterlin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BCtterlin [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_hand
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]