A4422DAE@AWIUNI11.BITNET (Konrad Neuwirth) (05/22/91)
Let me add my 2 Groschen worth here in the Umlaut discussion.
The base letter *DOES* change when you make it an umlaut. Not too
strongly in most fonts, but still . . . but there are more important
differences in German (and Austrian and Swiss) fonts that the umlauts,
granted. The change is more notable in capitals, but even the a o and u
change somewhat.
The questions about ligatures, especially the sz is interesting
historically. From what i know, both ss and sz are allowed if you do
not have the sharp s, especially with capitals again (thats what my
parents learned in school). But for instance, Jan Tschichold writes
rather lengthy (I forget in which book) about the impossible *LOOK* of the
combination sz. It was not that true in the older fonts (e.g. Schwabacher),
but it IS true for the modern alphabets we are using (which are rather
badly designed, mixing uppercase letters that go back to roman times with
the minuscles from the middle ages (Karolinische Minuskel)). But that
is not the only different ligature. German should also have ft as a
ligature, and ck and ch, but not ffl. And then, ff is not automatically a
ligature in german (because of compound nouns).
Anyway, the most frequent mistake in german typography is to use english
fonts which have too high capitals. So, who cares about the rest . . .
Interesting fact no 300563: Swiss typography does not use uppercase
Umlaut{e|s} at all. The always use Ae, Oe and Ue.
//konrad
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
As I'm not working for anybody, I can't be representing their opinion!
Konrad Neuwirth Internet: a4422dae@helios.edvz.univie.ac.at
Postfach 646 Bitnet: a4422dae@awiuni11
1100 Wien, Austria (Europe)