ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N 2657

2003-10-15

Universal Multiple Octet Coded Character Set
International Organization for Standardization
Organisation internationale de normalisationМеждународная организация по стандартизации

Doc Type:
Title:
Source:Status:Action:Related:Working Group Document
Additional information on typesetting Fraktur
Asmus Freytag
Expert contribution
For information
See also N2655 as well as N2639 and N2647

The discussion of recent proposals, among them N2636, N2639 and N2647 has involved
a discussion of the rules for typesetting Fraktur. The current document attempts to collectthe information available to this author in order to provide a minimum of further background information.
Fraktur is a typographical style that was popular in some countries until the early 20thcentury. It is dense in the horizontal direction, emphasizing the vertical strokes especiallyin lower case letters, but also embellishing the capital letters. Both aspects make it difficult to read for people not used to it. However, its ready availability as a font style inGermanic countries has encouraged scientists and scholars to borrow letter and character
shapes for unrelated uses.

Typesetting Fraktur
The rules for typesetting Fraktur differ from those of typesetting modern type styles, evenfor the same languages.
The following samples are from a 1911 book typeset in Fraktur. We can assume that it isa representative example, of average typographical quality. It is neither a newspaper nor
did the publisher seem to have lavished extra typographical care. In fact, by reading it
closely we discover that while the proofreader did not let any obvious spelling or punctuation errors slip through, the same is not true for purely typographical features. Thelatter show some interesting and possibly unintentional inconsistencies.

HyphenAs a work of popular science, the book cited here uses several words that are hyphenated,something that is much more uncommon in German than, for example, in English.

1Additional information on typesetting Fraktur
As you will note, in the sample below all three uses of HYPHEN are rendered consistently as a set of two short upward slanted lines. That demonstrates a clear case for a font
shift: using a different symbol while retaining the properties of the regular hyphen.

Note that the use of space around the hyphen appears to be inconsistent, unless the discrepancy can be ascribed to the need for line justification.

Long sFraktur text uses the long s. The last line of the sample above shows that long s is usesd
everywhere, except at the end of words, including words that have been combined into acompound (e.g. des-halb). Because of compound words, the decision when to apply along s cannot be automated.

Foreign Words
In some situations foreign words in Fraktur text get typeset as Antiqua. This is analogous
to the use of Katakana for foreign words in Japanese context, or the use of italics for thesame purpose in English, but with the twist that the cited foreign word appears as it
would have been written in the source text, since most other languages used Antiqua, andnot Fraktur. Here are two examples2

Additional information on typesetting Fraktur
As can be seen from the foregoing example, foreign names are often not treated the sameway as foreign words. This can lead to interesting complications, to wit, the insertion ofthe Antiqua letter ‘è ’ in the middle of a word otherwise typeset in Fraktur:Hyphenating foreign words
Text set in Antiqua uses the regular hyphen. If a hyphenated term is of mixed German/foreign origin, the Fraktur hyphen is used, except between two parts that are inAntiqua. Such examples are not very common, except depending on the subject matter.

Ligatures
Fraktur uses a richer set of ligatures than Antiqaua text. The most common ones in thesamples presented here are the ch and st ligatures.

Sperrsatz
Several of the samples also show the use of letter s p a c i n g (German: Sperrsatz) tohighlight a term. The use of Sperrsatz in German is no longer as common as it was inFraktur, but it is still common enough to make the use of increased letterspacing an undesirable option in laying out German text.
One interesting feature of Sperrsatz is the fact that many common ligatures are maintained, as in the following example.

Older texts
Older texts in Fraktur have additional interesting conventions. Here's a scan from the Vorrede- of Dr. Johann Jacob Rambach's “Neun Buß-reden über auserlesene Texte[usw]“), 1736.
In the upper right quadrant you'll see "procuri[e]ret" and "elabori[e]ren" in mixed typographies, Fraktur/Antiqua, with the German ending on the Latin loan word set in Fraktur.
(Sample courtesy of Bernard S. Greenberg).
The Vorrede uses superscripted ‘e’ instead of the two dots for an umlaut, which is something that can be seen quite often in older works. As it is a systematic change, it would beimplemented by using a font that provides the three vowels A O and U with supercripted‘e’ instead of umlaut.
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Additional information on typesetting Fraktur

Note that the term Bußrede can appear with and without a hyphen (Buß-Rede andBußrede). Several other compound nouns are hyphenated, contrary to modern Germanusage.
Finally note the continuation of lines in the bottom margin, a practice found mostly inearlier works.

References
The bulk of the Fraktur samples are taken fromDr. Albert Neuburger, Ergötzliches Experimentierbuch, Ullstein & Co., Berlin 1911
A fairly complete set of rules for the orthography (and the typesetting) of Fraktur can befound in
Der Große Duden, Band 1, Rechtschreibung, Bibliographisches Institut, 1968,
Mannheim, Zürich.
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