3 ms·
If this "historical fact" was so well-known, how come Germany and Scandinavia used Fraktur well into the 1930s as the most common typefaces? In reality, the re
by rmk2 13y ago
If this "historical fact" was so well-known, how come Germany and Scandinavia used Fraktur well into the 1930s as the most common typefaces?
In reality, the respective difficulties were far harder to prove than one might think. First more rigorous scientific testing using tachistoscopes in the early 1900s/1910s provided more conclusive evidence beyond the anecdotal that Antiqua typefaces were indeed faster to parse than Fraktur. Until then, many people who were more commonly accustomed to reading blackletter simply thought it easier to read. Much of this has to do with accustomisation. If you are used to reading Antiqua, you will be faster, if you are used to reading Fraktur & Sütterlin but only encounter Antiqua every now and then, you will probably be quicker in reading the former.
- jeorgun 13y agoNational pride, I think. By the 19th century it was generally acknowledged that Antiqua typefaces were more legible, but they were perceived as insufficiently German or whatever. In any case, Fraktur probably would be a lot easier to read than old-school blackletter hands— look at the sheer number of strange ligatures and abbreviations in the Gutenburg bible! This is entirely based off of memory so I could very well be wrong. The fact that blackletter originally evolved as a way of condensing text, though, is pretty much indisputable.