FreeLists / biblitfonts / [biblitfonts] Re: New Greek characters in Unicode 4.0

[Gerry Leonidas <g.leonidas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> The new version 4.0 of the Unicode Standard includes five new Greek characters

I agree that it is prudent to include the additional characters in 
the SBL charset. Since there is no established typographic convention 
for the Sho/sho and San/san this is a unique opportunity to put 
forward good models for future designs, and it is with this in mind 
that I write. I disagree on principle with a copy-paste approach to 
typeface design: it is much better to design new typeforms from 
scratch to work within the typeface as a whole. This is reflected in 
my comments below.


Sho/sho

Michael Everson is wrong that half a capital Phi is unobjectionable 
as a form for the Sho. The Phi has developed its proportions exactly 
because there are two counters; the Sho, with only one, should be 
designed to fit harmoniously within the typographic colour of 
composed text.

I modified a Monotype Times glyph to indicate what I mean (see <>): 
the bowl is larger, so does not seem overshadowed by the Omicron, 
Theta, Rho, Phi etc. and the joints with the vertical stroke are 
further from the bracketing: this is in resonance with scribal forms 
which seem to  emphasize the length of the stroke.

ME is right, on the other hand, to prefer a lower-case sho with a 
fuller counter: certainly manuscript examples point in this 
direction. Of the examples he shows at 
<http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2411.pdf > he is right to 
prefer the second of Times and fourth of Evertimes, with the straight 
ascender/descender: the small counter versions are inappropriate in 
the context of other lowercase typeforms, and the elaborate terminals 
are clearly stylistic variants, and not very successful at that. In 
my PDF I include a suggestion, again based on Times: slightly 
narrower counter than rho, to keep in line with proportions of other 
typeforms with round counters; smoother modulation of the bowl; and 
angular joints, to indicate a two-stroke scribal structure.


San/san

David is right that the San is the most difficult of the set: the 
potential for confusion in non-epigraphic typefaces is considerable. 
Clearly the option of a short middle part, as he suggests, must be 
followed, as it offers a font-style independent way of 
differentiating with the Mu (which, of course, would need to 
unambiguously descend to the baseline).

David's use of the distribution of thicks and thins on the San 
strokes is useful, but since it cannot be applied to low-modulatino 
designs (sans and slabs) it should be seen as an additional measure, 
specific to the genre of typefaces.

I think that the descent of the middle part of the San/Mu may be 
insufficient to distinguish unambiguously in the breadth of styles we 
may see designed; therefore, I would like to suggest a combination of 
characteristics of the two San forms from Jeffrey in David;s paper: 
that the San not only has a short middle part, but also has slighlty 
splayed legs, in contrast to a Mu with vertical ones. (Example 
online,URL  as above.)

The san

For the lowercase I would certainly go for a middle part above the 
baseline, and probably slightly splayed legs, albeit not as much as 
in the capital. The descending stroke would be esasential to 
differentiate from small-cap mu.


Lunate Sigma

The easiest glyph to develop, since there is already a body of 
examples in use, defining some typographic context for its design. It 
should obviously be designed with reference to U+03F2 (small lunate 
sigma).

There are a number of fonts available which use this form: see the 
Sinaiticus font <http://babel.uoregon.edu/yamada/fonts/greek.html> 
(inspired by the eponymous codex) and several hack-jobs available 
from Greek foundries (see 
<http://www.leonidas.org/html/SBL/byzantine.pdf>  -- there's even an 
italic!): these are regularly used either in titling text in 
documents with a religious content, or to evoke a Byzantine theme. 
About their fidelity and use the less said the better.
A typical use in Greece is demonstrated by Cannibal's Genesis 
Polytonic <http://www.fonts.gr/tryfonts/index.asp> which has a 
capital lunate sigma, but conventional lowercase typeforms.

I have been looking at some reproductions of manuscripts and I do not 
think there is really a clear case for significant deviation from the 
template of capital Latin C / Cyrillic Es. There is a tendency to 
close the terminals more towards the centre of the letterform, but 
given the manuscript styles this may be an integral feature as much 
as a stylistic one. I would be happy, however, for this to be taken 
forward, if only to help distinguish the typeforms in the rare 
occasions that parallel texts bring the scripts alongside.

What I am more confident about is that a design that avoids serifs is 
better than one that has conventional Latin serifs. At 
<http://www.leonidas.org/html/SBL/LunateSigma.pdf> I posted a sample 
of MinionPro, whose C / Es have conventional serifs, and Gentium, 
whose C does not. To my eyes the serifed C looks awkward within Greek 
typeforms, but the modulated-but-unseriffed one looks fine. It also 
helps that the Gentium C is narrower, which is more appropriate 
amongst other Greek capital typeforms.

note:
the attribution 'symbol' in Unicode for both lunate sigmas (as for 
other characters) is wrong, since they are used primarily in textual 
contexts.



> San/san is the hardest one.  It is only used in transcribing
> inscriptions.  In a great many fonts, M/Mu has a central point that
> descends quite low, to the baseline or almost that low.  So one can
> distinguish San from Mu by having a central point that does not go very
> low, as in the example on the Unicode web site.  (In a font designed for
> epigraphy, San would have a full-length right leg while Mu would have a
> short right leg; this was the original distinction between the two.)
> The lowercase san has to basically be invented by us, since there is no
> precedent that I am aware of.  See the pdf file that I posted at
> http://scholarsfonts.net/DesignSan.pdf .  This work was done under
> considerable time pressure; I did not have luxury of playing with
> various options and then leaving them to come back later, as I would
> have preferred to do, so I don't claim that the shapes I came up with
> are the best ones.  But they do work.  One person commented that the
> final form of san I created looks like a cyrillic lowercase letter (sort
> of a shrunken version of the capital; no separate personality of its
> own).  I agree with this.  I'd say, John, that you should basically
> design a san that relates to other letterforms that you already have in
> the font.  If you design san with a descending left leg, it's easy to
> connect it typographically with digamma, archaic koppa, and rho.