Talk:Typographical ligature

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Typographical ligature article.
Article policies

Contents

[edit] "ß"

Originally, the German letter "ß" was a "long s" -- "small s" ligature. – Torsten Bronger 07:18, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I was going to make the same comment. Historically, ß was a ligature:
Image:szlig.jpg
-- Dominus 05:52, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Exactly. I think the situation is as follows: Historically it is an ſ–s-Ligature. But in old Gothic types this ligature could be mistaken for an sz. Willberg has a convincing figure in his book "Schriften erkennen" that illustrates this.
This mis-interpretation made many typographers to cut typefaces with a real sz ligature, especially in the post-Gothic era, when this mixing-up wouldn't have occcur actually since the Antiqua typefaces are very clear.
So, although it bases on a mis-interpretation, it has happened some 600 years ago, and it is valid to say that the "ß" may also be an sz ligature. In Times New Romen, it's an sz, in Garamond it's an ſs. – Torsten Bronger 07:31, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Table

"Not all browser/operating system combinations will render the table correctly". Can someone make graphics? They definitely don't all show up on mine. - Omegatron

Is that really needed? Surely it is obvious what these ligatures looks like: 'oe' looks like an e connected to an o. Jor 17:39, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
well, they vary from just two letters stuck together (the A and E being "tipped" for instance), and the article that directed me to this article had a ligature "st" mentioned with an arc over the letters or something, and i was wondering what it looked like. The html version doesn't show up in my browser. I think that is reason enough to have graphics. I will do it eventually if no one else will. - Omegatron
I substituted a bitmap for the character table. – Torsten Bronger 20:07, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Nice work on the graphic, however I am re-adding the table. If only because the characters there can be copy&pasted by anyone if wanted. Jor 20:26, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "W"

Removed:

Thus our w is also a ligature.

Eh? -- Karada 00:26, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It's not difficult to see what whoever wrote this had in mind, but I agree that "w" is not a ligature. I have just learned, however, that it is an approximant, which has got to count for something. -- Itai 00:36, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "fffl"

Somewhere it could be noted that in older German spelling there was (purportedly) a need for an fffl ligature for one compound word: Sauerstoffflasche, meaning oxygen tank. This has since been reformed to Sauerstofflasche under a rule that triple letters are to be avoided. --FOo 20:07, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Can you find a source for that? Sounds odd, but just may be true :-) — Jor (Talk) 20:21, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
First, Sauerstoffflasche has always been spelt like that, it wasn't affected by the reform. Secondly, due to (probably not only) German rules ligatures are broken up at sub-word boundaries, so it's merely an "ff" ligature followed by an "fl" ligature. – Torsten Bronger 07:33, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, that's a point, Torsten. I just wanted to note the same, that the paragraph

The Requiem Italic by Jonathan Hoefler is probably the only font that has designed the extremely rare fffl ligature, to be used at least in two German words: Sauerstoffflasche (oxygen tank) and Sauerstoffflaschenspuler (oxygen tank cleanser). This same typeface has plenty of other unusual ligatures, such as stfl for "mistflower", cta for "octagon", ttfr for "Gottfried", a German name, tfl for "outflanked", sfy for "satisfying", ctfi for "factfinding", stfi for "Eastfield" and stfj for "Vestfjorden", and many others.

simply contains false information. According to German typographical tradition ligatures are not allowed over morpheme boundaries, such also not over word boundaries in case of compound words. Thus, fffl would NOT be used in Sauerstoffflasche, and similarly, ttfr would not be used in Gottfried (rather tt + fr ligature, if any). I do believe, that the original editor (or if he took the examples from the font's description) was just trying to find some examples "with brute force" without knowing (German) typography well. Which is a don't-don't concerning an article dealing with... well, typography (as Ligatures do). I'm definitely going to remove the examples at least, if I do not encounter objection. Szabi 12:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's not really false information. For artistic reasons, it may well be appropriate to use these ligatures. It doesn't claim that they are mandatory after all. However, it is not really clear either, so a clarification would certainly be helpful. – Torsten Bronger 12:36, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] good article

fascinating. i am such a nerd. good work all. 141.211.231.113 01:17, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cyrillic letters != ligatures

Article says that Ы Ю Я are ligatures, but they are not. They are regular Cyrillic letters.

Yozh 01:08, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
they originated as ligatures, just like w. dab (ᛏ) 12:54, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Missing info

In the article:

Formerly there were the additional members for "fa", "fe", "fo", ...

What happened to these ligatures? The paragraph is incomplete.

[edit] "fj"

What about "fjord"? That's an English word. æle ✆ 01:18, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Arabic ligature

I would argue that the article's description of ligature in the Arabic script is not quite accurate. "And in the Arabic alphabet, which has a very "fluid" shape, there is usually ligature between every single letter." however, the article describes a ligature as "two or more letterforms...written or printed as a unit."

As a rule, when Arabic letters are connected, they are not truly written or printed as a unit. It is much like Cursive writing in English (and others). In a cursive English font, for instance, there is not a keystroke or character for every combination of adjancent letter, each is simply designed so that when they touch, the letter will still be connected. Granted, Arabic has several forms of each letter, such that a letter is writen differently depending on whether it comes first, last, or in the middle of a word or near a non-connecting letter.

There is (at least) one true ligature in Arabic, which is the "Laam-Alif", two letters with sounds similar to our English "L" and "A". The ligature is used often, most frequently when a noun beginning with Alif is made definite (and therefore the "Alif-Laam" definite article is added before the initial Alif of the word). Also, with the proper vocalization, "Laam-Alif" is the Modern Standard Arabic word for "No". Some Arabic keyboards also have a ligature for the name of God, the Shahadah, and the blessings spoken and written after mentioning a Prophet or companion of the Prophet.

You are correct. The sentence you reference does not make sense, and was clearly written by someone who did not read the first sentence of this article. I am going to remove it and replace it with a separate one-sentence-long paragraph mentioning the Laam-Alif ligature.

Cal 18:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Emigre: Mrs Eaves

I do not understand the relevence of the link to the Mrs. Eaves typeface in the external links section and am curious if it is spam. However, I don't really know.

Mrs Eaves is well-known amongst typographers for its superfluous ligatures. jr98664 06:34, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "AE" / "OE"

æ (e dans l'a in french) is not a true ligature. It is really a regular letter. In caps, it is a regular lettre too. It would not be true if it was a ligature. 62.212.120.116 16:07, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dutch "ij"?

It says: "The letter ij is derived from "II" (double-I), and has similarly a distinct letter in Dutch."

This is confusing to me--I don't know what "the letter ij" refers to, and in Dutch I thought that "ij" was written like a "y" with umlauts...so what do 'l's have to do with it? Critic9328 05:36, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

IJ is not written as ÿ in Dutch, except in some limited (pre-Unicode) 8-bit encodings, and then unofficially. The letter ij is considered a single letter in Dutch by most, just like the German ß(a ſz ligature) is by most German.
Before spelling was centralized IJ was also written y, ii, iy, etc.—but this is meaningless in modern Dutch. Afrikaans, which developed out of contact between Dutch and African languages, uses an y where comparable Dutch words use ij. ÿ was, I believe, never used until mechanical typewriters and later PCs came about. And even most mechanical typewriters sold in the Netherlands include(d) an IJ key.
That IJ developed out of an II (double I) ligature is well attested from early and middle Dutch texts. I'm not sure why you believe the letter L has anything to do with this, perhaps your browser is configured to use a font where lowercase L and uppercase i are identical? -- Jordi·✆ 12:13, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
ß is not considered a letter in German (except by people who do not make the distinction between 'letter' and 'ligature', of course). Case in point, it is equivalent to ss in alphabetical order. Otoh, ä, ö, ü are borderline cases, they may be considered independent letters, or equivalent to ae, oe, ue, or again equivalent to a, o, u (viz., in alphabetical order) in German. dab (ᛏ) 12:53, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Numero sign?

Is the numero sign a ligature? —mjb 07:38, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

No. It is a number-like symbol. -- Jordi·✆ 12:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
what's "number-like" about it? dab (ᛏ) 12:56, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] W "not a tue ligature"?

While VV developed into W, the modern Latin letter W is not a true ligature as it represents a different sound from VV/UU.

Well, so do Æ and Œ, in several languages... FilipeS 16:16, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

true, that's not a point at all. English doesn't even have the digraph uu, and vv only for purely orthographical reasons. dab (ᛏ) 16:36, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

Where are the editors of this article getting all the information from? Initially you had online sources under the heading "References" (or was it "sources"?), so I changed that heading to "External links". Online sources are not acceptable on Wikipedia. Every piece of information must be from a verifiable print source. This is official WP policy.

From the talk on this talk page it appears the editors are deciding the facts concerning ligatures by conferencing between themselves. Correct me if I am wrong about that.

Please add valid print references.
Arbo talk 13:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

"Online sources are not acceptable on Wikipedia. Every piece of information must be from a verifiable print source. This is official WP policy."
Which policy? -- Jordi·✆ 15:41, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
WP:REF contains no section on this. In fact, it mentions online sources throughout! -- Jordi·✆ 15:44, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:REF may have changed since I last read it, or I misremembered the information. Nonetheless you present a limited view of the WP help articles on this matter, referencing only one page and then generalizing about its content.

In essence, I meant things like this:

Official policy: Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published sources (online and paper) "Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources."

The above policy rules out Blogdorf on ligatures. I read that blog and I can tell you from having designed a dozen fonts myself that the contributors to the blog do not posess an intrinsic or complete understanding of typographic ligatures. They have a functional general understanding of the subject, but cannot be considered experts.

From the same official policy: "Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by a well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field or a well-known professional journalist. These may be acceptable so long as their work has been previously published by reliable third-party publications."

According to that "Hoefler & Frere-Jones Requiem font", and "Emigre: Mrs Eaves ligatures" may be accaptable. Knowing these people and their type design work, I can confirm that they do indeed know what they're talking about. Zuzana Licko and Jonathan Hoefler are two of the world's leading typeface designers and have been previously published in print, and can be considered authorative and reliable.

Guidelines

Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Using online and self-published sources:

"Typically peer-reviewed publications are considered to be the most reliable."

"A self-published source is a published source that has not been subject to any form of independent fact-checking, or where no one stands between the writer and the act of publication. It includes personal websites, and books published by vanity presses. Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources."

Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Self-published sources as secondary sources: "Personal websites, blogs, and other self-published or vanity publications should not be used as secondary sources." (this is what I meant)

The reliability of sources, print or online, sets the absolute limit on the reliability of WP articles: Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Finding good sources "Until more authors publish online, and more material is uploaded, some of the most reliable and informative sources are still available only in printed form."

Print sources only is not official policy, but you can see what I'm getting at. An article on a historical subject like Ligature should have more than a blog and the websites of two self-published commercial type designers as references. Readers should not be expected to assume such an article is authorative unless it has more reliable online sources or print sources backing it up.

At least the article now has one print reference and is much improved from our edits. Thanks for for helping out. All of my edits and everything I've said here are in good faith. Apologies if my editing seemed aggressive.
Arbo talk 08:17, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ligature picture

Please see the discussion about possible inaccuracy of captioning of the s/i ligature picture at Image talk:Fi garamond sort 001.png

Notthe9 18:44, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

On Ligature (palaeography) there's a long-standing proposal to merge it with this article. I agree. We can't explain typographical ligatures without explaining handwritten ligatures first, and parts of this article devoted to handwritten ligatures are much longer than entire Ligature (palaeography) article. I propose name "Ligature (writing)". Nikola 05:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

While I agree that ligatures had their origins in manuscripts, the development of moveable type created a new artistic field. Merging typographical ligatures with paleographic ligatures would have the same implication as merging calligraphy with desktop publishing. 41.242.15.146 11:02, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

But we can't even explain well what a typographical ligature is without going first through handwritten ligatures, and that article currently is a single-sentenct stub. Nikola 10:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate that. Shouldn't the paleographic information be expanded or the information on the typographic ligature page be appended onto the paleographic page instead of merging them. 41.242.15.146 11:00, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


Agree with the merger [edit, I just note that it is even my own suggestion]: the point is that Ligature (palaeography) is just a stub. Make it a h2 section here. If it grows larger, it can always be made a full article again and linked with {{main}}. dab (𒁳) 12:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cyrillic ligatures

What about the Cyrillic characters Љ and Њ? AWN2 01:13, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Ligatures of ЛЬ and НЬ, they're in the article. Nikola 10:21, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dollar sign

Amended to say $ "probably" originated as a ligature, as the article lists several other possibilities. Rojomoke 10:02, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Swedish ligatures?

The article lists swedish as a language with special ligatures but does not give any example. The swedish alphabet has a-z and three additional characters ÅÄÖ (åäö). It don't think any of these are ligatures, am I missing something? Foolip 09:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish DE ligature

Spanish DE ligature as used in hand-painted sign
Spanish DE ligature as used in hand-painted sign

Here is a photo of the Spanish DE ligature which I've now seen three times. This one is from a hand-painted sign in Oaxaca state, Mexico. I've also seen it used in an azulejo either in Spain or Mexico but can't remember the details.

In any case I can't find much information on this ligature on the Internet and I believe it's not covered by Unicode.

— Hippietrail (talk) 20:48, 21 May 2008 (UTC)