commaaccent versus cedilla
Berthold K.P. Horn
Can anyone shed any light on the use of cedilla versus commaaccent?
Cedilla is an attached decoration seen in Ccedilla, while
commaccent is detached, comma shaped, slightly larger, slightly lower
(except for gcommaaccent where it is rotated 180 degrees and placed
above the `g' since it can hardly be placed below it).
It seems that for `C' , only `Ccedilla' is used and noone uses `Ccommaaccent'
But for `S' it seems that both forms occur, apparently `Scommaaccent' in
Romania, and `Scedilla' in Turkey.
What about the others: Tcommaaccent, Gcommaaccent, Kcommaaccent, Ncommaacent,
Rcommaaccent etc. Are the corresponding `cedilla' forms of these used
anywhere at all?
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Berthold K.P. Horn
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Munch
In article
<vuxvi7v...@kauai.i-have-a-misconfigured-system-so-shoot-me>,
bkph@kauai (Berthold K.P. Horn) wrote:
>Can anyone shed any light on the use of cedilla versus commaaccent?
>What about the others: Tcommaaccent : Romanian
, Gcommaaccent, Kcommaaccent, Ncommaacent, Rcommaaccent : Latvian
etc. Are the corresponding `cedilla' forms of these used
>anywhere at all?
Ref: Linotype-Hell; it seems the comma forms are preferred; I suppose
because they can be composite as opposed to single chrs. Though Bringhurst
shows some with the cedilla physically attached (Minion). Any Letts out
there?
PS: Is anyone as annoyed by the way-too-narrow gutter in _Elements_ as I am?
--
Gary Munch
GMaju...@aol.com
gmu...@pipeline.com
http://members.aol.com/GMajuscule/
Tiro Typeworks
bkph@kauai (Berthold K.P. Horn) wrote:
>Can anyone shed any light on the use of cedilla versus commaaccent?
They are quite distinct, both visually and linguistically, and the
Unicode Consortium caused endless confusion by referring to the
commaaccent (what we call the undercomma) as the cedilla (e.g.
Tcedilla, when there is no such diacritic). I prefer the name
undercomma simply because commaccent tells one nothing about the
placement of the diacritic mark. I have the same complaint about the
use of the term dotaccent, which is particularly misleading: while the
dot diacritic is, perhaps, most commonly encountered as an overdot,
the orthographies of many African languages require an underdot.
>Cedilla is an attached decoration seen in Ccedilla, while
>commaccent is detached, comma shaped, slightly larger, slightly lower
>(except for gcommaaccent where it is rotated 180 degrees and placed
>above the `g' since it can hardly be placed below it).
I prefer the undercomma to more closely resemble a top heavy crescent,
rather than simply copying the form of the comma.
>It seems that for `C' , only `Ccedilla' is used and noone uses `Ccommaaccent'
This is true, linguistically, although there are designs in which the
cedilla takes a detached form. Jean-Francois Porchez's Apolline is
notable in this regard, and carries it off very elegantly.
>But for `S' it seems that both forms occur, apparently `Scommaaccent' in
>Romania, and `Scedilla' in Turkey.
Yes.
>What about the others: Tcommaaccent, Gcommaaccent, Kcommaaccent, Ncommaacent,
>Rcommaaccent etc. Are the corresponding `cedilla' forms of these used
>anywhere at all?
No, there are no corresponding cedilla forms for these diacritics.
Despite a few errors and the absence of some long-overdue updates,
additions and corrections, the 'Overview of European Diacritics' in
the Journal section of the Tiro website might be of assistance.
Briefly (from memory):
Ccedilla:
Albanian, Catalan, French, Portuguese, Turkish
Gundercomma:
Latvian
Kundercomma:
Latvian
Lundercomma:
Latvian
Nundercomma:
Latvian
Rundercomma:
Latvian
Scedilla:
Turkish
Sundercomma:
Rumanian
Tundercomma:
Rumanian
Actually, now I think of it, Latvian and Lithuanian are currently
absent from the 'Overview', largely because they're the only European
languages employing the Latin script which are not currently supported
by Tiro fonts.
John Hudson, Type Director
Tiro Typeworks
Vancouver, BC
ti...@tiro.com
http://www.tiro.com
Olivier RANDIER
> bkph@kauai (Berthold K.P. Horn) wrote:
>
> >Can anyone shed any light on the use of cedilla versus commaaccent?
>
> They are quite distinct, both visually and linguistically,
I won't be so sure about the linguistic distinction. To my opinion, all
those signs were supposed to be cedillas, in the beginning. But materials
and/or fonts have never been adapted to languages which had a too little
"market". I guess that undercommas have been used instead, just because
the characters didn't exist in most materials or fonts, so typesetters had
to use "tricks" so to get them, and the most simple "trick" was an
undercomma. But I'm no specialist.
> and the Unicode Consortium caused endless confusion by referring to the
> commaaccent (what we call the undercomma) as the cedilla (e.g.
> Tcedilla, when there is no such diacritic).
If my explanation is right, that would explain this confusion : for
linguists, it has always been a cedilla, but typesetters allways used an
undercomma, because Tcedilla has never been available in typesetting
materials and/or fonts.
> I prefer the name undercomma simply because commaccent tells one nothing
about
> the placement of the diacritic mark. I have the same complaint about the
> use of the term dotaccent, which is particularly misleading: while the
> dot diacritic is, perhaps, most commonly encountered as an overdot,
> the orthographies of many African languages require an underdot.
I agree for undercomma. For dotaccent, I don't think it's really a
problem, as long as you refer to underdot for the other dot. But overdot
would be more consistent, anyway (though I think it's too late to change
those names, alas).
> >Cedilla is an attached decoration seen in Ccedilla, while
> >commaccent is detached, comma shaped, slightly larger, slightly lower
> >(except for gcommaaccent where it is rotated 180 degrees and placed
> >above the `g' since it can hardly be placed below it).
So, here is the explanation why there is a Gundercomma and a "gcircumflex"
together. I wondered. And this also confusing, because that rotated comma
ressembles a circumflex !
> I prefer the undercomma to more closely resemble a top heavy crescent,
> rather than simply copying the form of the comma.
>
> >It seems that for `C' , only `Ccedilla' is used and noone uses `Ccommaaccent'
>
> This is true, linguistically, although there are designs in which the
> cedilla takes a detached form. Jean-Francois Porchez's Apolline is
> notable in this regard, and carries it off very elegantly.
Same in Futura.
> >But for `S' it seems that both forms occur, apparently `Scommaaccent' in
> >Romania, and `Scedilla' in Turkey.
Couldn't it be because Romanian uses also Tundercomma (unavailable sign),
while turkish uses Ccedilla (available sign), so typesetters tried to keep
consistent signs within languages ?
--
Olivier -- Experluette
David Lemon
Berthold K.P. Horn wrote:
> Cedilla is an attached decoration seen in Ccedilla, while
> commaccent is detached, comma shaped, slightly larger, slightly lower
> (except for gcommaaccent where it is rotated 180 degrees and placed
> above the `g' since it can hardly be placed below it).
and Oliver Randier replied:
> So, here is the explanation why there is a Gundercomma and a "gcircumflex"
> together. I wondered. And this also confusing, because that rotated comma
> ressembles a circumflex !
Actually, gcicumflex is a different character. You may be thinking of what
looks like gcaron (a g with a caron or hachek over it). In script designs,
the comma accent over the g takes this other form.
- David Lemon
type nerd
Five big quacking zephyrs jolt my wax bed.
Tiro Typeworks
oran...@planete.net (Olivier RANDIER) wrote:
>I won't be so sure about the linguistic distinction. To my opinion, all
>those signs were supposed to be cedillas, in the beginning. But materials
>and/or fonts have never been adapted to languages which had a too little
>"market". I guess that undercommas have been used instead, just because
>the characters didn't exist in most materials or fonts, so typesetters had
>to use "tricks" so to get them, and the most simple "trick" was an
>undercomma. But I'm no specialist.
As far as I know, the use of the undercomma as a diacritic in Rumanian
and Latvian is not the result of typesetters being forced to fake
cedillas. This would seem to be supported by the existence of K and R
undercomma diacritics, in which the attached cedilla form is
impossible to achieve convincingly. Latvian is almost unique among
Eastern European languages in having a one-to-one relationship of
phoneme and grapheme (the only other being latinised Serbo-Croatian),
hence the high number of diacritics. My suspicion is that the mark
originated in written forms, simply as a small crescent under the
appropriate letters. Undercomma is, itself, a misleading term, as it
encourages people to simple put a comma under the letter and leave it
at that. Ideally, it should be something a little more graceful, I
think.
>> and the Unicode Consortium caused endless confusion by referring to the
>> commaaccent (what we call the undercomma) as the cedilla (e.g.
>> Tcedilla, when there is no such diacritic).
>If my explanation is right, that would explain this confusion : for
>linguists, it has always been a cedilla, but typesetters allways used an
>undercomma, because Tcedilla has never been available in typesetting
>materials and/or fonts.
Any linguists out there? I have never heard the undercomma diacritic
referred to as a cedilla outside of Unicode.
>So, here is the explanation why there is a Gundercomma and a "gcircumflex"
>together. I wondered. And this also confusing, because that rotated comma
>ressembles a circumflex !
No, this must be something else. The most common form of the g
undercomma is a slim crescent, open on the right, above the letter,
which can hardly be mistaken for a circumflex. The only other g
diacritics I know of, in use in European languages, are the g overdot
(Maltese) and the g breve (Turkish).
Steve MacGregor
Tiro Typeworks <ti...@portal.ca> wrote in article
<5eadoo$6...@thoth.portal.ca>...
<<No, this must be something else. The most common form of the g
undercomma is a slim crescent, open on the right, above the letter,
which can hardly be mistaken for a circumflex. The only other g
diacritics I know of, in use in European languages, are the g overdot
(Maltese) and the g breve (Turkish).>>
And there you have it: Esperanto, with its G-circumflex, is
therefore =not= a European language.
--
=======================================================
Reunite Gondwanaland!
=======================================================
Tiro Typeworks
"Steve MacGregor" <Stev...@GoodNet.Com> wrote:
><<No, this must be something else. The most common form of the g
>undercomma is a slim crescent, open on the right, above the letter,
>which can hardly be mistaken for a circumflex. The only other g
>diacritics I know of, in use in European languages, are the g overdot
>(Maltese) and the g breve (Turkish).>>
> And there you have it: Esperanto, with its G-circumflex, is
>therefore =not= a European language.
Apparently not. I thought the point of Esperanto was to be truly
international. I'm sure there are many people in Europe who speak
Esperanto, but that doesn't make it a European language. There are
many people in Europe who speak Arabic -- probably more than speak
Breton or Lower Sorbian -- does that make Arabic a European language?
Question for Esperanto speakers: Why would anyone in their right mind
invent a language a specify something so peculiar as a g-circumflex?
Wouldn't your language spread more quickly if it made use of commonly
available diacritics? Otherwise, why bother using the Latin alphabet
at all? Why not invent your own syllabic orthography?
B. Vermo
|As far as I know, the use of the undercomma as a diacritic in Rumanian
|and Latvian is not the result of typesetters being forced to fake
|cedillas. This would seem to be supported by the existence of K and R
|undercomma diacritics, in which the attached cedilla form is
|impossible to achieve convincingly.
...
|
|Any linguists out there? I have never heard the undercomma diacritic
|referred to as a cedilla outside of Unicode.
|
You may note that in "ISO Latin Alphabet Nr. 4", registration number 110
of Feb. 1986 for use with, among others, the Baltic languages, the
characters "2/3 CAPITAL LETTER R WITH CEDILLA" and "5/3 CAPITAL
LETTER K WITH CEDILLA" are depicted with a unattached cedilla.
|
|No, this must be something else. The most common form of the g
|undercomma is a slim crescent, open on the right, above the letter,
|which can hardly be mistaken for a circumflex.
In the same Latin 4, this is clearly a rotated cedilla.
It is referred to as "3/11 SMALL LETTER g WITH CEDILLA ABOVE"
I do not remember where I have stored my old ISO WG papers, so I
cannot tell for sure which countries were represented on the working
group, but the sponsor for the registration was ECMA.
The origin is European standard ECMA-94.
The page in question (with the graphical representations) was updated
in November 1986.
I would not be surprised if much of the confusion has been caused by
exiles from the Baltic countries developing a different terminology
because they did not have experts in this field among their number.
Or even that emigrants to different parts of the world have developed
different conventions, possibly all different from the norm in the
home country. This has happened often enough in other areas of emigrant
culture.
Tiro Typeworks
b...@bigblue.no (B. Vermo) wrote:
>You may note that in "ISO Latin Alphabet Nr. 4", registration number 110
>of Feb. 1986 for use with, among others, the Baltic languages, the
>characters "2/3 CAPITAL LETTER R WITH CEDILLA" and "5/3 CAPITAL
>LETTER K WITH CEDILLA" are depicted with a unattached cedilla.
Interesting. I will try to find a copy of this document. Every time I
have seen reference to R-cedilla and K-cedilla, what has actually been
shown is an R-undercomma. In many instances the undercomma form may
resemble an unattached cedilla (or rather, in those typefaces in which
the cedilla is unattached (e.g. Apolline), an unattached cedilla will
always resemble an undercomma). Confusion and confusion and
confusion...
>|No, this must be something else. The most common form of the g
>|undercomma is a slim crescent, open on the right, above the letter,
>|which can hardly be mistaken for a circumflex.
>In the same Latin 4, this is clearly a rotated cedilla.
>It is referred to as "3/11 SMALL LETTER g WITH CEDILLA ABOVE"
Yes, I have seen such things, and consider them preferable to what I
described as the 'most common form' -- the slim crescent. Again,
though, is it a rotated, unattached cedilla, or a rotated undercomma
form?
>I do not remember where I have stored my old ISO WG papers, so I
>cannot tell for sure which countries were represented on the working
>group, but the sponsor for the registration was ECMA.
>The origin is European standard ECMA-94.
>The page in question (with the graphical representations) was updated
>in November 1986.
>I would not be surprised if much of the confusion has been caused by
>exiles from the Baltic countries developing a different terminology
>because they did not have experts in this field among their number.
>Or even that emigrants to different parts of the world have developed
>different conventions, possibly all different from the norm in the
>home country. This has happened often enough in other areas of emigrant
>culture.
Often, written forms have been debased in their transfer into type.
Odd sorts have been combined to produce makeshift diacritics, and then
the results have been given as examples in linguistic texts or ISO
standard documents, and are called this or that. These names usually
have nothing at all to do with what the diacritic is called in the
language in which it appears. ...and confusion and condusion...
Richard M. Alderson III
In article <5eftbg$1...@thoth.portal.ca> ti...@portal.ca (Tiro Typeworks) writes:
>Question for Esperanto speakers:
I am not an Esperanto speaker (though I did look at it when I was about 14); I
am, on the other hand, a linguist.
>Why would anyone in their right mind invent a language a specify something so
>peculiar as a g-circumflex?
In order to spell a sound in his language with a single letter (or glyph, if
you prefer ;-). Dr. Zamenhof was a native speaker of Polish, in which both
voiceless and voiced palato-alveolar affricates exist. Rather than use
digraphs such as <cz>, he chose the same kind of economy of representation any
linguist would.
>Wouldn't your language spread more quickly if it made use of commonly avail-
>able diacritics?
What would you have chosen in the 1890's? When literacy was much lower? Why
not add a couple of simple glyphs to the standard European printer's vocabulary
(c-circumflex and g-circumflex) when you are creating a language for the whole
world? After all, by the time there would be a need for Esperanto printing,
typographers too would have embraced the language...
>Otherwise, why bother using the Latin alphabet at all? Why not invent your own
>syllabic orthography?
Two reasons: Dr. Zamenhof was a product of his environment, a native user of
an alphabetic system. Not being a philologist (as linguists were wont to call
themselves at the time), he would likely not have been familiar with syllabic
writing.
And more importantly, it would retard the spread of the language if people had
to learn a new way to write at the same time. After all, "international" in
the 1890's *meant* "European"...
--
Rich Alderson You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
what not.
--J. R. R. Tolkien,
alde...@netcom.com _The Notion Club Papers_
Tiro Typeworks
alde...@netcom16.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III) wrote:
>I am not an Esperanto speaker (though I did look at it when I was about 14); I
>am, on the other hand, a linguist.
And very welcome to this discussion. Thank you for your comments,
which are very interesting. You views on some of the other questions
of this thread would also be appreciated.
>What would you have chosen in the 1890's? When literacy was much lower? Why
>not add a couple of simple glyphs to the standard European printer's vocabulary
>(c-circumflex and g-circumflex) when you are creating a language for the whole
>world? After all, by the time there would be a need for Esperanto printing,
>typographers too would have embraced the language...
It was, I suppose, a time of hope for the future (always a dubious
proposition). Personally, I'm hopeful that Latin will make a comeback
as the pan-European language.
DickWeltz
>>As far as I know, the use of the undercomma as a diacritic in Rumanian
and Latvian is not the result of typesetters being forced to fake
cedillas. This would seem to be supported by the existence of K and R
undercomma diacritics, in which the attached cedilla form is
Eastern European languages in having a one-to-one relationship of
phoneme and grapheme (the only other being latinised Serbo-Croatian),
hence the high number of diacritics. My suspicion is that the mark
originated in written forms, simply as a small crescent under the
appropriate letters. Undercomma is, itself, a misleading term, as it
encourages people to simple put a comma under the letter and leave it
at that. Ideally, it should be something a little more graceful, I
think.
<<
You're right, as usual, John. But only if you concede that typography
existed before PostScript, Macintosh, Unicode, etc.
We had all those accented characters available in hot metal (e.g.
Linotype, Monotype), when the manufacturers could construct each character
appropriately for the language without regard to coding schemes, software
limitations, and the demand of come-lately "typesetters" for automatic
typographic thinking.
There seems to be a whole generation which thinks it has just discovered
accented characters and a bunch of strange names for them. But, then,
every new generation thinks it has just invented or reinvented the world.
-- Dick
-- Dick Weltz, Spectrum Multilanguage Communications, NYC
America's leading translators & foreign language typesetters
===================================================
Visit our Language News & Notes on the Web at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/SpectrumLang
DickWeltz
>>
Question for Esperanto speakers: Why would anyone in their right mind
invent a language a specify something so peculiar as a g-circumflex?
at all? Why not invent your own syllabic orthography?<<
Don't ask! You might get an answer in Esperanto.
Tracy Adams
Hi-- I would like to put a document with a lot of equations on the
web- it is written in LaTex and the on screen vesion looks horible-
Is there a way to make the fonts look nice on the screen?
Thanks, Tracy
Gerry Snyder
Missing from (the posts I have read in) this thread is the
historical note that the cedilla (in one context, anyway)
began as an "e" that was written after a "c" to make it
pronounced like an "s" rather than a "k". The "e" began
to be written smaller and smaller, and finally became a
diacritical mark on the "c".
Is there any similar history for the other characters under
discussion?
Gerry, not speaking for employer, wife, or cats
Tiro Typeworks
Gerry Snyder <gcs...@loop.com> wrote:
>Missing from (the posts I have read in) this thread is the
>historical note that the cedilla (in one context, anyway)
>began as an "e" that was written after a "c" to make it
>pronounced like an "s" rather than a "k". The "e" began
>to be written smaller and smaller, and finally became a
>diacritical mark on the "c".
Interesting. Can you please provide a source for this information?
B. Vermo
In article <5ei746$f...@thoth.portal.ca>, ti...@portal.ca (Tiro Typeworks) wrote:
|
|Yes, I have seen such things, and consider them preferable to what I
|described as the 'most common form' -- the slim crescent. Again,
|though, is it a rotated, unattached cedilla, or a rotated undercomma
|form?
It is definitely a cedilla, and looks quite good.
I got my ISO registry documents from
ECMA
Rue du Rhône 114
CH-1204 Genève
but they might possibly not be available any more.
Since they are in the public domain, I might fax the page to you
or possibly have it scanned and mailed.
Edward
In article <orandier-170...@mon2-13.planete.net>, Olivier RANDIER
<URL:mailto:oran...@planete.net> wrote:
>
> > >But for `S' it seems that both forms occur, apparently `Scommaaccent' in
> > >Romania, and `Scedilla' in Turkey.
>
> Couldn't it be because Romanian uses also Tundercomma (unavailable sign),
> while turkish uses Ccedilla (available sign), so typesetters tried to keep
> consistent signs within languages ?
>
If you look through Turkish newspapers you will see both Scedilla and Scomma.
It is usually a good idea to ask a knowledgeble Turk why it is so - I did, and
got an aswer:
"because they use fonts they can easily get and if there is no
font with Scedilla they will use a standard font and add Scomma."
I think one should always look at the writing tradition of a given language
and not make a priori definitions, for instance, Ccedilla in large displays
in France is almost always written as C with a small "something" underneath
(not comma or modified cedilla).
--
Edward Detyna
Electronic Font Foundry, 11 Silwood Road, Ascot SL5 0PY, England
tel.: 01344 875 201; fax: 01344 875 202
international: +44 (0) 1344 875 201; fax +44 (0) 1344 875 202
Todd Fahrner
In article <330D3B...@athena.mit.edu>, Tracy Adams
<tea...@athena.mit.edu> wrote:
PDF. It's really the only reliable way to deliver complex typography on the
Web today, for screen and print. Free to read, but not free to make - see
http://www.adobe.com if you're unfamiliar with PDF and the Acrobat product
family. Make sure you check the license on your fonts before embedding in
PDF lest the copyright police descend on your house, or you are robbed by a
band of homeless type designers someday.
A cheap alternative is to prepare the equations as GIF images, interspersed
in HTML text. I don't know enough about LaTex and your production
environment to advise you how to do this - but it's certainly possible.
Downside is that printed GIFs look awfully coarse, or if not are too large
for the Web.