RE: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf > Of Asmus Freytag > Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 9:01 PM > Functionally, the symbol is not a breve. Visually, the sample does not look > like a standard breve, and the font resource cited matches the style of the > sample according to the contributor who cited it, implying that there well > may be a particular conventional shape to this symbol. Finally, the mark is > not placed above the 'b'... > The other is the question of whether a unification with the double breve > (i.e. a breve that spans two characters)... Obviously, it's U+0E31 :-) Peter Peter Constable Globalization Infrastructure and Font Technologies Microsoft Windows Division
Re: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
Jörg Knappen schrieb:
The thing is used in some transliteration of
russian, where the letter is transcribed as \t{\ia}, i. e. an
inverted breve placed between a dotless i (\i) and a. A sample can be
found in Donald E. Knuth, the TeXbook.
Just looked up the example in the TeXbook where this tie accent is used
for scientific transliteration of Russian in the LOC system. In the
TeXbook (p. 53), the accent is short, while in the LOC transliteration
guidelines it's long. I don't think \t{\i a} warrants a separate accent;
I'd put the blame on Knuth, rather, for using such a short glyph in his
CM fonts. The LOC tables for Russian are online at
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/russian.pdf; the TeXbook is
online at http://books.pdox.net/Computers/The%20Texbook.ps (if you want
a time warp back into the dark ages of computing when fonts had 128
positions ;)
U+0361 will do in this case, I think (well, even though probably not for
TeX...)
Philipp
Re: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
Jörg Knappen schrieb:
1) Add one new character, ZERO WIDTH INVISIBLE LETTER,
>
I strongly prefer solution 1 because it is fully general with a minimum of
effort added. It can also handle TeX's tie accent.
TeX's tie accent is an inverted right shifted breve above -- that's how it
is implemented in TeX and METAFONT by Donald Knuth. It has the width of a
normal accent, but the glyph hangs out of its bounding box such that it is
placed between two letters. The thing is used in some transliteration of
russian, where the letter is transcribed as \t{\ia}, i. e. an
inverted breve placed between a dotless i (\i) and a. A sample can be
found in Donald E. Knuth, the TeXbook.
What's wrong about U+0131 U+0361 U+0061? I believe U+0361 is intended
for ties.
On Slavic transliteration, see, for example, the nice GIFs for IE, IU
and IA at http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/katmandu/sgman/trrus.html. I
think LOC standard is to use the double-width glyph. I guess Knuth used
a normal inverted breve either because he ran out of space in his fonts
or because he didn't really care about the glyph (it being extremely
rare, after all) and just inverted his existing breve. Anyhow, this is
just a glyph difference.
I could imagine adding a ZERO WIDTH INVISIBLE LETTER means asking for
trouble with non-Latin scripts.
Solution 2) is also a good one and it can be extended easily to the case
of TeX's tie accent by adding a second character, COMBINING RIGHT SHIFTED
INVERTED BREVE ABOVE, to the UCS.
See above on U+0361. :)
Solution 3) is ad hoc and will probably open the door for dozens of other
candiates (like the tied ia).
On ia see above.
Solution 4) Use U+035D instead. Even more so if the character is not a
superscript u, but a combining breve in between. Have mapmakers use an
appropriate glyph; they tend to use special fonts anyway.
Philipp
Re: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
Michael Everson schrieb:
> I assumed that the curly thing used over the letter u in German
> handwriting was a breve (not a combining u superimposed over a u),
> and so in these examples though the u is deleted, its breve is not.
I agree with Michael, that the thing is a breve -- however with an unusual
plaecement.
To me, there are three resolutions two the burg-abbreviature problem:
1) Add one new character, ZERO WIDTH INVISIBLE LETTER, to the UCS. Encode
the burg-abbreviature as
2) Add one new character, COMBINING RIGHT SHIFTED BREVE ABOVE, to the UCS.
Encode the burg-abbreviature as
3) Add two new characters, LATIN SMALL ABBREVIATURE BURG, and
LATIN CAPTITAL ABBREVIATUR BURG, to the UCS. Then, the
burg-abbreviature is one UNicode character.
[Note: The burg-abbreviature can occur in an all-caps context with the
breve placed in the middle between capital B and G.]
I strongly prefer solution 1 because it is fully general with a minimum of
effort added. It can also handle TeX's tie accent.
TeX's tie accent is an inverted right shifted breve above -- that's how it
is implemented in TeX and METAFONT by Donald Knuth. It has the width of a
normal accent, but the glyph hangs out of its bounding box such that it is
placed between two letters. The thing is used in some transliteration of
russian, where the letter is transcribed as \t{\ia}, i. e. an
inverted breve placed between a dotless i (\i) and a. A sample can be
found in Donald E. Knuth, the TeXbook.
Solution 2) is also a good one and it can be extended easily to the case
of TeX's tie accent by adding a second character, COMBINING RIGHT SHIFTED
INVERTED BREVE ABOVE, to the UCS.
Solution 3) is ad hoc and will probably open the door for dozens of other
candiates (like the tied ia).
--J"org Knappen
P.S. The thing in the burg-abbreviature is clearly *not* a raised u: a
raised small u has a right stem which I have never seen in the burg
abbreviature. The breve is a mnemonic hint to the u, since it was once
obligatory to mark all u's with a breve in german handwriting (Suetterlin)
-- and it is still wide spread practice.
Re: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
On 2004.10.02, 00:30, Kenneth Whistler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > the *obvious* alternative: > > U+0367 COMBINING LATIN SMALL LETTER U <...> > you just design a ligature in it to represent the sequence > <0062, 0367, 0067>. This seems indeed the best way to go (IMOVVHO), *if* the said squiggle is indeed an "u". If not, as I suspect, but rather an all-purpose mark to differentiate similar letters (like the already mentioned German use of a U+016D-looking glyph for handwritten lowercase "u", otherwise identical to "n" -- note also that the orginal post mentioned that the abbreviation "bg" is added this mark when meaning "-burg", while "bg" alone means "-berg"), then the solution should be different, possibly using some kind of breve (double, single, combining, zero-width, what not). --. António MARTINS-Tuválkin | ()| <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>|| PT-1___-___ LISBOA Não me invejo de quem tem| +351 934 821 700 carros, parelhas e montes| http://www.tuvalkin.web.pt/bandeira/ só me invejo de quem bebe| http://pagina.de/bandeiras/ a água em todas as fontes|
Re: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
I assumed that the curly thing used over the letter u in German handwriting was a breve (not a combining u superimposed over a u), and so in these examples though the u is deleted, its breve is not. -- Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com
Re: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
> At 06:04 PM 9/30/2004, Michael Everson wrote: > > see no reason given for us not to unify the handwritten symbol we have > > seen with BREVE ABOVE. and Asmus responded: > Functionally, the symbol is not a breve. Visually, the sample does not look > like a standard breve, and the font resource cited matches the style of the > sample according to the contributor who cited it, implying that there well > may be a particular conventional shape to this symbol. Finally, the mark is > not placed above the 'b'. To me these facts imply that on all three counts > a unification with the ordinary combining breve is definitely inappropriate. I would agree, but nobody seems to be suggesting what to me seems the *obvious* alternative: U+0367 COMBINING LATIN SMALL LETTER U The mark isn't a breve above, but it *is* derived from a small "u" written above and then written (not kerned, because this is handwritten) in a more felicitous position between the "bg" sequence, rather than on top of the "b", for reasons similar to the alternative glyphs used in typography of Czech ascender letters with haceks. If you need to make a formal font to reflect this style, then you just design a ligature in it to represent the sequence <0062, 0367, 0067>. And then you make *that* ligature kern heavily left over the adjoining "n"'s, "r"'s, etc. to reflect the positioning of the funky "b"'s. Getting a font to mimic this particular display style would be a little bit of work, but I really don't see a basic text content representation issue here. We already have all the relevant characters encoded to deal with this for plain text (and *legible* display). > > There are two items that are possibly subject to question. > > One is the putative derivation of the symbol from a superscript 'u'. I > think it's quite possible that that is correct, I think it is almost certainly correct, but of course further confirmation would be nice. > > The other is the question of whether a unification with the double breve > (i.e. a breve that spans two characters) can and should be considered. Nah. It is no more a double breve than it is a single breve. > > Rather than exchanging more opinions on this matter, it would bring us > forward if the people who discovered the mark could collect all the > evidence together with any useful arguments that surfaced in the e-mail > discussion Including *my* alternative. ;-) > and put it into a formal character proposal. That would allow > UTC and WG2 to settle the open issues I mentioned based on the best > available evidence - which is how we proceed with all proposed characters. --Ken > > A./
Re: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
Asmus Freytag schrieb: see no reason given for us not to unify the handwritten symbol we have seen with BREVE ABOVE. > The map sample may have been hand lettered, however, there's no evidence that suggests that the usage is limited to handwriting. On the contrary, we have heard from at least one contributor that the symbol exists in a font used by a Landesvermessungsamt, which is a German geographical service on the state level, and in the context definitely a proper authority on usage. In an answer to me dated September 26, the same contributor stated that the font Landesvermessungsamt's font from 1982 does not contain any combining breve glyph at all. The mail probably just didn't make it to the list: =>8 snip 8<=== >> Do they contain a zero-width superscript breve glyph? Or any breve >> glyph at all? > > No. =>8 snip 8<=== Philipp
Re: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
At 06:04 PM 9/30/2004, Michael Everson wrote: see no reason given for us not to unify the handwritten symbol we have seen with BREVE ABOVE. In the environment described, apparently bg is taken as an abbreviation for berg, and bg (with breve) is being used as an abbreviation for burg. The breve is the same as was used in German to differentiate u from n. The thing in those examples shown as a curly thing between the b and the g should be encoded as a brever over the b. That's my opinion, anyway. The map sample may have been hand lettered, however, there's no evidence that suggests that the usage is limited to handwriting. On the contrary, we have heard from at least one contributor that the symbol exists in a font used by a Landesvermessungsamt, which is a German geographical service on the state level, and in the context definitely a proper authority on usage. Functionally, the symbol is not a breve. Visually, the sample does not look like a standard breve, and the font resource cited matches the style of the sample according to the contributor who cited it, implying that there well may be a particular conventional shape to this symbol. Finally, the mark is not placed above the 'b'. To me these facts imply that on all three counts a unification with the ordinary combining breve is definitely inappropriate. There are two items that are possibly subject to question. One is the putative derivation of the symbol from a superscript 'u'. I think it's quite possible that that is correct, even though the possibility that it's based on the distinguishing mark used to discriminate between 'u' and 'n' seems possible and believable. I'm ready to concede that Otto might know more about this than Michael or myself, but I would be most satisfied if we could get either a citation or input from another expert. I'm sure we're not the first set of people interested in the derivation of this. The other is the question of whether a unification with the double breve (i.e. a breve that spans two characters) can and should be considered. The existing double breve would be placed between the b and g as required. However, there are three issues that would need to be resolved: Whether there's a strong functional identity to the double breve that would make unification unattractive, whether the conventional glyph shape cited from map sample and font resource is an essential enough aspect of the character to make unification unattractive, and finally, whether the fact that the double breve is intended to fully extend over both characters, rather than being a shorter mark inteded to sit between wouldn't make unification unattractive. Rather than exchanging more opinions on this matter, it would bring us forward if the people who discovered the mark could collect all the evidence together with any useful arguments that surfaced in the e-mail discussion and put it into a formal character proposal. That would allow UTC and WG2 to settle the open issues I mentioned based on the best available evidence - which is how we proceed with all proposed characters. A./
Re: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
I see no reason given for us not to unify the handwritten symbol we have seen with BREVE ABOVE. In the environment described, apparently bg is taken as an abbreviation for berg, and bg (with breve) is being used as an abbreviation for burg. The breve is the same as was used in German to differentiate u from n. The thing in those examples shown as a curly thing between the b and the g should be encoded as a brever over the b. That's my opinion, anyway. -- Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com
Re: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
Otto Stolz wrote: As has been said before, in this thread (by Jörg Knappen, IIRC), the little bow in the -burg abbreviation stems from the "u" stripped together with the "r". In German handwriting it used to be common to place a mark above the letter 'u', to distinguish it from 'n'. When I first saw the sample I thought it was that mark, retained to indicate that a 'u' had been there. The problem with that interpretation is that such a mark (in handwriting it could look like marcron or breve) is not used with the kind of font style used in the example. Therefore, it would have to be a holdover from when such abbreviations were written in the old style. Hence, I deem this character quite different from a breve (be it »semi-cyrillic« or otherwise) and quite akin to a "u" superscript with some special kerning applied: It's just so that the bow of the "u" fits nicely above the gap between the bowls of "b" and "g", respectively. I would agree, but even if the source really was a superscripted u in origin it is no longer a superscripted 'u', but simply a mark with downward pointing curve, and a pronounced left/right asymmetry. In HTML, e. g., I could write "Herrenbug." -- but then I'd get the kerning wrong: Virtually all browsers would assign some space to the superscript "u", resulting in an ugly gap be- tween "b" and "g". So I am beginning to ask myself: Should you rather look for a kerning directive in higher-level protocols, such as HTML? No - this would be incorrect. It is not a superscript u. If you, however, decide that this abbreviation should be encoded even in plain text, then there are three possibilities: - Encode a character GERMAN MISSING U INDICATOR (or some such) to represent that little "u", and explain that it should take no extra space in the x-height region. (Precedents: U+00AA, U+00BA, as specially styled characters to be used in a very special context only, and in rather few languages) - Encode a Character GERMAN BURG ABBREVIATION (or some such), and show a representative glyph for it (as in the scan from Dierke's Atlas). (Precedents: U+01CA, U+20A7, U+213B, or U+0A74) - Encode a character COMBINING DOUBLE CONTRACTED U with represen- tative glyph as in the source given, but used across two characters. Precedents: 035D, 035E etc. The name could be improved. - Device a general method to place, in plain text, a diacritic between two base characters, and then define a suitable dia- critic for this special case. Following the existing precedent indicates that UTC has decided to encode such cases of double diacritics explicitly rather than creating a productive mechanism that would allow the use of existing combining characters with positioning. All in all, I think that the UTC position on that is probably wise, even though it means that we'll have to continue considering newly discovered examples like this one. Their number is probably quite small in the end anyway. But a breve, spanning both "b" and "g": No, this does definitely not fit the bill. By that you mean using 035D COMBINING DOUBLE BREVE. At the moment, that would be the only character in Unicode that would be remotely similar. However, I agree with you that despite an apparent visual resemblance between the shape of a breve and the shape of this character indicating a missing 'u', a unification would be ill conceived - unless the assumption that it represents a 'u' can be proven wrong. Cynically, UTC could simply do nothing, in which case, by natural gravitation, 035D as the only available fallback would probably be used anyway. It wouldn't be the first time that limitations in technology or character encoding had an effect on orthography... A./
Re: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
There is such a breve in the Italic Cyrillic fonts of Linguistsoftware http://linguistsoftware.com/tc.htm Gerd Peter Kirk wrote: > On 26/09/2004 11:16, Jörg Knappen wrote: > > >... > > > >Note the fancy >>semi-cyrillic<< shape of the breve between the letters > >b and g -- it is quite typical for this cartographic font. I don't know > >what they do with a true breve (like in Romanian) since this atlas > >transkribes all names into german. > > > > > > > This "semi-cyrillic" breve looks nothing like any of the real Cyrillic > breves I have seen. For a start I have never seen any unsymmetrical > ones. Is this unsymmetrical shape an regular part of this abbreviation? > In that case this might be a distinct character from a breve.
Re: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
Johannes Bergerhausen schrieb: Note the fancy >>semi-cyrillic<< shape of the breve between the letters b and g -- it is quite typical for this cartographic font. The font is called Kursivschrift from the Bayerisches Landesvermessungsamt from 1967. I found it in the Berthold Types catalogue from 1988. The "font"? Are you sure that the text is typeset at all? Looks pretty handwritten to me, not surprising in a 1972 map. If I remember correctly, the sign is derived from a small superscript "u" (as in "burg" vs. "berg"). There is an italic and a very strange reclining (rückwärtsliegend) Font. Do they contain a zero-width superscript breve glyph? Or any breve glyph at all Philipp
Re: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
At 19:05 +0200 2004-09-26, Jörg Knappen wrote: > > I have scanned a sample of the german -burg abbreviature. It is from > > Diercke Weltatlas, 165. Auflage, Georg Westermann Verlag, > Braunschweig 1972, card page 14. Very interesting! It would be even more interesting if you told us the URL so we can actually look at it! :) Oh ... the locator is http://www.uni-mainz.de/~knappen/diercke.jpg Ah, handwritten text -- Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com
Re: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
On Sun, 26 Sep 2004, Adam Twardoch wrote: > From: "Jörg Knappen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > I have scanned a sample of the german -burg abbreviature. It is from > > Diercke Weltatlas, 165. Auflage, Georg Westermann Verlag, > > Braunschweig 1972, card page 14. > > Very interesting! It would be even more interesting if you told us the URL > so we can actually look at it! :) Oh ... the locator is http://www.uni-mainz.de/~knappen/diercke.jpg --J"org Knappen
Re: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
Note the fancy >>semi-cyrillic<< shape of the breve between the letters b and g -- it is quite typical for this cartographic font. The font is called Kursivschrift from the Bayerisches Landesvermessungsamt from 1967. I found it in the Berthold Types catalogue from 1988. There is an italic and a very strange reclining (rückwärtsliegend) Font. Greetings from Fachhochschule Mainz to University Mainz. Johannes Bergerhausen
Re: Sample of german -burg abbreviature
From: "Jörg Knappen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > I have scanned a sample of the german -burg abbreviature. It is from > Diercke Weltatlas, 165. Auflage, Georg Westermann Verlag, > Braunschweig 1972, card page 14. Very interesting! It would be even more interesting if you told us the URL so we can actually look at it! :) Adam
