Macedonian italic /gje localization

Kent Lew

References for the Serbian localization of Cyrillic generally cite б г д п т as those with different preferred cursive forms. These Serbian alternates are then also recommended for Macedonian localization.

But no mention is made about the Macedonian italic ѓ.

Do native users perceive /gje as distinctly different enough from /ghe that they don’t mind the visual incongruity of “Serbian” italic /ghe with “standard” italic /gje, as in the middle line below? Or should a complete SRB/MKD localization include changing the base of Macedonian /gje to match /ghe, as in the last line?

Christian Thalmann

I suppose you could also stack the acute and the macron on the ı base.

Kent Lew

Interesting point, Christian. And now I see that there is an image used widely across Wikipedia (including mk.wikipedia) that shows it this way : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonian_alphabet#/media/File:Macedonian_cursive_script.svg

But, I also stumbled across a larger image of the 1945 decree adopting the official Macedonian alphabet, in which the cursive exemplar does not show that macron on the ѓ : https://mk.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Податотека:Mk_alphabet_decree.png&filetimestamp=20080514155054&

Which to believe?

John Savard

In a web search on this topic, I came across an image, said to show how handwriting is currently taught in schools in Macedonia, which shows that /gje has both the acute accent, and the horizontal bar beneath it, instead of omitting the horizontal bar.

Kent Lew

John, can you provide a link to the image?

Michel Boyer

The site http://alati.org/font/ provides many pre unicode Macedonian cyrillic fonts and from what I see there, the preferred shape is

There is however a font called "Mistral" with the following shape

It looks like the i shape is the exception but if it is ever used, then the macron is to follow.

John Savard

Sorry, here it is: http://www.makedonijaese.com/images/Makedonsko_rakopisno_pismo.JPG

Michel Boyer

With Ariston Extra bold you also get the shapes

Michel Boyer

The question was asked before, for noto. Here is a relevant link: https://github.com/googlei18n/noto-fonts/issues/794#issuecomment-266732458 

Andreas Stötzner

what I wonder about is this:

Kent Lew

Thanks to all for your contributions.

Do we have anyone in the community from the Balkan region with firsthand experience of local preferences?

Maxim Zhukov

Andreas Stötzner said:

what I wonder about is this: ⟨…⟩

The forms on the right are usable only in Serbian and Macedonian typography.

Kent Lew

@Maxim Zhukov — do you have any experience/opinion about the Macedonian ѓ?

For example, as shown here in Corbel Italic and Minion Italic, do you think the seemingly logical mismatch between Serbian г and standard ѓ is perfectly acceptable to Macedonian users?

John Hudson

My two deni worth:

I don't think it makes sense to have the typical Russian etc. cursive form of г with acute in Macedonian typography if the localised form is used for г without acute. As far as I know, the information provided in the Noto GitHub link that Michel posted above is reliable. The 'locl' feature substitutions for Macedonian should be extended to cover ѓ.

I'll be making this revision to the Brill fonts in the next update.

I don't have information indicating that ѓ is used in any alphabet other than Macedonian; however, I would be wary of making the localised italic form of this glyph the default, just in case it does show up anywhere else. Also, in case of failure of the 'locl' feature, it wouldn't be good to end up with Macedonian ѓ and Russian г — when failing, better to fail consistently.

Maxim Zhukov

Dear Kent, I am no expert in Macedonian writing and typography. All I can say is that whereas the overstrike bars on the г, п, and т are stylistical features, originally meant for disambiguation, the acute is a diacritic.

Kent Lew

John & Maxim — Thank you both for your perspectives.

Michel Boyer

I googled

македонски текстови filetype:pdf

and found a few texts with italics. Most were using the Russian italics but when not, most often the following choice was made:

That is how Myriad Pro was modified in the pdf ЕТИКАТА ВО НОВИНАРСТВОТО. 

An interesting specimen is this report for the unicef where on top of page 108 we see "Russian italics" and just below "Macedonian italics"

ps There is a nice booklet produced by the Macedonian national theater using Lasko Dzurovski's free font Skola that you can download here.

Kent Lew

Thanks for these links, Michel. It is also interesting to me that none of these Macedonian examples uses a “Serbian” б.

Michel Boyer

Kent, I found very few different italic fonts with Macedonian support. An additional font is Times New roman, used in those proceedings (576 pages) where this time the "macron" is kept with the accent, again on top of a standard cyrillic letter GHE. The б is as in the files above.

Stefan Peev

This table is made by Lasko Dzurovski (Macedonian typographer, author of StobiSerif Pro – an official font for Macedonian goverment documents).



You could look at this place on Local Fonts also. It is for Macedonian Cyrillic Feature Locl. I asked Lasko Dzurovski to confirm that the explanation is correct and I have his confirmation.

Andreas Stötzner

I think that overview by Lasko Dzurovski is a most worthwhile reference. Only one thing I’m wondering about: in the Bulgarian column (Regular) it records a flat-top de but a pointed-top el. Is that consistent?

Michel Boyer

The table reproduced above is under "handwritten script" in the "Local fonts" link. The  МК (Macedonian) italics in the first part of the same link look different. 

Thomas Phinney

For those who are unfamiliar with Cyrillic and the abbreviations involved for various countries/languages I believe the headings across the top are: Macedonian, Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian.

John Savard

Andreas Stötzner said:

Only one thing I’m wondering about: in the Bulgarian column (Regular) it records a flat-top de but a pointed-top el. Is that consistent?

Whether or not it is consistent, I suspect, even with my very limited acquaintance with the Slavic languages, that it is correct. Stylish Russian fonts will sometimes make the letter L look like a Greek lambda. But if you tried to make the letter D look like a Greek delta, you are making a more extreme change, although not one that's impossible - if, and only if, your typeface is caps-only and sans-serif.

Thomas Phinney said:

For those who are unfamiliar with Cyrillic and the abbreviations involved for various countries/languages I believe the headings across the top are: Macedonian, Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian.

Oh, I'm sure you are correct. But I'm amazed that the Macedonian names for the two styles of printing being illustrated are "Regular" and "Italik".

Michel Boyer

Lasko Dzurovski  has the font Skorid on MyFonts where you can try those substitutions as stylistic sets. Here is one of his figures.

Aside from unicode codepoints that seem to have been merged for Serbian, that leaves me wondering which substitutions are considered to be normative and which are rather stylistic.

André G. Isaak

Is there anyone participating in this thread who is a Bulgarian speaker?

I recall reading somewhere that Bulgarian frequently used forms of д, и, п, and т which resemble latin g, u, n, and m in both cursive and upright forms, but I can't find the source for this and don't know if it is accurate (the use of 'g' contradicts Stefan Peev's example, but seems consistent with Michel Boyer's).

André

Stefan Peev

André G. Isaak I'm a Bulgarian speaker
Please look at my next comment and do notice that in Bulgaria for the moment are still used both the modern form of Bulgarian Cyrillic script (shown in Table 1 below) and the traditional form (which is same as Russian Cyrillic or traditional Cyrillic script).

@Andreas Stötzner Lasko Dzurovski is in a mistake for the regular forms of the Bulgarian letters г, д, п, т. Look at the Table 1 for the correct forms of modern Bulgarian Cyrillic script.

Stefan Peev

Here is an attempt to make a systematisation of the local forms in Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian compared to Russian (or better say – traditional Cyrillic script). I use the font Vollkorn for the presentation of the local features. Please do notice that in Bulgaria are still used both the modern form of Bulgarian Cyrillic script (shown in Table 1) and the traditional form (which is same as Russian Cyrillic or traditional Cyrillic script).

Table 1


Source: Cyrillic alphabets at WIKIPEDIA


Table 2



Table 3

Please notice that in my oppinion the italic form of Macedonian Cyrillic „г“ (uni0433.loclMKD) is still in a process of standardisation. It is influenced by the Serbian form on one hand and on the other hand it is influenced by the Bulgarian form. But if we look at the italic form of Macedonian Times – a font prepared by Macedonian designers obviously in the early 90th of the 20th century (the font is not in a Unicode standard) – the „г“ is traditional italic with macron above. The same could be said for the Macedonian Cyrillic „б“. According to Lasko Dzurovski the regular form of Macedonian Cyrillic „б“ could have two forms (traditional and Serbian one – see Table 2), but the italic form of Macedonian Cyrillic „б“ could have only one form (which corresponds to the Serbian one – see Table 3).

André G. Isaak

Thanks Stefan,

Your response was extremely useful.

André

Kent Lew

Stefan —

Thank you for joining the conversation and providing your local perspective.

Unfortunately, most of these wonderful examples of local variations do not address the Macedonian ѓ — even Lasko Dzurovski’s table does not show a preferred form.

What is still unclear to me is whether the italic form of ѓ should include the macron element from the г or not. Even on your Local Fonts MKD localization page, you show examples of both — the Stobi Serif example seems to leave it out, but the cursive example right below that shows it with the macron.

If you are in touch with Lasko, could you please confirm which of these is the more preferred form?

(Thank you, BTW, for pointing out your Local Fonts site. That is very useful for us western type designers.)

Stefan Peev

@Kent Lew Dear Kent, the answer to your question is NO. The italic form of ѓ should not include the macron element from the г.



Look at the example with the StobiSerif Pro – as I said above it is an official font for Macedonian government documents (by Lasko Dzurovski). You could find in the example the two kind of „г“ – in the first case you must write in your font a substitution of uni0433 by uni0433.loclMKD, in the second case you just use the uni0453 glyph from Unicode table which has acute but not a macron (look again at Macedonian Tms also). The glyphs uni0433.loclMKD and uni0453 represent two different phonemes in the Macedonian language, so you must not think that the one is produced from the other (just by adding acute on top of the other glyph). There is no such a connection between the two glyphs.
Well, if we must be honest and punctual we must prepare a stylistic alternative to uni0453 also and to make it to match exactly the form of uni0433.loclMKD but without the macron – just the pure form of the uni0433.loclMKD glyph, the form of the Macedonian „г“ (which could be stylistically different from the main Cyrillic italic glyph uni0433). Look at the example of @Andreas Stötzner above. @Andreas Stötzner shows these stylistic differences between traditional Cyrillic uni0433 and Macedonian one.