Re: Latin ligatures and Unicode

From: Arno Schmitt (arno@zedat.fu-berlin.de)
Date: Tue Dec 28 1999 - 02:00:47 EST


John Jenkins schrieb:
> Blackletter ligatures cannot be handled just by the rendereing software!
>
> In the german language, written in a blackletter font,
> there are cases where only the meaning of a word decides
> if a ligature must or must not be used. (See below for
> an example.) But how shall the rendering software know
> about the meaning (the semantics) of my text.
>
For German -- both Roman/Antiqua and Blackletter/Fraktur --
rendering software that can handle hyphenation can handle
ligation.
There is a rule (and an exception):
Where hyphenation is possible (where a soft hyphen is placed by
the user or the hyphention program), ligation is not allowed.
For ligatures of identical letters (ff, ss, ll in blackletter --
in some fonts tt as well): hyphenation and ligation is allowed
when they occur between vowels and belong to the same (sematic)
part of the word:
Wasser, lassen, Stoffe, lallen, but not Kehllaute, Lauffanatiker

Arno Schmitt



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