Fracture set

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Historical example of Fraktur sentence with foreign language words, 1768

Fraktur type designates the typesetting of German-language texts in Fraktur and other broken fonts of typesetting . The following orthographic and typographical rules differ from antiquarian typesetting .

ſ , s and ß

Wax tube with a round s, wax room with a long s and st ligature.

The Fraktur distinguishes between two variants of the letter "s". The long s (»ſ«) can only appear at the beginning of the word and in the word. At the end of a syllable or word, the round s (»s«) (or final s ) is written. That is why there must be a round s in Muscle, Thursday or arabesque, as well as before k within a few Germanized words: brusque, grotesque, kiosk, obelisk.

The “long ſ” is used almost everywhere, especially at the beginning of a syllable (also before k ) and always with ſch , if this means the unified sound sch , and with ſp , ſſ and ſt within a simple, non-compound word. As an exception to the rule, ſ is also used when (according to the conventions before the Orthographic Conference of 1901 ) the hyphenation occurs after the ſ (Knoſ-pe, Waſ-ſer, faſ-ten).

This distinction can sometimes even make the meaning of the word clearer: “Wachſtube” would therefore be a guardroom, “Guardroom” a wax tube.

Two round s can never be consecutive. If two s follow each other at the end of the word , they would have to be put in Fraktur as Fras . From this form the ß emerged as a ligature .

Heyse, the developer of the Heyseschen ß-spelling (“that”, “must”, “river”) himself wrote ſs (measurement result, daſs) at the end of a word or syllable and even had his own ligatures for it. The use of the unconnected letters ſs was abolished in the Orthographic Conference of 1901. For today's Fraktur sentence, the (reformed) Duden recommends, due to the spelling reform of 1996 , to use “Faſs” instead of “Faß”.

The use of ſ and s and their ligatures ß and ſt is not tied to the Gothic script. It appeared in the pre-Carolingian minuscule script and was also common in antiqua types in most European languages ​​until the end of the 18th century. However, it survived much longer in the Fraktur type, which was standard in Germany until 1941, and is therefore perceived today as a peculiarity of the Fraktur script.

Ligatures and hyphenation rules

Mandatory ligatures ch , ck , ſt and tz are retained in the blocked sentence .

There are many ligatures in the Fraktur set, some of which are mandatory and have different meanings. These are in particular the mandatory ligatures ch , ck , ſt and tz . The letter ß is also not blocked. There are other ligatures that do not have to be used, such as tt and ſch . These are broken down into their components in the lock rate and locked.

Awards

Since fracture fonts rarely a fat and almost never a matching italic have font style, and because small caps or versal would read poorly because of the quirky shape of the uppercase text are usually carried locks highlighted. Ligatures are resolved in the locking set, with the exception of the mandatory ligatures ch , ck , ſt and tz .

A common method of marking text in Fraktur was the use of a second broken font. A popular combination for a long time was the use of Schwabacher to mark up individual words or parts of sentences in Fraktur texts.

Antiqua

Until the end of the 18th century, all words of foreign language origin were set in Antiqua (like Nation ). Words, mainly verbs that came from a foreign language but now had German endings, were represented in both scripts: the foreign-language part in Antiqua, the German in Fraktur (such as arrang iren, Nation en).

This practice was liberalized in the 19th century. Since then, only Latin and other foreign-language sections have been set in Antiqua , as well as individual foreign-language words or phrases that are not considered Germanized (such as en masse or in flagranti or etc. ). Words whose spelling follows that of German, on the other hand, are given in Fraktur, even if they are obviously of foreign language origin (such as arrange, nations, Adagio, T-Shirt, Ketchup). For better readability, abbreviations from capital letters (such as BGB or USA ) are also used in Antiqua.

While proper names in foreign languages ​​were usually in Antiqua until the liberalization of writing practice, they have since been written in Fraktur, whereby foreign-language special characters, if they are not present in Fraktur, are reproduced in Antiqua (Nîmes or N î mes). The writing practice is ambivalent, however, and depends in part on the personal feelings of the author (Covent Garden vs. Covent Garden , Théâtre l'Odéon vs. Théâtre l'Odéon ).

Digits

In demanding typesetting, the digits are usually set as old- style digits .

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Wolf Busch: Heysesche's writing in Gothic script . http://flitternikel.onlinehome.de/heyse-s.html
  2. ^ Richard L. Niel: Composition technology pocket lexicon. Vienna, 1925. p. 871.
  3. ↑ Duden, Volume 1, "Spelling of the German Language". 20., rework. and exp. Edition, 1991. Dudenverlag Mannheim, Vienna, Zurich. Typesetting Guidelines, p. 73. ISBN 3-411-04010-6

literature

  • Duden - The German spelling. 22nd edition. Bibl. Inst. & FA Brockhaus, Mannheim 2000, ISBN 3-411-04012-2
  • JE Wülfing, AC Schmidt (ed.): Duden, spelling of the German language and foreign words according to the official rules valid for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. 9th edition, Bibl. Inst., Leipzig and Vienna 1915 (set in Fraktur)
  • F. Forssman, R. de Jong: Detailed typography. 2nd edition, Hermann Schmidt, Mainz 2004, ISBN 3-87439-642-8

Web links