Control words in different languages/scripts

elena Veguillas
elena Veguillas Posts: 13
in Technique and Theory
What test or control words are commonly used in different languages and scripts?  I've found this discussion about control words for lettering, but not for different languages and scripts. 
Any suggestions? 

Latin
English
handgloves
Hamburgefonts / Hamburgefontsiv
adhesion

Cyrillic 
Russian
Нобельфайк

Greek 
Καλημέρα

Comments

  • Chris Lozos
    Chris Lozos Posts: 1,458
    There must be some fun words that native speakers have come up with.
  • Stephen Coles
    Stephen Coles Posts: 1,007
    Check out these two lists.
  • kupfers
    kupfers Posts: 259
    edited August 2015
    The classic in Germany also used to be Hamburgefonstiv. Note that it’s -fonstiv, not -fontsiv. When I asked why this is, some older type people said because the ‘st’-combination and -tiv suffix is very common and important to test, ‘ts’ not so much in German. I think it wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with fonts, that is a more recent letter turn. I personally prefer Ramburgefonstiv or Romburgshafen for German, Nick Sherman’s Ranger Glyphs for English.
  • attar
    attar Posts: 209
    The first word I like to make is heineken – it uses the most basic square and round structures. Then I go and write schaltgetriebe – it has multiple ascenders and shows various spacing combinations.
    Then when I want to test word structures or “sturdiness” of the font I fetch words from the Long German Words twitter account.

    Otherwise I write quite a few random words while I tweak rhythm and proportions but nothing particularly fixed — what are you looking for, pangrams? or just words from a language to see the texture? Impallari Testing has some sentences in various languages under the tabs “Latin” and “World scripts”.
  • kupfers
    kupfers Posts: 259
    I think there is also a difference between words for designing type, with the letters you commonly start with – handgloves and adhesion – and words for evaluating and testing type, which Stephen’s and my suggestions are closer to.
  • Andrew Wood
    Andrew Wood Posts: 42
    Is there a good test word in German that includes an ß?
  • Stephen Coles
    Stephen Coles Posts: 1,007
    edited August 2015
    You don’t like Ringstraße Motel or Kindergartenkloßzeit?
  • kupfers
    kupfers Posts: 259
    You can basically add -straße (street) to everything. It is usually added without space, only if it is a name or place ending in -er they become two words. So it would be Ringstraßenmotel and Ringstraßenmotelstraße, or Kindergartenstraße but Hamburger Straße.
  • elena Veguillas
    elena Veguillas Posts: 13
    Thanks Stephen for the lists!
    But my question is not exactly about words or expressions for type specimens (I prefer to find different words for each particular typeface), but words that are useful to evaluate typefaces during the design process. Or even to compare them afterwards.

    For instance, if I see some printed stuff, or digital, with the word "Hamburgefontsiv" I can easily recognise that it belongs to a type design project. Does it happen in other languages? I can't think of one in Spanish, but probably because I don't design type, I use it.
  • Chris Lozos
    Chris Lozos Posts: 1,458
    sorry to all for being 'off topic'
  • Craig Eliason
    Craig Eliason Posts: 1,436
    from Gerry Leonidas:
    If you are starting to design Greek letters, it is good to avoid the alphabetic sequence. A good basic set to begin with is alpha / epsilon / eta / iota / mu / rho (α, ε, η, ι, μ, ρ) which give a structure to the main counters, and some form to instrokes and outstrokes. This sequence will also allow many typical test words, such as είμαι, αίμα, ηρεμία, άρμη, ρήμα, ημέρα, ερημιά.


Categories