Ukrainian Ґ

If you have fonts which already support Cyrillic, it doesn't take much effort to add Ґ and ґ to support Ukrainian as well. Most fonts which support Cyrillic don't include this character because it's not included in the 0400-045F Unicode range.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Ghe_with_upturn
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Comments

  • John SavardJohn Savard Posts: 1,088
    edited February 2022
    Odd. In the typeface used on this site, the character shown does not look like the one I'm familiar with from Ukrainian texts. Where I have seen "ghe with upturn", it looks like "ghe" followed by a separate apostrophe/closing quote.
    Incidentally, I thought that Bulgarian used all the glyphs that Russian did - and if it missed any, Serbian would have picked them up, so I didn't really think there were any Russian-only glyphs.
  • Chris LozosChris Lozos Posts: 1,458
    I didn't really think there were any Russian-only glyphs
    That was a joke.
  • John HudsonJohn Hudson Posts: 2,955
    edited February 2022
    Odd. In the typeface used on this site, the character shown does not look like the one I'm familiar with from Ukrainian texts. Where I have seen "ghe with upturn", it looks like "ghe" followed by a separate apostrophe/closing quote.
    The apostrophe sign is used in Ukrainian to mark an unpalatalised consonant in a situation that would otherwise be palatalised consonant. This is because Ukrainian orthography does not consistently mark palatalised consonants with ь but instead relies on context and phonetic rules in many cases, so ’ is used to mark exceptions to those rules (serving the same function as the Russian ъ).

    This is different from the distinction between Г [ɦ] and Ґ [ɡ] in Ukrainian.
  • John SavardJohn Savard Posts: 1,088
    I see not only that you are correct and I was mistaken, but that this letter has a complicated history. It was first used in the 16th century Peresopnytsia Gospel, and was codified as part of the Ukrainian alphabet in the 1928 Ukrainian orthography - only to be banned by Stalin in 1933. Only after the fall of the Soviet Union was it restored to the Ukrainian script as used domestically, in 1990, and then only for words of foreign origin, although it continued to be used in the diaspora.
    However, before the Skripnykivka alphabet of 1928, one of the extant orthographies of Ukrainian had used this letter in a standardized way, the Zhelekhivka alphabet from 1886.
  • I thought that Bulgarian used all the glyphs that Russian did - and if it missed any, Serbian would have picked them up, so I didn't really think there were any Russian-only glyphs.
    How about , the currency symbol for the Russian ruble? Do any other countries use this glyph? If I remember correctly, it was the winner of a Russian design poll a few years ago.
  • Vasil StanevVasil Stanev Posts: 759
    edited February 2022
    I thought that Bulgarian used all the glyphs that Russian did - and if it missed any, Serbian would have picked them up, so I didn't really think there were any Russian-only glyphs.
    How about , the currency symbol for the Russian ruble? Do any other countries use this glyph? If I remember correctly, it was the winner of a Russian design poll a few years ago.
    и I would use the pound sign instead, because this is how much the paper rubles weigh that make up one dollar :) /jk
    To answer your question, no, I haven't seen it being used, much like the rupee sign.
  • agreed, john. my heart breaks for people in ukraine and russia alike. sanctions - economic warfare - disproportionately punishes ordinary people who do not even share the politics of their leaders, and I am concerned about the hundreds of millions of people whose livelihoods are tied to the russian economy right now. this is never so simple and binary as supporting one side or the other, that is a fiction told by propagandists. but I will stop there as I think I am getting off-topic.

    on the topic of ukranian glyphs — I have seen in the past a suggestion that modulating the dieresis in yi (Ї ї) — scaling down its width - is something that comes up in ukrainian, but I'm having trouble locating my source on that. does anyone know how ukranian readers prefer to see it?
  • John SavardJohn Savard Posts: 1,088
    Actual Russians are risking their lives protesting this war in the streets of St Petersburg,
    Yes, the Russian people are not the ones to blame for this war. However, the civilian population of a country often suffers when its leaders choose to engage in aggression, because we have limited means of responding to it. Although, of course, I wish to avoid commenting on politics here as far as possible.

  • Ray LarabieRay Larabie Posts: 1,376
    If you're interested in supporting more Cyrillic-based languages and the full Cyrillic range from 0460-04FF seems too daunting or beyond your project's scope, it's not as hard as you think. If you want to cover historical characters, there's a lot to deal with but if you only add characters currently in use in most Cyrillic-based languages, you don't need much.



    Consider that this is a typewriter font so don't use this as a guide for character design. The palochkas (04CF, 04C0) shouldn't normally be done this way. There are always more languages, but this is a way to quickly cover a bunch more.
  • Compilation made by Kent Lew
    brilliant.

  • John HudsonJohn Hudson Posts: 2,955
    And for those wanting to get funky:

    Old Cyrillic

    А Б В Г Д Є Ж Ѕ Ꙃ З Ꙁ И І Ї Ꙉ К Л М Н О П Р С Т Оу Ꙋ Ф Х Ѡ Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Ѣ Ꙗ Ѥ Ю Ѫ Ѭ Ѧ Ѩ Ѯ Ѱ Ѳ Ѵ Ҁ

    а б в г д є ж ѕ ꙃ з ꙁ и і ї ꙉ к л м н о п р с т оу ꙋ ф х ѡ ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь ѣ ꙗ ѥ ю ѫ ѭ ѧ ѩ ѯ ѱ ѳ ѵ ҁ

    Ѕ/Ꙃ, З/Ꙁ and Оу/Ꙋ are different forms for the same letter. Ҁ had only numeric value.
  • jeremy tribbyjeremy tribby Posts: 212
    edited March 2022
    thanks for sharing those john. knowing where to draw the line between historical and simply uncommon (orthographies of small populations) has been a challenge as I work on my first big cyrillic project - and even more challenging is "historical but shows up now and then" vs. "historical that you will never really see unless you're digging around in unicode." for example I've seen a number of fonts with the big yus, but not all of its other forms — maybe just because it's fun to draw? google's glyphsets are helpful in calling out "historical" separately which is a bit different than adobe cyrillic 3, but I don't really know what their methodology was for arriving at those particular sets. 

    krista, I was going to call out your and maria's cyrillicsly workshops as a great way to learn (and an overall excellent experience). I'm finally getting close to finishing that font after going off the deep end with extended cyrillic afterwards :sweat_smile:


  • John HudsonJohn Hudson Posts: 2,955
    For most projects, when it comes to historical characters I draw the line at 

    Ѣ Ѳ Ѵ
    ѣ ѳ ѵ

    These were part of the standard Russian alphabet up to 1918 in Russia, and continued thereafter in use by some emigré communities, so may reasonably occur in relatively modern Russian documents or literary works.

    A similar argument can be made for including the ‘big yus’

    Ѫ
    ѫ

    on the basis that it remained part of the Bulgarian alphabet until 1945. [In Russian, the big yus was replaced by Я in the Petrine reform of the early 18th Century.]

    The biggest factor in deciding whether to support additional historical characters is whether you want your font to be usable for Old Slavonic language texts. Today, this means primarily Eastern Orthodox ecclesiastical publishing, and this implies not only support of additional characters and some moderately complex mark positioning, but also specific styles of script. The Petrine reform split the Cyrillic script into two streams—religious and secular—each with its own typographic traditions and particular styles of type.

    Secular scholarship may involve study of Old Slavonic and early vernacular texts in the Old Cyrillic orthography, in which case there is a use for typefaces in the post-Petrine typographic style but supporting the additional Old Cyrillic letters, so that words or whole texts can be transcribed in the same style of type as commentary, notes, etc.. This is the Brill set (which does not include Ꙃ ꙃ Ꙉ ꙉ as Brill had not specified them for their publication needs):

    Because such fonts are not expected to be used for Old Slavonic language publishing per se, full support for the systems of accentuation, historical number forms, etc. may not be included. I expect the market for such fonts is pretty limited.
  • I am often surprised by the broad glyph coverage that (Mac) system display fonts offer. Among the handful of fonts containing “Ꙃ ꙃ Ꙉ ꙉ” are Bradley HandCopperplate, and Snell Roundhand. The other ones being DIN CondensedIowan Old Style, and Didot Bold (but not Regular and Italic!?).
  • John HudsonJohn Hudson Posts: 2,955
    OS providers often spec character coverage for system fonts by full Unicode block. It means some very rare characters get included, but it is convenient for the OS developers as it means they don’t really need to think about the character coverage in terms of language use, historical vs modern, religious vs secular, etc..
  • John SavardJohn Savard Posts: 1,088
    Of course, if one is going to support Old Slavonic, the question of supporting the Glagolitic script arises.
  • Very good idea from type.today: type.today says no to war
  • Krista RadoevaKrista Radoeva Posts: 6
    edited March 2022

    krista, I was going to call out your and maria's cyrillicsly workshops as a great way to learn (and an overall excellent experience). I'm finally getting close to finishing that font after going off the deep end with extended cyrillic afterwards :sweat_smile:


    Thanks Jeremy, I am looking forward to seeing it! 
    Yes, at the workshops we cover all the languages that are included in the character set I posted, localised forms and Extended Cyrillic.

    We are however hesitating if we should continue the workshops in the current situation.
  • John SavardJohn Savard Posts: 1,088
    edited March 2022
    While there are no Russian-only letters, one other country is under sanctions for supporting the war against the Ukraine: Belarus. So, curious to see if there were any Belarusian-only letters, I looked up information about the alphabet of Belarusian. And I learned that its history was similar to that of Ukrainian: Russia imposed orthographical changes to make the language more like Russian, in its particular case using the excuse of removing Polish influences.
    Also, I read that the Ukrainian G-letter which is the topic of this thread was added, in 2005, not to the alphabet of the Belarusian language proper, but to the alphabet of the "Classical" form of its writing - and that the grammar of Belarusian in which this form of the language was originally outlined, the Latin alphabet, including the Polish Ł, was used! (To avoid excessive length, I omit a wealth of detail.)
    So offering good historical support to the Belarusian language looks like the best way to strike a blow against the current pro-Russian regime, rather than removing support!
    Oh, and I have just learned something else.
    In old specimen books, I sometimes had seen type for a language called "Ruthenian". As it looked like it was type for the Ukrainian script, I had assumed it was an old name for that langugage. But I have learned that the matter is more complicated. Instead, Ruthenian was essentially an imaginary language that Europeans spoke of, with the Belarusian language its North Ruthenian dialect, and the Ukrainian language as its South Ruthenian dialect!

  • I am from Ukraine, Kharkiv. I am a native Ukrainian speaker. My city is currently under bombardment (the historical center of Kharkov has already suffered greatly)
    Please stay safe. I wish you and your family all the best.
  • John HudsonJohn Hudson Posts: 2,955
    Ruthenian was essentially an imaginary language that Europeans spoke of, with the Belarusian language its North Ruthenian dialect, and the Ukrainian language as its South Ruthenian dialect!
    Not really an imaginary language. Ruthenian, from the Latin Rutheni was the name given by some other Europeans to the East Slavs, their culture, and language. One still occasionally encounters Eastern Catholics who refer to themselves as Ruthenians.
  • andi aw. masryandi aw. masry Posts: 3
    edited March 2022
    @Ray Larabie and all fellow typopiles, thank you very much for bringing up this topic. This prompted more cyrillic experts to explain some of my curiosities over the years.

    As a non-native speaker of a language with cyrillic characters, here I can only learn and will learn more.

    @Krista Radoeva can you be more specific about the feature locl you mean? (is it like for example i to i.dot on TRK and scedilla to scommaccent on ROM) like this:



    One thing (I don't know if it's still on topic) I have also noticed is that the appearance of the cursive writing on certain glyphs has a completely different appearance as in these images.



    and






    So far I've handled it by renaming glyphs such as tecyr to tecyr.srb and then replacing it in one of the stylistic feature sets (SS01-SS20). Although this step is working fine in fontlab, but I don't know if this step is correct or not.

    Please enlighten. Thank you in advance. 
    Best regards






  • John HudsonJohn Hudson Posts: 2,955
    So far I've handled it by renaming glyphs such as tecyr to tecyr.srb and then replacing it in one of the stylistic feature sets (SS01-SS20). Although this step is working fine in fontlab, but I don't know if this step is correct or not.

    Providing stylistic set support can be useful as a backup, but you should also associate the substitutions with the localised forms <locl> feature for the appropriate langsys tag in your GSUB code. That will make it possible for the Serbian, Bulgarian, etc. forms to be automatically used in some software when the language of a document is set. The sample code image that you posted shows how to do that.
  • John SavardJohn Savard Posts: 1,088
    Incidentally, in researching the language of Belarus, I did find that it had one letter which was unique to it, the letter Ў which stands for W. But I also learned that in Belarus, unlike Ukraine, the local language is in desuetude; people who live in the big cities usually use Russian in daily life, and thus even forget how to speak their own language from disuse.

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