A question about the IJ digraph

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PJMiller
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A question about the IJ digraph

Post by PJMiller »

I have had some feedback from the release of Kelvinch (and some of it was even positive). :D

I was contacted by a Dutch guy who said that the IJ digraph $0132 and $0133 sometimes has an acute accent (over the first character) and sometimes has both characters acute, he said that if he follows the IJ digraph with an acute then it creates a mess in Kelvinch, and he is right, I have tested it.

My question to anyone on the forum who speaks Dutch is :- Is this combination used very much? Would it be extremely useful to lots of people all the time or would it just be of marginal use to a few people occasionally?

He said this combination doesn't work in many other fonts either.

I could probably do this with a simple Open Type substitution, but should it be language dependent (i.e. only if the language being used is Dutch) or should it just be a simple substitution given that this combination won't occur very much in other languages?

Come to think of it I don't even know which languages use the IJ digraph, I must look it up on Wikipedia.
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Re: A question about the IJ digraph

Post by Erwin Denissen »

PJMiller wrote:I have had some feedback from the release of Kelvinch (and some of it was even positive).
I'm not surprised at all, as serious people will realize the effort you've put into designing your fonts!
PJMiller wrote:My question to anyone on the forum who speaks Dutch is :- Is this combination used very much? Would it be extremely useful to lots of people all the time or would it just be of marginal use to a few people occasionally?
I'm Dutch, and I don't think I've ever used those :D

There was a discussion about this lately, which should get you started:
http://typedrawers.com/discussion/comme ... ment_18046

As far as I know most text layout engines don't fully support the languages within OpenType features, so I suggest you experiment with it and let us know your results.
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Re: A question about the IJ digraph

Post by PJMiller »

Erwin Denissen wrote: There was a discussion about this lately, which should get you started:
http://typedrawers.com/discussion/comme ... ment_18046

As far as I know most text layout engines don't fully support the languages within OpenType features, so I suggest you experiment with it and let us know your results.
Very interesting. There are combinations like 'iacute acute' which I wasn't aware of (well actually I wasn't aware of any of this until this morning when I read Mr Van Leer's e-mail). I will have to consider what to do next.

Thank you for your help. I will study those posts on typedrawers closely.
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Re: A question about the IJ digraph

Post by William »

PJMiller wrote:I will have to consider what to do next.
I do not know Dutch.

My advice is of a more general nature.

The thing is there are lots of fonts available that do not do lots of things.

Just one example, many fonts do not support Esperanto characters.

Certainly there are some text fonts that do, as those fonts support a wide range of languages.

Yet when it comes to fancy display fonts, those fonts often only support English or English and the languages of western Europe and Scandinavia.

You have a request before you, just one request, to add a special feature to Kelvinch.

If you are able to do it without disproportionate effort, then Kelvinch would have a special feature.

As you are fontmaking on your own you do not have the problem of having to convince a manager and then his or her manager to alter a company product for this feature with all of the umming and ahing from managers about whether there is a need and if so how big is the need and on and on and on and then finally probably not agreeing to adding it or perhaps just saying that it can be added when the font has a major update, a major update that may never occur.

It could well be a good learning exercise. For example, I did not know about this particular accent issue until I read this thread, so my knowledge has increased a little.

Going through the process of working out what to do and then implementing it may well be worth the effort of doing so as it may increase your own knowledge and experience of typography, as well as increasing the capability of the Kelvinch font and that increased capability may make it useful to some people who might otherwise have never used it, and they might publicise it for that very reason.

What you decide to do is up to you of course.

William Overington

30 April 2016
Erwin Denissen
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Re: A question about the IJ digraph

Post by Erwin Denissen »

InDesign has feature language support, so Dutch designers will appreciate your efforts.
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Re: A question about the IJ digraph

Post by PJMiller »

OK, so I've done the Serbian and Macedonian italics (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_Cyrillic_alphabet ) which are different from normal cyrillic italics so now I'm up for tackling the IJ digraph. What I need is some rules as to what occurs when and what sequences of characters should be transformed into what others.

I'm making some new composites, ij and IJ with the first character acute and ij and IJ with both acute. Mr Van Leer thought that only the first character acuted was all that was necessary but I notice the double acute in Erwin's post on the subject, perhaps this is for Double Dutch I have no idea. :lol:

I will create the characters in the PUA today and try to make up some rules as to how to apply them over the weekend.

This is the last task for Kelvinch version 3.2 which hopefully should be the final version, but then I thought v3.1 was the final version so I don't know.

ADVthanksANCE for any help!! :D
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Re: A question about the IJ digraph

Post by Erwin Denissen »

script latn {
language NLD {
feature GlyphCompositionDecomposition1;
}
}

feature GlyphCompositionDecomposition1 ccmp {
lookup LigatureIJ;
}

lookup LigatureIJ {
sub I acutecomb J acutecomb -> IJacute;
sub i acutecomb j acutecomb -> ijacute;
sub Iacute J acutecomb -> IJacute;
sub iacute j acutecomb -> ijacute;
sub I J -> IJ;
sub i j -> ij;
}

Here is a summary of some Dutch language advise related to stress marks:
Welke letters krijgen een klemtoonteken?

Klanken die met twee letters worden geschreven, krijgen twee accenten, bijvoorbeeld: máát, héél, vóór, dúúr, zéúren, níét, móét, fláúw, nóú, kléín, erúít.

Ook de tweeklank ij krijgt twee accenten, maar het is moeilijk om met een tekstverwerker het letterteken j een accent te geven. Het tweede klemtoonteken vervalt daarom meestal: blíjf, míj, zíj, wíjten.

Bij opeenvolging van drie beklemtoonde letters in dezelfde lettergreep krijgen alleen de eerste twee letters een klemtoonteken, bijvoorbeeld: móói, frááie, ééuw.

Op hoofdletters komen geen accenten, behalve als het hele woord in hoofdletters is geschreven: Eén is geen; ÉÉN IS GEEN.
In my best English and a little help from google translate:
Which letters get an accent mark ?

Sounds written with two letters, get two accents, such as: máát, héél, vóór, dúúr, zéúren, níét, móét, fláúw, nóú, kléín, erúít.

The diphthong ij will have two accents, but it is difficult to give character j an accent with a word processor. The second emphasis mark therefore usually lapse : blíjf, míj, zíj, wíjten.

In succession of three marked letters in the same syllable only the first two letters get an accent mark, for example: móói, frááie, ééuw.

Capital letters will not have accents, except if the entire word is written in capital letters : Eén is geen; ÉÉN IS GEEN.
I doubt if most designer are aware of the last sentence related to capital letters. Anyway I hope this gets you started!
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Re: A question about the IJ digraph

Post by PJMiller »

I have a question about these macinations with the IJ digraph being made acute.

Do they apply to Flemish as well as standard Dutch?
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Re: A question about the IJ digraph

Post by Erwin Denissen »

I think so, but further investigation reveals Word uses Dutch (NLD) when the text is set in language "Nederlands (België)" and Firefox also uses Dutch (NLD) if language is set to "nl-be". So maybe we were a little too enthusiastic when we decided to add a Flemish locl feature for Dutch (FLE).

On the other hand, a similar thing occurs with Romanian and Moldavian languages, and here both Word and the web browser always use Romanian.

And I suspect the same goes for Crimean Tatar (CRT).
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Re: A question about the IJ digraph

Post by PJMiller »

Language changes slowly but continuously over time and adjacent languages affect each other. It is a continuous spectrum rather than distinct colours as words and ways of expressing onesself do not respect cultural or political borders. Also those who view a language from outside a culture have a different view from those inside the culture.

I will add the localisation to Flemish as well. It is unlikely ever to be triggered but if someone does use that sequence of characters then that is probably what they want and the table already exists within the font so it is no trouble to add it.

A more realistic view of things.
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