Design of the Cyrillic letter Qa /Ԛ /ԛ

Tofu Type Foundry
Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 59
in Type Education
The Cyrillic letter Qa /Ԛ /ԛ has multiple forms, according to it’s Wikipedia page. It doesn’t explain when the different variants are used though (like how the double-storey /g is often used in humanist typefaces or how /Д has a localized form for Bulgarian). The text just says it changes “depending on font”. Does anyone know why?
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  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,406
    I don’t recall seeing it taking any form other than that of the corresponding Latin Q/q. It and the Wa W/w are both straight borrowings from the Latin script. Any idiosyncratic forms were likely typeface-specific and not generaralised to any kind of pattern of use.
  • Igor Freiberger
    Igor Freiberger Posts: 292
    edited May 15
    It seems the English Wikipedia article for Cyrillic Q/q is plainly wrong. It's a low quality article with only one reference —and it points to a proposal where there is no alternative Q/q.
    This letter is not in use anymore. It was only present in Kurdish, but in a previous version of the alphabet. It was also used in older Ossetian and Abkhazian from the pre-Soviet era. Thus samples and information are sparse. One can check the same article in Wikipedia with other languages, where there is no mention to an alternative Q/q.
    Maybe the Wikipedia author misread the table from the proposal (bottom of page 24) where there is a glyph resembling a reversed P, but it was part of old Armenian-Kurdish alphabet, not a Cyrillic variation. Some confusion with ƣ, used in Kazakhstan in 1930s, is also possible.
  • Tofu Type Foundry
    Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 59
    Thank you all for the clarification! This is starting to make sense now—and exactly what I was hoping to learn :)
  • Tural Alisoy
    Tural Alisoy Posts: 60
    You can use it as Q with ease. As shown on Wikipedia, its phonetic value and historical evolution support this usage.
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,406
    Was hoping @Denis Moyogo Jacquerye would chime in. :)
  • Tofu Type Foundry
    Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 59
    The English Wikipedia article for Es with Descender (Ҫ ҫ) also feels odd (and only cites one source, The Unicode Standard, Version 16.0). The article claims that Chuvash uses a form identical to the C with Cedilla (Ç ç), but sometimes it’s a right hook, and other times a left hook. The Russian, Bulgarian, and Ukrainian pages use different images for visual examples. Brill, PT Sans, and a few other fonts I looked at seem to use a vertical descender instead of a hook, ogonek, or cedilla.





    All this leaves me wondering why there are different forms for the descender? Is this a case of localization or flexibility in the design? Has one style become the accepted “standard” in modern type design or does it vary by style (sans, serif, script, etc)?
  • Igor Freiberger
    Igor Freiberger Posts: 292
    edited May 19
    AFAIK, the descendent diacritic shouldn't be confused with a cedilla, a Cyrillic descender or a comma accent. It's a different mark with two variants related to the languages:


  • Tofu Type Foundry
    Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 59
    Igor Freiberger said:
    AFAIK, the descendent diacritic shouldn't be confused with a cedilla, a Cyrillic descender or a comma accent. It's a different mark with two variants related to the languages:
    Very interesting! Would you consider the diacritics in your image to be a “hook” or it it something different?
  • Tural Alisoy
    Tural Alisoy Posts: 60
    For the Bashkir and Chuvash letters “Ҙ” and “Ҫ”, the default form is usually drawn with a tail or a reversed ogonek. If you choose one of these options, it is recommended to also include a .loclBSH or .loclCHU glyph. For example, if you use the tail as the default, you can create a glyph named .loclBSH or .loclCHU that features the reversed ogonek form. However, for the Chuvash letter “Ҫ” specifically, you may also provide an alternative glyph resembling a cedilla.
  • Tofu Type Foundry
    Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 59
    Thanks for providing that info about .locl feature code Tural. Very helpful to know!

    Do you know if the “straight tail” design (like in Brill Cyrillic) is a compromise that works for Bashkir and Chuvash? Interestingly it’s different from Brill Latin’s design.



    However, for the Chuvash letter “Ҫ” specifically, you may also provide an alternative glyph resembling a cedilla.
    Would it be sufficient to supply the Chuvash cedeilla /Ҫ /ҫ as a stylistic set? I’m curious why/how a Chuvash user would want to select the cedilla design.
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,406
    edited May 27
    What you show on the right there is not Brill Latin. The Brill Latin fonts do not include Cyrillic characters, which is why you are seeing font fallback.

    The latest version of Brill, available on the Tiro website, includes a lot of Cyrillic extensions, including a locl cedilla-like descender for Chuvash.
  • Tofu Type Foundry
    Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 59
    Sorry John, I was so focused on the diacritics I didn’t even notice it was a fallback font! Seems glaringly obvious now though. I’ll have to start consulting the Tiro site instead of ilovetypography when using Brill as a reference. Currently the Brill page on Tiro isn’t loading for me though. Not sure if other people have the same issue.
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,406
    edited May 27
    Will look into that. Had some trouble with the site yesterday.

    [Looks like the site was under assault from bots this morning. Seems to be working better now.]
  • Tofu Type Foundry
    Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 59
    Can confirm, the site is working now! Is the italic supposed to have two different designs?


  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,406
    Yes, the default descenders for these characters follow the pattern on the descenders of the respective upper- and lowercase. So the caps get the same pattern of descenders in both roman and italic, while the lowercase gets the wavy cursive form in the italic.
  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,168
    Of course, in Belarusian, they have the W sound, but instead of borrowing a letter for it from Latin, they did something logical within Cyrillic: the letter that looks like y, but carries the u sound, simply got turned into a consonant with the same mark that is used to turn I into I Kratkoye: if И and Й can be I and Y, then У and Ў can be U and W.



  • Tural Alisoy
    Tural Alisoy Posts: 60
    edited May 29
    @Tofu Type Foundry

    Do you know if the “straight tail” design (like in Brill Cyrillic) is a compromise that works for Bashkir and Chuvash? Interestingly it’s different from Brill Latin’s design.

    Yes. You can use a straight tail or a reverse ogonek. Whichever suits you best.

    Do you know if the “straight tail” design (like in Brill Cyrillic) is a compromise that works for Bashkir and Chuvash? Interestingly it’s different from Brill Latin’s design.

    I honestly don't know why this is, but I have a theory. Since the letter “Ҙ” does not exist in the Chuvash alphabet, there is more visual freedom in designing the letter “Ҫ”. For this reason, a shared design approach for “Ҙ” and “Ҫ” may emerge — possibly as a compromise to address both phonetic and visual differentiation needs.
    4o

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