Before the end of World War II, specialized ways of writing the Latin alphabet were used in German: Kurrent, Sütterlin, Fraktur, etc. These seemed to be regarded not just as different typefaces but as a different writing system altogether for German, to the point where I’ve seen several English dictionaries show “German” (Fraktur) in the table of “alphabets” beside Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, etc., giving the German pronunciation for letters and playing up the diacritics and eszett.
The only other example I can think of of what you might call a “national typeface” is the Basques: Basque Classic , and also a peculiar Spanish style I saw in various places (a serif face involving lots of inconsistent letter sizes, ligatures such as “de” written as Đ, sort of, and other such things).
Are there any other cases either like the latter (a font or typeface coming to be regarded as a peculiarly national style) or the former (a clearly Latin alphabet nevertheless “hiving off” as if it were a separate writing system)?
Irish. A particular style of lettering was used for printing texts in Irish. It has not been commonly used in recent decades. The forms of certain letters were quite distinctive, so much so that it was sometimes referred to as the “Irish alphabet” although it was clearly a variant form of the Latin alphabet. Another feature was the use of a symbol similar to the numeral “7” to mean “and”.
Cluny station is named after the “Hotel de Cluny”, a renaissance-era mansion housing the museum of the middle-age (and also, the Sorbonne was created during the middle-age)
So, the name of the station is written in a way that somewhat “looks like” medieval writing while not being medieval writing at all, so as to be legible, evocative of both the museum and the university the station is named after. I doubt it has a name, since in all likelihood, this style was just made up by some random designer.
Greek restaurants in the US almost always have signs with this kind of typeface. I haven’t been to Greece, though, to know if they do it there, or if this is just some kind of cheesy American affectation.
Yes, the modern Irish typeface (with or without dots) is ultimately based on a specifically Irish uncial script from medieval manuscripts. Paleographers distinguish between Irish and other uncials (e.g. Carolingian), but they all look alike to me.
To the calligrapher, there are definite differences, though I will concede that they can look alike to the layperson. As a former calligrapher who included both Irish uncial and Carolingian among his hands, I always found Irish uncial a little more “prescribed,” whlie Carolingian was a little more “free,” if that makes any sense.
FWIW, I recognized the Cluny-Sorbonne metro stop lettering as Carolingian, directly I saw it.
The one I was referring to is “Gaelic type”. Thanks for the link, thelurkinghorror.
The examples given in the “overview” on the Wiki page are not what I would consider typical Gaelic type, because they all use the curved “s” rather than the very characteristic long Gaelic s.
A better example is in the “samples” section at the bottom of the page.
I’d go for ‘cheesy American affectation’. It’s in the same category as the Chinese-restaurant font. TVTropes has an interesting article on the Foreign-looking Font, including examples in other languages that look Latin!
I did a Ctrl+F search to find the one you were talking about, and couldn’t identify it. Now I go back to the Gaelic type page, the & / ⁊ pops right out for me. :smack:
From that link, I’ve learned the origin of the “7” sign for “and” (which is still used in Irish). It comes from a Roman shorthand called “Tironian notes”.
That wikipedia page shows an image of the “7” character on a modern Irish street sign.
What were you looking for - an example of the long s?
On the wikipedia page for Gaelic type, there is a section called “Samples” half-way down the page. It shows two images of Gaelic type - a “Dublin” font and a “Kells” font. The first sentence of each uses a long s in the 5th word.
Inexplicably, the second sentence of what is ostensibly the same font uses a rounded s. So I don’t know.
I wouldn’t say it’s quite like the equivalent of Fraktur or the various Gaelic typefaces out there, but Gill Sans is strongly identified with the UK among typophiles. From this site:
“Gill Sans is the Helvetica of England; ubiquitous, utilitarian and yet also quite specific in its ability to point to our notions of time and place. As a graphic designer’s in-joke once put it ‘Q. How do you do British post-war design? A. Set it in Gill Sans and print it in British Racing Green’. As the preferred typeface of British establishments (the Railways, the Church, the BBC and Penguin Books), Gill Sans is part of the British visual heritage just like the Union Jack and the safety pin.”
Canada has an official typeface, Cartier, but it’s far from ubiquitous.
I don’t doubt your assertion, but I will agree that it is far from ubiquitous. I know a number of typefaces off the top of my head, but that one caused me to look for it. And when I did–it was a letdown. Here’s a link.
Perhaps it is my Toronto-centrism, but I think more people would recognize Toronto Subway Regular, than Cartier.
