Languages at a glance

[Member lor…]

Yep, cassa in Italian means box or cashier or casket if you stretch it a bit...
That basque list is awesome but chantilly, yoga, bungalow, jazz, puzzle, leitmotiv, mousse, hippy, jeep. I don't know...: )

[Member ebe…]

Are 'loan words' not allowed? My english list will become less populated without them. Especially the jj words! I don't want to advocate using loan words when there is a native word that works but in a pinch if the word is in the dictionary then I think it should be allowed to stay. Does this distiction make sense?

Felix, Thank You!

[Member Qui…]

I tried to avoid loan words in my Dutch list as much as possible.
But I guess sometimes it's not possible to avoid it. For example, the Dutch word for 'shower' is 'douche', which is just the French word. We don't have another word for it.

I would say, only use loan words if there is no native word containing a certain letter(combination), and when it's in the dictionary. Like you said. :)

[Member ben…]

In my list, I used loan words only if necessary. As they are not frequent formations, I have noted them with an asterisk.

For example, double g is not natural in basque and there can be no native word with it, but 'reggae' does exist in basque, as it is in the dictionary and it is used. So a 'gg' combination is only found in loan words, but it may appear in basque texts (there is no other word for 'reggae').

And yes, there is 'pizza' too. And we use it! ;)

[Member ebe…]

I have updated the title because we are still missing some languages - and I should add Czech & Slovakian, and probably other too! I suspect I have missed languages. Do you see languages that are missing? Especially ones you want? Is there any point in Romanized or 'Pin Yin' Chinese? Is there such a thing as 'Romanized' Korean? As far As I know there is no Pin Yin equivalent for Japanese. What about Welsh & Irish?

[Member Jon…]

There are at least hundreds of languages left to go if you want to include all languages written in some form of the Roman alphabet! Some major ones are: Turkish, Danish, Polish, Malaysian, Indonesian, Albanian, Afrikaans, Tagalog, Azeri, Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Croatian, Slovenian, Hausa, Yoruba... It makes one's head spin.

There are several romanization schemes for Korean. The most important ones might be the new official romanization used in South Korea, the old official romanization used in South Korea, the official romanization used in North Korea, the McCune-Reischauer romanization (upon which the latter two are based), and the Yale romanization scheme... Mostly though, people use ad hoc romanizations that stick to no system. I could provide lists, but I don't see how useful they would be, since romanized Korean serves a limited purpose anyway.

[Member ebe…]

Thanks for clarifing Brian!

romanized Korean serves a limited purpose anyway

So when you see romanized korean maybe it's for titles, signage and other short purposes not running text - is that right? You would never see a novel or comic book set in Romanized Korean. Correct?

Is there any chance that you could do an additional langauge? Are you a linguist? How did you come to have your Swahili? I was looking at your profile on Typophile but I can't get much info from it.

[Member Jon…]

So when you see romanized korean maybe it’s for titles, signage and other short purposes not running text - is that right? You would never see a novel or comic book set in Romanized Korean. Correct?

That's exactly right. A novel set in romanized Korean would be really interesting to slog through, I should say. There were plans in the Soviet Union in the 1920s to introduce latinize Korean, and it's fascinating to think what the result would have been like if they had gone through with them. I can't imagine reading in Korean in anything other than the Korean script give or take a few Hanja (Chinese characters).

I would love to contribute an additional language, but I'm all out, I'm afraid. I also speak some Swedish and French, but those have already been covered. I'm not a linguist, though I am deeply interested in different languages; I lived in several different countries growing up. Since you're interested, my exposure to Swahili was from when I lived in Kenya for two years. Maybe one day I'll design my long overdue Kenya-inspired typeface...

[Member ebe…]

Thanks for answering my questions!

Do you have any insight into what is the Korean type market like?

Have you designed any Korean fonts? Roman ones?

I lived in Tanzania for 3 years as a kid. It was great. I lived near the beach north of Dar es Salaam for a year and in a concrete house for rest of the time - south west of Dar I think. How old were you in Kenya?

Now I am wondering how best to fill out the missing languages. Probably I should take the ones we have & give them a home. Then maybe we will get the rest of them taken care of.

For some reason I thought that Malaysian & Indonesian used their own scripts and that Roman glyphs would be used in a way more similar to Korean. Can you tell me more about that? It's cool to hear the name for chinese glyphs in Korean. :-)

[Member Jon…]

As for the missing languages, I'm sure there are on-line word lists or dictionaries that we could cull the right words from. It would be time-consuming to be sure, but the programmers among us can maybe help automate the process. Volunteers?

I only have an amateur's general insight into the Korean font scene, but I can tell you it has witness a boom in recent years. Because of the amount of work needed to produce a hangul font, decent ones are still hard to come by, but there have been some really impressive designs. To mention just one development, Hankyoreh, a daily newspaper, introduced a revolutionary news text face with its redesign in 2005--it abandons the traditional scheme of fitting the glyphs into squarish blocks.

I have not yet designed a full Korean font though I've drawn some glyphs. It's too much work. I've designed full sets of Roman glyphs (as well as basic Cyrillic and Greek ones), but they're still works in progress. Maybe I'll let the see some light in the Critique forum soon..

I have zero background on the Malay and Indonesian languages, but Wikipedia tells me various scripts have been used historically--a modified Arabic script called Jawi which is still in limited use, and before that, Pallava, Kawi and Rencong script. We have Western colonization to thank for the Latin script.

[Member ebe…]

We may be getting an Icelandic entry soon. :-)

I think it is nearly time for the compiled list to be made. I had been asuming that the list authors would want credit. Does anybody *not* want credit in the document?

Where do you want the document to be available to you? If nobody objects I think I might put the document on a small 'type help' site along with other text files meant to help testing fonts. I should also see if typophile or other sites will be willing to serve the document as well.

[Member mil…]

Eben, I just altered the Finnish a bit. I had forgotten about the wonderful double-h hihhuli...

Any other Finnish changes are of course welcome!

[Member ebe…]

Awesome!

Sorry if this sounds regionalist or something but , do you have any idea who we might ask for the Danish or the Norweigian?

The way I got someone to do the Icelandic is I went to Luc Devroy's pages and found and Icelandic type maker. I could do the same for other languages.

I can keep doing that for the missing languages - But if one of us has a friend... ;-)

[Member DTY…]

I'm surprised nobody has done Latin yet; perhaps there's a shortage of native speakers here :) Rather than wait for a native speaker to show up, I threw this list together. Some notes: in ancient Latin lettering, there is no J or W and U is the same letter as V. In modern publications, a distinction between U (vowel) and V (consonant) is often made, and in some modern publications, mostly older ones, a similar distinction is made between I (vowel) and J (consonant). Because the latter is mostly obsolete (more so than the Latin language in general), I have used the modern U/V distinction throughout but only used the modern I/J distinction for the J entries. Any U/V letter could potentially be set as either U or V, though. The letter K is not normally used in modern Latin except for a couple of special words, but it was sometimes used more in ancient Latin instead of C at the beginning of a word when followed by A. The letter W doesn't exist at all in Latin (though, just to confuse matters, that's how the V sound was pronounced before the first century AD). For letters that can't be doubled, I've included an example of single occurrence in the middle of a word.

Diacritics are mostly not used, but in textbooks or dictionaries, A E I O U and rarely Y can have a macron or (less often used) a breve. In transcriptions of ancient inscriptions, A E O or U can have an apex (looks like an acute accent) and I can either have an apex or be taller than the other letters.

Edit: I've changed all U's in the all caps words to V's. This is because lower-case or mixed-case setting of Latin normally occurs in texts where U and V are usually differentiated by modern editors, whereas all cap setting is normally either copying inscriptions or pseudo-inscriptional and thus is more likely to follow ancient practice in not making the U/V distinction. I also added the missing forms of chely.

A
ars, Ars, ARS
phraates, Phraates, PHRAATES [loan words only]
naufragia, Naufragia, NAVFRAGIA

B
buxus, Buxus, BVXVS
subbrevis, Subbrevis, SVBBREVIS
ab, Ab, AB

C
cattus, Cattus, CATTVS
vacca, Vacca, VACCA
hoc, Hoc, HOC

D
damnatio, Damnatio, DAMNATIO
meddix, Meddix, MEDDIX
aliquid, Aliquid, ALIQVID

E
eructamus, Eructamus, ERVCTAMVS
praeemptor, Praeemptor, PRAEEMPTOR
rete, Rete, RETE

F
faenerator, Faenerator, FAENERATOR
officina, Officina, OFFICINA
[none except in abbreviations]

G
glis, Glis, GLIS
agger, Agger, AGGER
magog, Magog, MAGOG [loan words only]

H
haruspex, Haruspex, HARVSPEX
traho, Traho, TRAHO [can't be doubled]
ioseph, Ioseph, IOSEPH [loan words only]

I
ibidem, Ibidem, IBIDEM
piissimus, Piissimus, PIISSIMVS
latrunculi, Latrunculi, LATRVNCULI

J* [see explanation above]
janus, Janus, IANVS [or JANUS]
major, Major, MAJOR [can't be doubled]
[none except in obsolete late medieval or early modern spellings]

K [can only occur at the beginning of a word before the letter A]
kalendas, Kalendas, KALENDAS
[none]
[none]

L
laena, Laena, LAENA
caballus, Caballus, CABALLVS
nihil, Nihil, NIHIL

M
mel, Mel, MEL
commodus, Commodus, COMMODVS
enim, Enim, ENIM

N
natalicia, Natalicia, NATALICIA
penna, Penna, PENNA
pan, Pan, PAN

O
opusculum, Opusculum, OPVSCVLVM
laocoon, Laocoon, LAOCOON [loan words only]
mango, Mango, MANGO

P
perna, Perna, PERNA
appius, Appius, APPIVS
[none except in abbreviations]

Q
quingenaria, Quingenaria, QVINGENARIA
atque, Atque, ATQVE [can't be doubled]
[none except in abbreviations]

R
rabidus, Rabidus, RABIDVS
terror, Terror, TERROR
per, Per, PER

S
sic, Sic, SIC
passus, Passus, PASSVS
nummularius, Nummularius, NVMMVLARIVS

T
transpadani, Transpadani, TRANSPADANI
battuere, Battuere, BATTVERE
et, Et, ET

U* [see explanation above]
usucapio, Usucapio, VSVCAPIO [or USUCAPIO]
duumvir, Duumvir, DVVMVIR [or DUUMVIR]
cornu, Cornu, CORNV [or CORNU]

V* [see explanation above]
volturnalia, Volturnalia, VOLTVRNALIA
avis, Avis, AVIS [can't be doubled in standard spelling except when using V for both V and U]
[none except when using V for both V and U]

X
xiphias, Xiphias, XIPHIAS [loan words only]
axis, Axis, AXIS [can't be doubled]
rex, Rex, REX

Y
[none in standard spelling but possible in nonstandard spellings of loan words]
hypocaustum, Hypocaustum, HYPOCAVSTVM [loan words only; can't be doubled]
chely, Chely, CHELY [only in rare loan words in the vocative case]

Z
zodiacus, Zodiacus, ZODIACVS [loan words only]
rhazes, Rhazes, RHAZES [loan words only; can't be doubled]
[none]

There are also assorted language-specific typographic arcana like the Claudian letters (an abortive attempt to add three letters to the alphabet) and various symbols used as abbreviations that are mainly of importance for transcribing ancient inscriptions.

[Member ebe…]

How silly of me not to have requested - Latin. I guess I thought that the number of people who know let alone publish in latin would be too small to hope for something like this. But I am extremely happy to see it! Will you tell us about your relationship to Latin and about publications that are in Latin? Supposedly Latin forms actually look their best in Latin. I think I can see that now.

[Member DTY…]

Will you tell us about your relationship to Latin and about publications that are in Latin?

I'm not fluent in the way that a classical literature person would be, but I can read Latin partly because of a few years of it in school and partly because I do Roman archaeology. In publishing, I've never done a whole book in Latin, but plenty of short phrases or sentences show up in lots of kinds of books: it's unavoidable in classics or medieval history or art history, of course, and you also find a bit in other areas like law or medicine, for example.

I probably should have done the all caps words using V for U (HYPOCAVSTVM, for example), but I was afraid that switching the spelling like that would confuse matters.

[Member ebe…]

Cool! Thanks for the explanation. What do you think about listing it as V/U* ?

Then we can put your explanation after the asterix.

Is that good? Or do you want to switch to the V?

[Member DTY…]

Or do you want to switch to the V?

I've edited it to a mixed solution, to match the inconsistent ways that Latin is most often typeset.

[Member mil…]

Sorry, Eben, but I don't know any Danes or Norwegians :^(
They live too far...

[Member cla…]

Danish to the rescue:

A
alfarvej, Alfarvej, ALFARVEJ
ostemad, Ostemad, OSTEMAD
harmonika, Harmonika, HARMONIKA

B
bistå, Bistå, BISTÅ
prydbusk, Prydbusk, PRYDBUSK
admiralstab, Admiralstab, ADMIRALSTAB

C
ciselør. Ciselør, CISELØR
afdelingschef, Afdelingschef, AFDELINGSCHEF
n/a

D
dille, Dille, DILLE
overdel, Overdel, OVERDEL
hoved, Hoved, HOVED

E
efter, Efter, EFTER
syngespil, Syngespil, SYNGESPIL
mange, Mange, MANGE

F
forbigået, Forbigået, FORBIGÅET
morgenfrisk, Morgenfrisk, MORGENFRISK
bødestraf, Bødestraf, BØDESTRAF

G
gylle, Gylle, GYLLE
eftergjort, Eftergjort, EFTERGJORT
forretning, Forretning, FORRETNING

H
halløj, Halløj, HALLØJ
halshugning, Halshugning, HALSHUGNING
kaffepunch, Kaffepunch, KAFFEPUNCH

I
istid, Istid, ISTID
udspillet, Udspillet, UDSPILLET
afgudsdyrkeri, Afgudsdyrkeri, AFGUDSDYRKERI

J
jættestue, Jættestue, JÆTTESTUE
afgjort, Afgjort, AFGJORT
gravhøj, Gravhøj, GRAVHØJ

K
klister, Klister, KLISTER
stikker, Stikker, STIKKER
anklagebænk, Anklagebænk, ANKLAGEBÆNK

L
listesko, Listesko, LISTESKO
gennemlysning, Gennemlysning, GENNEMLYSNING
gammel, Gammel, GAMMEL

M
mågehøg, Mågehøg, MÅGEHØG
dumsmart, Dumsmart, DUMSMART
alderdomshjem, Alderdomshjem, ALDERDOMSHJEM

N
nyhed, Nyhed, NYHED
åbenbaring, Åbenbaring, ÅBENBARING
fjernsyn, Fjernsyn, FJERNSYN

O
ovengaden, Ovengaden, OVENGADEN
alvorsord, Alvorsord, ALVORSORD
anløbsbro, Anløbsbro, ANLØBSBRO

P
præst, Præst, PRÆST
stoppe, Stoppe, STOPPE
svamp, Svamp, SVAMP

Q
qvinde, Qvinde, QVINDE (archaic form of 'Kvinde')
n/a
n/a

R
røver, Røver, RØVER
nedløbsrør, Nedløbsrør, NEDLØBSRØR
mangler, Mangler, MANGLER

S
solskin, Solskin, SOLSKIN
afsæt, Afsæt, AFSÆT
åndeløs, Åndeløs, ÅNDELØS

T
tæskehold, Tæskehold, TÆSKEHOLD
åbningstale, Åbningstale, ÅBNINGSTALE
flot, Flot, FLOT

U
under, Under, UNDER
roekule, Roekule, ROEKULE
nu, Nu, NU

V
vejret, Vejret, VEJRET
påvist, Påvist, PÅVIST
gulv, Gulv, GULV

W
wienerbrød, Wienerbrød, WIENERBRØD
trawl, Trawl, TRAWL
oddfellow, Oddfellow, ODDFELLOW

X
xylografere, Xylografere, XYLOGRAFERE
taxa, Taxa, TAXA
sphinx, Sphinx, SPHINX

Y
yver, Yver, YVER
afbryde, Afbryde, AFBRYDE
havneby, Havneby, HAVNEBY

Z
zinksalve, Zinksalve, ZINKSALVE
Forzinkning, Forzinkning, forzinkning
trapez, Trapez, TRAPEZ

Æ
æblehøst, Æblehøst, ÆBLEHØST
trækfugl, trækfugl, TRÆKFUGL
asketræ, Asketræ, ASKETRÆ

Ø
ødselhed, Ødselhed, ØDSELHED
morgengrøde, Morgengrøde, MORGENGRØDE
blomsterfrø, Blomsterfrø, BLOMSTERFRØ

Å
åkande, Åkande, ÅKANDE
automatvåben, Automatvåben, AUTOMATVÅBEN
mørkegrå, Mørkegrå, MØRKEGRÅ

Now who will compile a nice file converted into the Fontlab format?

kind regards,
Claus Eggers Sørensen

[Member ebe…]

Hooray! Thank you Claus!

Now who will compile a nice file converted into the Fontlab format?

I mean to make a unicode text file to make it easy to test a font with all of these glyphs. It will have the other languages here too - and other too as soon as they arrive.

Do you mean a Fontlab file with *just* the glyphs needed for Danish?

[Member cla…]

I mean a file that can be loaded into Fontlab's metrics window, and where all the special characters are in the /oslash format. I suspect that someone has a Python script laying around for just this purpose? By the way, I forgot a word that ends on 'u', and that would be 'nu', so I have added it to my original post.

[Member ebe…]

I remember asking about that before. It would go 'r/oslash' etc. I see... And you are right - there might be a python based way of handeling such things.

I have another project that might be better suied to your request. It's called - 'brute force testing'. It's also incomplete but I could make a version of it for you where the 'ø' is seplaced by /oslash etc. It would be a simple search replace string that even I could do.

Maybe you will like what is there and/or can adapt it yourself. Please feel free to use it.

Or maybe I am off on the wrong foot. Pleae let me know. Anyway, it is here:

https://typography.guru/forums/topic/40960-forwarding

[Member dai…]

Here is the icelandic list:
I tried to choose challanging words in a typographic sense, such as "umhyggju" (e. Care) which is quite difficult (esp in script fonts) because of all the descenders.

A
afl, Afl, AFL
einkaaðili, Einkaaðili, EINKAAÐILI
anda, Anda, ANDA

Á
ástfanginn, Ástfanginn, ÁSTFANGINN
sjáaldur, Sjáaldur, SJÁALDUR
víðsjá, Víðsjá, VÍÐSJÁ

B
beinlínis, Beinlínis, BEINLÍNIS
abbast, Abbast, ABBAST
gabb, Gabb, GABB

C
N/A

D
drengur, Drengur, DRENGUR
hlýddi, Hlýddi, HLÝDDI
útlönd, Útlönd, ÚTLÖND

Ð
ð- - N/A
ðð - N/A
orðatiltækið, Orðatiltækið, ORÐATILTÆKIÐ

E
eðlisfræði, Eðlisfræði, EÐLISFRÆÐI
ee - N/A
jurtate, Jurtate, JURTATE

É
éljagangur, Éljagangur, ÉLJAGANGUR
éé - N/A
hlé, Hlé, HLÉ

F
framkvæmd, Framkvæmd, FRAMKVÆMD
gaffall, Gaffall, GAFFALL
gróf, Gróf, GRÓF

G
gjörningur, Gjörningur, GJÖRNINGUR
byggja, Byggja, BYGGJA
þvag, Þvag, ÞVAG

H
háleitur, Háleitur, HÁLEITUR
hh - N/A
-h - N/A

I
innilokaður, Innilokaður, INNILOKAÐUR
birkiilmur, Birkiilmur, BIRKIILMUR
skilji, Skilji, SKILJI

Í
ígulker, Ígulker, ÍGULKER
íí - N/A
því, Því, ÞVÍ

J
jafnrétti, Jafnrétti, JAFNRÉTTI
jj - N/A
-j - N/A

K
kjarnyrtur, Kjarnyrtur, KJARNYRTUR
samþykkja, Samþykkja, SAMÞYKKJA
mark, Mark, MARK

L
lamaður, Lamaður, LAMAÐUR
ellilífeyrisþegi, Ellilífeyrisþegi, ELLILÍFEYRISÞEGI
hlátrasköll, Hlátrasköll, HLÁTRASKÖLL

M
málstaður, Málstaður, MÁLSTAÐUR
sammála, Sammála, SAMMÁLA
mánuðum, Mánuðum, MÁNUÐUM

N
nákvæmur, Nákvæmur, NÁKVÆMUR
hannyrðir, Hannyrðir, HANNYRÐIR
bann, Bann, BANN

O
ofbeldi, Ofbeldi, OFBELDI
oo - N/A
svo, Svo, SVO

Ó
óskhyggja, Óskhyggja, ÓSKHYGGJA
-óó N/A / but close: skósóli, Skósóli, SKÓSÓLI
berjamó, Berjamó, BERJAMÓ

P
prakkari, Prakkari, PRAKKARI
peppa, Peppa, PEPPA
kjaftstopp, Kjaftstopp, KJAFTSTOPP

Q
N/A

R
ríkisstjórn, Ríkisstjórn, RÍKISSTJÓRN
kyrrð, Kyrrð, KYRRÐ
brjálaður, Brjálaður, BRJÁLAÐUR

S
sambýli, Sambýli, SAMBÝLI
rassskella, Rassskella, RASSSKELLA
annars, Annars, ANNARS

T
tölvuþrjótur, Tölvuþrjótur, TÖLVUÞRJÓTUR
sáttatillaga, Sáttatillaga, SÁTTATILLAGA
eðlilegt, Eðlilegt, EÐLILEGT

U
upplýsingatækni, Upplýsingatækni, UPPLÝSINGATÆKNI
hænuungi, Hænuungi, HÆNUUNGI
umhyggju, Umhyggju, UMHYGGJU

Ú
útivistarfólk, Útivistarfólk, ÚTIVISTARFÓLK
úú - N/A
þú, Þú, ÞÚ

V
vandræði, Vandræði, VANDRÆÐI
vv - N/A
-v - N/A

X
x- - N/A
xx - N/A
strax, Strax, STRAX

Y
yndisfríð, Yndisfríð, YNDISFRÍÐ
yy - N/A
yngismey, Yngismey, YNGISMEY

Ý
ýmislegt, Ýmislegt, ÝMISLEGT
ýý - N/A
þrumuský, Þrumuský, ÞRUMUSKÝ

Z
z- - N/A
zz - N/A (even though "mezzoforte" was an icelandic band, the word doesn't exist in icelandic)
stanz, Stanz, STANZ (the letter z was removed from the language in 1974, but the concervative newspaper Morgunblaðið still hangs on to it)

Þ
þangað, Þangað, ÞANGAÐ
þþ - N/A
-þ - N/A

Æ
æðislegur, Æðislegur, ÆÐISLEGUR
hrææta, Hrææta, HRÆÆTA
útsæ, Útsæ, ÚTSÆ

Ö
öryrki, Öryrki, ÖRYRKI
öö - N/A
sjö, Sjö, SJÖ

- - -
best regards,
Dagny Reykjalin
www.reykjalin.com

[Member ebe…]

I tried to choose challanging words in a typographic sense, such as “umhyggju” (e. Care) which is quite difficult (esp in script fonts) because of all the descenders.

Dagny, thank you for your excellent work!

By the end of the month I will have compiled what we have. I will also be working on finding a home for this material so it's easy to find.