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> The original Carolingian lowercase "l" from 1200 years ago had a small right hook at the inferior end, which made it easily distinguishable from other similar

> The original Carolingian lowercase "l" from 1200 years ago had a small right hook at the inferior end, which made it easily distinguishable from other similar letters, like uppercase "I". It might help a little. "Easily distinguishable" is dramatically overselling things. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Minuscule_caroline.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Minuscul... I, capital and lowercase, also has a serif hooking to the right at the bottom of the stroke. Look at the first line beginning with a big red I. It says "Iterum autem pilatus locutus ẽ. ad illos volens". The line above it says "Et homicidium missus In carcerem;". How much difference do you see between the capital I in "In carcerem" and the lowercase L in "pilatus"? It's easy to distinguish lowercase L from lowercase i because L is taller. Capital I is only slightly different. (I should note that wikipedia's page on Carolingian minuscule also includes an image of a page of written Slovene. I couldn't really use that as an example, because without any knowledge of Slovene I can't reliably identify the letters. But I think that goes to show that the alphabet by itself doesn't reach the level of perfect unambiguity.) I'm interested to see that all Ses look the same. At some point we got word-final "s", but this was clearly not that point.

adrian_b 2y ago
Perhaps this is because I am used to it, but for me the lowercase "l"s from your example are impossible to confuse with any other letter. For me the hooks are very visible and clearly distinct from any other kind of stroke termination. The serif at the lower end of capital "I" is bilateral symmetrical, besides having a flat termination, so it looks very different from the asymmetric and curved right hook on lowercase "l". Also in my handwriting, I write lowercase "l" with a right hook and uppercase "I" with serifs, making them impossible to confuse.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > The serif at the lower end of capital "I" is bilateral symmetrical, besides having a flat termination No, look at the capital "I" that I indicated in my comment. It has neither of those qualities.
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    It is true that unlike the capital "I" that starts the row immediately below, your "I" happens to have a shorter left serif, either because it has become erased due to the age of the manuscript or because it has been poorly written originally. Despite this defect of this particular letter, which is not a frequently seen defect, I still cannot see how the right serif could be confused with a right hook. The letters would have to be much more degraded for the difference between an orthogonal serif and a curved hook to become invisible. I agree that the differences between the 6 narrow alphanumeric characters "1IJijl" are small so they are more likely to disappear when the letters are partially erased, but when the letters are intact and they have been written with the right distinct shapes they can still be distinguished easily, in contrast with some typefaces (usually sans-serif typefaces) where they are intentionally made more similar than they were traditionally, which has been a very bad idea, so such typefaces (e.g. Helvetica or Arial) should be avoided.

adrian_b 2y ago

Perhaps this is because I am used to it, but for me the lowercase "l"s from your example are impossible to confuse with any other letter. For me the hooks are very visible and clearly distinct from any other kind of stroke termination. The serif at the lower end of capital "I" is bilateral symmetrical, besides having a flat termination, so it looks very different from the asymmetric and curved right hook on lowercase "l". Also in my handwriting, I write lowercase "l" with a right hook and uppercase "I" with serifs, making them impossible to confuse.

thaumasiotes 2y ago
> The serif at the lower end of capital "I" is bilateral symmetrical, besides having a flat termination No, look at the capital "I" that I indicated in my comment. It has neither of those qualities.
- adrian_b 2y ago
  It is true that unlike the capital "I" that starts the row immediately below, your "I" happens to have a shorter left serif, either because it has become erased due to the age of the manuscript or because it has been poorly written originally. Despite this defect of this particular letter, which is not a frequently seen defect, I still cannot see how the right serif could be confused with a right hook. The letters would have to be much more degraded for the difference between an orthogonal serif and a curved hook to become invisible. I agree that the differences between the 6 narrow alphanumeric characters "1IJijl" are small so they are more likely to disappear when the letters are partially erased, but when the letters are intact and they have been written with the right distinct shapes they can still be distinguished easily, in contrast with some typefaces (usually sans-serif typefaces) where they are intentionally made more similar than they were traditionally, which has been a very bad idea, so such typefaces (e.g. Helvetica or Arial) should be avoided.