From: John Hudson (tiro@tiro.com)
Date: Mon Aug 30 2004 - 19:46:45 CDT
Donald Z. Osborn wrote:
> According to data from R. Hartell (1993), the latin alpha is used in Fe'efe'e (a
> dialect of Bamileke) in Cameroon. See
> http://www.bisharat.net/A12N/CAM-table.htm (full ref. there; Hartell names her
> sources in her book). Not sure offhand of other uses, but I thought it was
> proposed for Latin transcription of Tamashek in Mali at one point (I'll try to
> check later). In any event it would seem easy to confuse the latin alpha with
> the standard "a," which would seem to either require exaggerated forms (of the
> alpha, to clarify the difference) or limit its usefulness in practice.
The Latin alpha is usually distinguished from the regular Latin lowercase a by making the
latter a 'double-storey' form, whereas the alpha is a single-storey form. Of course, this
means that the distinction cannot be adequately made in typefaces with a single-storey
lowercase a, such as Futura.
John Hudson
-- Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com Vancouver, BC tiro@tiro.com Currently reading: The Mass in slow motion, by Ronald Knox Hebrew manuscripts of the Middle Ages, by Colette Sirat
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