Hello,
I am developing latin script typeface. For that I need a full glyph set or characters set of the letters in latin script. I am getting confused while adding glyphs in FL7 because it is mixed.
I accidently added some character which has base of latin letters like bdot, mdot, ndot and so on... Later I got to know that some of them are not latin characters.
Where I can get all the accented letters and supportive characters of latin script?
Also, which font should I refer for latin glyphs set?
Does somebody have published the mandatory characters set that cover all essential glyphs in latin script?
Thank you.
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Comments
If you want to cover everything that Unicode considers "Latin", then you will need to fill all codepoints 0000...024F, 1E00..1EFF, 2C60..2C7F, A720..A7FF, AB30..AB6F, 10780..107BF, 1DF00..1DFFF. That's 1484 codepoints (some of which are not allocated). But that doesn't include some of the IPA extensions which you are needed writing Latin in some African languages, so you would want them as well. And some of those characters are only interesting to people studying medieval manuscripts...
In reality, people tend to take a more stratified approach, with different "levels" of compliance. For example, the Google Fonts glyphsets have a "kernel" glyphset of basic Latin, then a "core" glyphset which is what we expect for most languages using the Latin script, then "Vietnamese" and "African", as well as "plus" and "beyond" for completist coverage.
GF Latin "core" is probably what you want as a standard Latin set.
I attached a txt file with the complete list to be used in FontLab.
Notes:
Christoph Koeberlin proposed three levels of Latin support, S, M, and L, based on language support: https://github.com/koeberlin/Latin-Character-Sets
He also compiled and extended some information about the design of certain letters his in Latin S: https://github.com/koeberlin/Designing-Latin-S
Well, that's clear and helpful. Anyone following that would centre the dieresis over the width of the h.
But look above at Igor's table:
They can't both be right - or can they? Who should I trust? Does the positioning actually matter? Maybe I can just make up whatever works for my design.
More important questions are: Why is there a ḧ and what is it for, and what do users of those letters expect it to look like? Now it turns out the answers are "It's used to transcribe Arabic hah for Northern Kurdish" and "I don't know, I would have to find out before I designed it". But you would never come to that conclusion from a table of confident-looking exemplars.
This is slightly belabouring the point but you've got me on the subject now: the problem I have with Unicode in-fill-ism is that it tends to see characters as a playground for the type designer's self-expression, when in fact characters exist as a convention between language users to enable their self-expression. Once you lose sight of the language user community, you should close your font editor and do something else instead.
1.
I am surprised with your characterization of my post as "irresponsible". This is a bit too harsh, don't you think? Yes, I am sure this is not your intention, but it was what you wrote. You could, for example, question if the table has sources before calling it this.
2.
The table I posted came from years of continuous researching about orthographies. I can assure that everything there has trustful sources. And the main source I would add regarding ḧ is simply the Unicode.
But I agree one shouldn't add everything from Unicode without filtering it. So, I collected additional info (in 2011-2012): ḧ is used in Cowichan, one of the many languages from Vancouver area (source: First Nations pages, French Wikipedia, Huronia typeface).
It's also used to transliterate Arabic into Northern Kurdish. Actually, ḧ represents a sound which is not used in Kurdish so it only appears in loan words from Arabic (source: Omniglot, German Wikipedia, and "Romanization of Kurdish", an UK Government document from 2007).
3.
You started a different discussion. The thread is about what is needed to support languages using the Latin script —and not the design choices for each character. As I noted, design, linguistic, and cultural variations are not included in the table.
Anyway, as far as I could research, there is no clear "right" position for the dieresis above h in Kurdish. Until now, I got no feedback from locals about the preferable way. This issue was object of a discussion in Typophile in 2011 and also private talks with some designers.
For Cowichan, in other hand, there is a strong indication towards the dieresis above the h ascender: this is how Ross Mills designed this character in Huronia, a font specially focused on languages from Canadian West Coast.
I like Igor's character set, even if I don't use all the glyphs he includes.
Using these 2 references, you should be ready.
I wish you success!
This is for my native Portuguese:
Two necessary characters are wrong and only two auxiliary are necessary. All the others are only used for words in other languages and, if you will consider these necessary, all the Latin blocks are then necessary. The punctuation misses $, {, and }.
For the author of this site and for us fools using it!
At least, this site exists! And it helps the ignorants we are.
But maybe you could share the result of your own researches.
In fact, that's what the author of this threat asked for. And that's what Yuri answered.
Sorry, I was a teacher, delivering "instant knowledge for free". It's not the end of a game, it's called education, transmission of knowledge.
As you were the one asking the question 5 days ago, could you tell us if the numerous answers were of any help? And if you appreciate?
It's so nice to have feedback.
Thank you everyone.
Google’s Latin glyph sets (https://github.com/googlefonts/glyphsets/tree/main/GF_glyphsets/Latin) are sometimes stacked and sometimes not. That is, each set does NOT always repeat the characters of the previous set, previous sets may be needed.
- Google Kernel: support ASCII + necessary punctuation and symbols for English language.
- Google Latin Core: support latin alphabets for European and American languages >5M speakers (incl. Kernel). Similar to Adobe Latin 3
- Google Latin Vietnamese: additional support for Vietnamese language.
- Google Latin Plus: additional set of symbols for basic math and economy. This includes the above 3 sets.
- Google Latin African: +413 added characters to support Latin African languages not supported by Latin Core.
- Google Latin Beyond: +134 characters. Adds support for indigenous latin based languages from European and American regions (< 5M speakers), that are not supported in Latin Core.
Adobe’s Latin glyph sets(https://adobe-type-tools.github.io/adobe-latin-charsets/adobe-latin-1.html) always include the characters from previous levels.
Both my links have the closing parenthesis included in the auto-URL, which makes the links invalid.
Thanks!