Which extended Latin characters never occur at the beginning of a word?

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  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,172
    While a decorative typeface, intended for drop caps, could indeed exclude a lot of linguistic edge cases and still be useful, this is certainly an informative thread. I suppose it should not be surprising that whatever is out there, someone will find a use for - as in the Marshallese case, although, there, it's more important to include M̧ than Ṃ... but there's always the possibility that there's yet another language which this thread has missed.
  • Vasil Stanev
    Vasil Stanev Posts: 785
    I think this is somewhat relevant: https://matadornetwork.com/abroad/the-ultimate-guide-to-computer-keyboards-around-the-world/
  • Christian Thalmann
    Christian Thalmann Posts: 2,027
    Hrant H. Papazian said:
    It sounds like «ß» and «z» would've been better.
    Nah, «z» would have been read as [ts] by the target audience.
  • notdef
    notdef Posts: 168
    I think there is value in offering a minority language access to the diverse typographical palette we take for granted – hence I don’t necessarily consider display fonts a ripe opportunity for smaller character sets. However, I also don’t think it is practical for any one type designer to do this for *all* minority languages. But you could support your own local minorities.
  • Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian
    Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian Posts: 2,044
    Christian Thalmann said:
    Nah, «z» would have been read as [ts] by the target audience.
    Glad to hear the «ß» is safe.
    So how to indicate the "z" sound?
    Frode said:
    But you could support your own local minorities.
    If most of your customers are local, otherwise it's just feelgood. Maybe the best way is to do such extensions for free when somebody asks (and make sure people know that).
  • Aceler Chua
    Aceler Chua Posts: 13
    AFAIK there’s no Polish word that starts with Ą. I though it’s the same for Ę, but apparently there’s ęsi.
  • notdef
    notdef Posts: 168
    Of course, Ą does not only occur in Polish.
  • Igor Freiberger
    Igor Freiberger Posts: 293
    Vowels with ogonek: Frode is right. In Lithuanian, a vowel with ogonek appears at the beginning of several words, like ąsa (eye). This diacritic is also used in North American languages.

    M with cedilla: Eric Muller, from Adobe, published a short article in 2013 saying that l, m, n, and o in Marshallese should receive cedilla and not comma below. 
  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 812
    Igor Freiberger said:
    … that l, m, n, and o in Marshallese should receive cedilla and not comma below. 
    What a pity that they’re not hard-coded. And there are graphic detail issues, especially with n and M where not (always) a part of the glyph is reaching down to the baseline in the middle, to accomodate the attachment of the cedilla. Or is it customary in Marshallese to have it hanging around ‘in the air’?
  • notdef
    notdef Posts: 168
    edited January 2019







    Localizations are relatively solid in web browsers – less so (ranging from cumbersome to impossible) in various DTP software, but can you really expect users to activate such advanced features? 

  • Juan Luis Blanco
    Juan Luis Blanco Posts: 9
    Vasil Stanev said:
     Maybe the same is true about Ñ? 

    Even though it is more common between other letters, you can find initial Ñ in a few Spanish words. 
    (image taken from a pocket dictionary)


  • Eimantas Paškonis
    Eimantas Paškonis Posts: 91
    edited January 2019
    Lithuanian doesn't have words that start with Ę or Ų. Don't know about Polish though.

    @Frode What font is that at the bottom?
  • notdef
    notdef Posts: 168
    @Eimantas Paškonis Just one of mine, as an example of a possible visual solution for non-connecting and connecting cedilla working in harmony.
  • notdef
    notdef Posts: 168
    edited January 2019
    Continuing the thread of supporting your own (local) minorities, US designers might want to put in a little extra for the Marshallese people, seeing as your nation nuclear tested their nation back to the stone ages. 
  • André G. Isaak
    André G. Isaak Posts: 636
    I like the picture of the Marshallese library. I don't recall ever being in a library where there's a sign to remind you how alphabetical order works 😁
  • Vasil Stanev
    Vasil Stanev Posts: 785
    edited January 2019

    As far as I understood from "The Elements of Typographic Style", the ogonek under the Native Indian letters resides/floats in the middle under the letter.

    I have seen an O with an ogonek in texts about Proto-Slavic.

  • Ali Riza Esin
    Ali Riza Esin Posts: 4
    This is my first lines here, so please allow me to say a word first: Hello! :)

    “Ğ” (Gbreve and/or gbreve) is never be the first letter of any word in Turkish. All other Turkish specific accented characters have to be available to be used as a first letter (i.e. Çç, İı, Öö, Şş, Üü, and very rare but still valid for the context: Ââ).
  • Adam Jagosz
    Adam Jagosz Posts: 689
    edited February 2020
    Confirming, ą and ę do not start ordinary words in Polish. Ęsi is not a real word and was already removed from the scrabble dictionary sjp.pl. However, you can still argue the existence of the adjective ę-ą, or ą-ę meaning ‘pretentious’. Pretty marginal, though.
    Additionally, ń does not start any words. Ć Ł Ó Ś Ź Ż all can start ordinary words, although few.
    Btw, I made an app a while ago that might help resolve the problem stated in this thread. However it uses data compiled from the English Wiktionary, so the completeness of entries depends on the language. But if you can trust Wiktionary, there are some 39 Lithuanian words starting with į and three with ą.

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