It is known that in German the pair <ch> and <ck> must not be separated.
With the 1996 spelling reform, we no longer accept that <ck> can be separated (becoming <k | k>).
Now, knowing that the settings of the various programs should follow these rules (for example the hyphenation patterns for LaTeX), some fonts have ligatures <ch> and <ck>.
In some fonts Adobe puts them in a special dlig lookup (adding that I don't know how to do it, composing with LaTeX and also having other dlig, to activate only this one; but this is not a problem pertaining to this forum).
Now: is it more logical to put them precisely as dlig (with which they are optional) or as a liga, specifying in the metadata that only applies to German? Or in some other way (locl or calt with a contextual substitution rule)?
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Not sure about the technical stuff, but at the bottom of thread is what i was able to find.
dlig
is meant for Discretionary Ligatures, ligatures that are purely for a special effect:[..]
UI suggestion: This feature should be off by default.
liga
is for "common" ligatures only:[..]
UI suggestion: This feature serves a critical function in some contexts, and should be active by default.
Bold emphasis is mine.
The "special effect" can be seen in this image of Warnock Pro (https://helpx.adobe.com/nl/fonts/using/open-type-syntax.html#dlig):
Not separating <ck> and <ch> is a function of the text engine, not of the font, so I would not try to force this in
locl
. I would only recommend this if your own /ck and /ch are unobtrusive enough to use in 'regular' text, but if not, they belong indlig
, to be used at the user's discretion.And -- if 'm not wrong -- in 'dpng' some old ligatures as <a_e> (æ) and <o_e> (œ) used in Chistian Latin, for they sound like a single vowel, while in classical Latin (that of the so-called "lectio restituta") diphthongs are pronounced open, and therefore with the two distinct vowels).
Also, it should be noted that these ligatures never actually existed in classical Latin — their use in Latin text was a mediaeval invention but I doubt it was tied to any changes in latin pronunciation between classical latin and church latin. Æ (‘æsc’) was originally an Old English letter which was not viewed as a diphthong or digraph. I don’t know the origins of œ (‘œthel’) but it definitely wasn't Latin.