PALO BÁLIK SKFILIP BLAŽEK CZROBERT KRAVJANSZKI HU
AGNIESZKA MAŁECKA PL

THE INSECTSPROJECT
Problems of
Diacritic Design
for Central
European
Languages

ZOFIA OSLISLO PL

PALO BÁLIK SKFILIP BLAŽEK CZROBERT KRAVJANSZKI HU
AGNIESZKA MAŁECKA PL

THE INSECTSZOFIA OSLISLO PL

PROJECT
Problems of
Diacritic Design
for Central
European
Languages
Concept and editorial
development
AGNIESZKA MAŁECKA PLZOFIA OSLISLO PL

2nd edition
Katowice 2016

6—7

Introduction

8—9

About authors

12—35

FILIP BLAŽEK CZCzech diacritics: from Hus to Unicode

36—61

ROBERT KRAVJANSZKI HU
The case of Hungary

62—91

AGNIESZKA MAŁECKA, ZOFIA OSLISLO PL
Polish diacritics: the history and principles of design

92—115PALO BÁLIK SK
Designing Slovak diacritics

TABLE OF CONTENTSCZ › HU › PL › SK › 5

THE INSECTS PROJECT: Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages, i.e. thebook you are holding in your hands, is a proud product of a collaborative interna‑
tional research effort aimed at sharing knowledge about Central European typogra‑
phy and promoting design that is sensitive to the needs of all those who are unlucky
enough to be native users of Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak. On one hot July
day in Bratislava, Robert Kravjanszki cracked an inside joke at the opening meetingof the project team, saying that diacritics made texts printed in our languages look
like they were swarmed by insects. In addition to having us helpless with laughter,
this quirkily funny and perfectly fitting metaphor became an instant inspiration forthe project’s name.

Perhaps few users of “diacriticless” languages (such as e.g. English) realise how
lucky they are to be able to choose from literally thousands of typefaces. Central
Europeans, on the other hand, are nowhere near as spoiled for choice, because
many fonts available on the market still seem to overlook the specific needs of theknotty languages in our part of the continent. Awkward kerning and non‑existentor sloppy diacritics are but a few of a long list of eyesores. Our ambition is to makea step towards levelling the playing field for users of all languages, including thosespoken (and written) across the Visegrad Group, and filling the gaps in the knowl‑edge about our languages. We also hope to encourage designers to create fonts thatare sensitive to local users’ needs. And though the problem of designing typefaces
for our region was previously tackled by the likes of Filip Blažek (Diacritics Project),
Adam Twardoch (Polish Diacritics: How to?), and Radek Sidun (Diacritics of World's
Languages), the topic seems far from exhausted and we can certainly expect swarms
of further observations, discoveries and developments (to stretch Robert’s entomo‑
logical metaphor a little further).

This book contains four articles by invited experts: Palo Bálik (SK), Filip Blažek (CZ),
Robert Kravjanszki (HU) and Poland’s duo of Agnieszka Małecka and Zofia Oslislo,
who also doubled as the project’s co‑ordinators. Each article comprises a historical
overview and a guide to good diacritic design practices in particular languages in‑cluding examples of the most common design problems.

6 ‹ PLCZ ‹ HU ‹ PL ‹ SK

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

In our research, we focused on old prints in order to examine the process of for‑mation of spelling principles in different countries. The majority of solutions pre‑sented are examples of text typefaces in different varieties. Due to the limited re‑search time frame and the length of the essays, we had to leave out a number ofinteresting topics which, although undoubtedly worthy of further study, would
require a different research strategy. These include comparative studies of ancientmanuscripts and modern handwriting for diacritics, alphabet books and methodsof teaching writing in particular countries, as well as job printing and experimental
alphabets.

We hope that this book will become an informative source of knowledge on Central
European languages and a useful tool for type design professionals, teachers, stu‑
dents and enthusiasts. Enjoy your read!

Agnieszka Małecka, Zofia Oslislo

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLOINTRODUCTION

CZ › HU › PL › SK
PL › 7

PALO BÁLIK SK

is a book designer and teacher. He is Head of the Laboratory of Typography
at the Visual Communication Department, Academy of Fine Arts and Design,
Bratislava. In addition to being the author and co‑author of research publica‑
tions and curator of exhibitions on typography and type design, he is also anaward winning book and editorial designer, member of the Editorial board of
the design magazine Designum, and founding member of the Civic Association
1977 an organisation promoting visual communication in Slovakia.

FILIP BLAŽEK CZ

has worked as a graphic designer since 1993. In 2003, he established Designiq,
a graphic design studio based in Prague. He focuses on corporate identity, bookand editorial design, and typography. He is a regular contributor to professional
periodicals in the field of graphic design. Since 1999, he has worked as a lecturer
on type design and typography. He is the Czech delegate to the internationalorganisation ATypI.

ROBERT KRAVJANSZKI HU

is a type design enthusiast. His interdisciplinary background in law and sociology has led him to pursue a wide range of professional roles over the years,
including working as a labourer, sociologist and editor. For the last 20 years,
he has led a small font house in Budapest and worked as an occasional teacherof type history and font technology. His specialties include type history, typedesign and technology, as well as… making cheese and baking bread.

8 ‹ CZ ‹ HU ‹ PL ‹ SK

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

AGNIESZKA MAŁECKA PL

is a designer and Assistant Professor at the Department of Design, Academyof Fine Arts, Katowice, where she also serves as Vice‑Dean of the Faculty of
Design since September 2016. She has led and contributed to many of the
Academy’s type design workshops (e.g. Ala ma fonta and Ala ma pióro). A keen
educator, she has taught design and editorial graphics and, in 2013, liaised with
Zofia Oslislo to teach type design as part of the Script and Character module.

ZOFIA OSLISLO PL

is a designer and culture researcher, currently working as Assistant Professor at
the Department of Design, Academy of Fine Arts, Katowice, where her teach‑ing specialties involve typography, digital publication design and type design(in collaboration with Agnieszka Małecka). In her creative work, she specialises
in book design and data visualisation, while her cultural research interests fo‑
cus around Upper Silesia, her favourite source of creative inspiration.

ABOUT AUTHORSCZ › HU › PL › SK › 9

p. 64

Diacritics are marks added to glyphs to change
their meaning or pronunciation. They are also
commonly called accents or diacritical marks.
These marks can be made above, below,
through, or anywhere around the letter. The
name comes from the Greek word, διακρίνειν,
meaning “that distinguishes”.
(Gaultney, 2002)

p. 65

If all diacritics were simple in shape – suchas a perfectly circular dot – and if all baseglyphs were lowercase, symmetrical and had
unchanging stroke weight, the design andpositioning of diacritics would be trivial.
(Gaultney, 2002)

10 ‹ PL
CZ ‹ HU ‹ PL ‹ SK

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

p. 96(…) debate on designing Central European
diacritics is finally moving in the right direction
in international typographic circles. Outside
the world of professional typography, however,global awareness of diacritics in Central
European languages, as well as the sounds they
represent, is close to non‑existent.
(Bálik, 2016)

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLOSENTENCESCZ › HU › PL › SK
PL › 1112—3512 ‹ PL

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

FILIP BLAŽEK CZ

Czech
diacritics:
from Hus
to Unicode

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLO

PL › 13

p. 18With a kind eye, do welcome the elegant Latin
script! Nature, magnificently almighty, loves
the round form in its fairest of works.
(Tyl, 1833)

p. 29

Since the early days, the caron has had threebasic forms in text typefaces: symmetrical,
shadow and rounded.
(Blažek, 2016)14 ‹ PLCZ

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

p. 27

Some traditional and widely‑used typefaces,
like Helvetica and Futura, have a stablediacritic form to which designers have become
accustomed.
(Blažek, 2016)

p. 16

Accents are minutiae, but important minutiae;
the fine, sensitive eye is impeded by any sort ofdisorder in such minutiae. Their proper andcareful design, therefore, underlies good bookdesign.
(Dyrynk, 1924)

POLISHDIACRITICS:CZECHDIACRITICS:FROM
THE HISTORYHUS TO ANDUNICODE
PRINCIPLES› F. BLAŽEK
OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLOCZPL › 15

1. Hus also marked the dark (velarised)l similar to the Polish ł with a dot; thesephonemes stopped being distinguishedin the C19th; ł was not always differenti‑
ated in texts.

Accents are minutiae, but important minutiae; the fine, sensitive eye is impeded by any sort ofdisorder in such minutiae. Their proper and careful design, therefore, underlies good book design.
Disorder disturbs the impression of harmony that a beautiful book wishes to c­onvey to the reader.
(Dyrynk, 1924).

The oldest known transcription of the Czech language dates back to the C12th and C13th.
Until that time, Czech had appeared in Latin texts only sporadically. The oldest docu‑
mented Czech sentence, a memorandum in the founding charter of the Litoměřice ca‑
thedral chapter from the early C13th, states: “Pauel dal geſt ploscouicih zemu Wlahdal geſt dolaſ zemu bogu i ſuiatemu ſcepanu ſe duema duſnicoma bogucea a ſedlatu.”(Pavel has given land in Ploškovice, Vlach has given land in Dolany to the Lord and SaintStephen, with two souls, Bogučej and Sedlata.) A single grapheme represented several
different phonemes; c, for example, could have been read as today’s [ts], č [t∫] or k [k].

As Czech writing developed, digraphs, sometimes trigraphs and exceptionally even tetra‑graphs (combinations of two, three or four Latin letters, respectively) started to comeinto use during the C13th (Kosek, 2014, pp. 12–24). But writing methods were neither regularnor consistent. The first system of digraphic orthography (known as old digraphic style)
was not created until the early C14th. The oldest preserved Bohemian legends in verse,such as The Legend of the Virgin Mary, The Apostles, Descent of the Holy Spirit, Pontius Pilate
and Judas, and The Passion of Jesus Christ, were written in digraphic style, as were the oldest
manu­script fragments of the secular epic poem Alexandreis (Křístek). Vowel lengths were
not marked still, and the way some phonemes were written could vary even within thevery same text. The consonant ř, for example, could be written as rſ, rs, rz or even just r.
The system (called the young digraphic style) soon stabilised in the early C15th and ap‑
peared in the first printed books.

Introduction of accents in the C15th
The proposal to conduct a spelling reform is credited to Master Jan Hus and containedin an early C15th treatise written in Latin that was later called Orthographia Bohemica(­experts dispute its exact date). Hus homogenised the non‑uniform way in which somephonemes were written and introduced a simple and, above all, logical system for Czech
phonemes. He suggested that palatalised consonants be marked with a dot (­punctus­rotundus)1 above the letter and long vowels be represented by a short line (­gracilis

16 ‹ CZTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Fig. 1 In the six‑volume Kralice Bible,
published between 1579 and 1594, Czech
diacritics are roughly in their contem­
porary form. The graphemes ě and č are
the exceptions, bearing a mark that (insome font sizes) is more similar to an
apostrophe than a caron, and the š,
which was written either as ſſ (at the
beginning and in the middle of a word)or � (at the end of a word). The shape ofthe caron, especially in upper‑case let‑ters, also often resembles something likean irregular dot.

­virgula) over the letter. With minor changes, this system continues to be used to thisday; the dot soon turned into the caron or háček used today. It is said that Hus called the­accent a “nabodeníčko” (“pin prick mark”), but Jana Pleskalová (2006) explains that thisterm does not appear to have been introduced until the C19th.

The new orthography was not adopted immediately. Parallel to Hus’ style, the d­ igraphic
style continued to be used into the first half of the C16th. It was the members of the
Czech Brethren who finally used Hus’ orthography in a consistent manner (Kralice Bible
style) Fig. 1 and raised its popularity thanks to their high literary output. With only minorchanges, this style was used until the 1790s.

Transition to Latin
A transition from Blackletter to Latin script Fig. 2 represented an important milestone inCzech typography. It is primarily credited to František Jan Tomsa, who was a school text‑
book warehouse administrator for the Bohemian School Commission in the late C18th
and early C19th (Kabát, 1935). Since 1794, Tomsa had tried to introduce Czech accents tobooks printed in Latin script but encountered numerous technical issues and general re‑
luctance in his communications with type foundries. It was not until 1799 that the first
Antiqua with Czech accent marks came to Prague, but the alphabet books printed in
the 1800s influenced entire generations of future readers. Josef Dobrovský, Pavel Josef

Fig. 2 One of the first known uses of
Latin script to typeset a Czech text:
Nebesky Budicžek duſſe kržeſtianske,
a Czech prayer book from 1738. As LatinŠafařík and others worked to further simplify and systemise Czech spelling throughout

script was primarily made to set Latin

the C19th, and, with minor modifications, the form of Czech established in the mid‑C19th

Czech characters available. And thus

has survived to date.

texts, printing houses did not have any
printer Václav Jan Tybély replaced thecaron with one or two dots placed
above or next to the letter.

CZECH DIACRITICS: FROM HUS TO UNICODE › F. BLAŽEK

CZ › 17

In the mid‑C19th, Latin script also finally emerged as the dominant script, partially thanks
to the Haas Type Foundry, which published several typeface families featuring Czech let‑terforms in 1840. The question of the transition to Latin script was debated in profession‑
al circles and beyond; even playwright and journalist Josef Kajetán Tyl, who also penned
the lyrics to the Czech national anthem, joined the discussion. In his 1833 article titled“To the Maidens of Bohemia” Fig. 3 printed in Gindy a Nynj (Then and Now) magazine, hesounded the battle cry:With a kind eye, do welcome the elegant Latin script! Nature, magnificently al‑
mighty, loves the round form in its fairest of works. Your faces, dear maidens, areround, your hands are round, all that is beautiful is also round. How could I send
Fig. 3 The cover page of the 3rd issue of
Gindy a Nynj (Then and Now) magazine
from 1833 contains an article in which Josef
Kajetán Tyl underlines the advantages of
Latin script. Nevertheless, the very next
issue goes back to Gothic script.

you anything but beautiful script? Boxy German blackletter seems like oak wheels
wedged between you and me, hence keeping me from your grace. Yet still – oh, if
only you should send word that by virtue of the round Latin script I have stolen into
your heart, and you shall soon prefer to read nothing more than lines written in theelegant Latin script! (Tyl, 1833)

The limited availability of typefaces with Czech accents was a lingering problem evenat the end of the C19th, as Typografia Fig. 4 magazine notes in 1890: “There is an enor‑
mous need especially for Czech accents in many typefaces, as some German foundries,
on which the overwhelming majority of local printers rely, are sometimes reluctant to
supply the much needed accented characters, particularly for certain special typefaces,on the pretext that they would simply lose money investing in new dies with accented
Czech characters made for some specific typeface merely to satisfy a few negligible or‑ders” (Stivín, 1890, p. 85).

As a result, printers occasionally took matters into their own hands and soldered the­accents onto metal type sorts by hand. In spite of this, many foreign type foundries (suchas J. G. Schelter & Giesecke in Leipzig, H. Berthold in Berlin and Oscar Laessig in Vienna)
advertised typefaces featuring Czech accents in Czech professional journals, though their
quality varied greatly.

18 ‹ CZTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Fig. 4 The heading for the first issue ofTypografia (1888) comes across as a type‑
face specimen corresponding with period
fashion. There is tremendous fluctuation in
the harmony between the letters and theaccents.

Typographic renaissance of the early C20th
Debuting in 1911, and remaining in publication all the way up to 1949 (with hiatuses dur‑ing the two world wars), Ročenka českých knihtiskařů (Czech Book Printers Yearbook) wasa three‑hundred‑page annual publication that summarised important developments in
the industry from the previous year. In his article “Výrobky písmolijen starší i moderní”(The Older and Modern Products of Type Foundries) featured in its premiere volume,the yearbook’s editor Josef Mrkvička underlined the importance of the establishment of
Slévárna Písem, a Czech type foundry that grew out of Dr. Ed. Grégr type foundry, andespecially its collaboration with Vojtěch Preissig. While discussing the question of accentmarks in a review paragraph on the Augenheil‑Antiqua typeface, Mrkvička explained:“As is the case for so many typefaces from practically all type foundries, Czech accentsare a stumbling block even for the beautiful Augenheil‑Antiqua. They were not at all de‑signed in harmony with the letterforms, as all of the accents give the impression of hav‑
ing been appended to the letters from an entirely different typeface” (Mrkvička, 1911, p. 199).
The yearbooks also featured advertisements for foreign type foundries, but the executionof the Czech letters was often very poor.

CZECH DIACRITICS: FROM HUS TO UNICODE › F. BLAŽEK

CZ › 19

Typographer, editor and author of several professional typography books Karel Dyrynk
boldly entered the debate on accent quality and cohesion between accents and base let‑terforms. He had already mentioned the importance of the harmony between the ac‑cent mark and the outline of the letter in his 1911 book Typograf o knihách (A Typographer’sView of Books) (Dyrynk, 1993); accents were discussed in far more detail in his slim vol‑ume Krásná kniha a její technická úprava (Fine Press Publications and Layouts). In the sec‑
ond edition published in 1924, which Dyrynk himself considered to be the “final” edition,
he wrote:

All of the typefaces used here [in Czechoslovakia] thus far have been designed
abroad; the letters are meant for typesetting languages that either do not at all
think in terms of accents (English) or use accents only sparingly (German andFrench). For this reason, setting these typefaces in the original language, the lan‑
guage for which they were designed, is far more impressive than when they are set
in Czech, with accents filling the space above the midline. This is only natural, as the
person who drew the letter did not consider Czech accents, which were added only
when the typeface was prepared for Czech. They were inserted above the letters
not only without regard for the needs of the language or their meaning in Czech,
but often even regardless of the typeface style, shapes and strength. Hence it occursthat the very same carons and rings are used for typefaces that are entirely differ‑ent in character. The caron tends to be a sharp wedge, no matter if the letter is nar‑row or wide; the acute is vertical, almost stabbed into the letter; the ring over the ůis usually weak, even if it is with a strong letter (Dyrynk, 1924).

Dyrynk believed the solution to the problem with diacritics lay not in adding accentsto imported typefaces, but in having Czech artists design typefaces at Czech foundries.
He was certain that local typographers “actively yearn” for a Czech typeface, one rea‑son being that “there surely is a certain national ambition to make every effort to haveat least one typeface of our own with which we could prove not only our professional,
but also our cultural advancement in this field” (Dyrynk, 1925). Hense, Dyrynk enthusiastical‑
ly welcomed the creation of Vojtěch Preissig’s Antikva at the State Printing House (Státní
tiskárna) in Prague in 1923–1925, dedicating a separate book, České původní typografické
písmo (Czech Original Typography) to the occasion. This is probably the author’s most ex‑tensive contribution to the topic of Czech diacritics, expounding on accent marks in great
detail over several pages.

20 ‹ CZTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Fig. 5 The master templates for arrang‑
ers or sign painters often integrated
accents into the letters to create a single
whole. Samples from Jaroslav Benda’s
Písmo a nápis (Typefaces and Inscriptions)from the 1930s, published by Heintze &Blanckertz in Berlin, the manufacturerof Redis and Ato metal nibs.

Vojtěch Preissig did in fact devote great care to diacritics in his type design work. Whenhe opened a studio in Prague in the early C20th, he added the accent marks to foreign
typefaces himself. In the words of Karel Dyrynk, he tried to make sure his accents werenot “merely typeset, but adapted and logically incorporated into the typefaces – so that,rather than causing interference, they decorated and imparted Czech character to thebase letterform” (Dyrynk, 1925). It is interesting that, in justified cases, Preissig did not hes‑
itate to change the outline of the letter; his alteration of the letter Ů, allowing him tolower an open ring down into it, was typical. Preissig also “Czechified” several classic
typefaces, adapting Garamond Antiqua (including punctuation) for the State Printing
House Fig. 6. And Dyrynk did enjoy using this version of Garamond in his own books.
While he was in the United States, Preissig designed a number of typefaces that were
cut into linoleum, where his distinctive way of working with diacritics manifested itself,
too. However, he applied it to other European languages as well, thus somewhat defying
Dyrynk’s call for a purely Czech typeface.

Fig. 6 A sample of type set in Garamondwith Czech accents drawn by Vojtěch
Preissig for the State Printing House(Státní tiskárna) in Prague in the early

Dyrynk and Preissig were the first to systematically demand quality accents for type‑

1920s.

faces intended to set Czech texts. Whereas Karel Dyrynk’s attempts at creating new
text typefaces ended in obscurity, Preissig’s legacy remains vital not only in the workof Czech typographers, but also beyond his native country’s borders. From today’s per‑spective, it is apparent that both Dyrynk and Preissig demanded accents that were
too bold and artistic, calling unwanted attention to themselves and disturbing legibili‑ty Fig. 7. It is clear, however, that while their interpretation of diacritics influenced sever‑
al artists and type designers, such as Oldřich Menhart, it has had almost no impact on
typefaces regularly used to set books or newspapers, where imported typefaces withCZECH DIACRITICS: FROM HUS TO UNICODE › F. BLAŽEK

CZ › 21

Fig. 7 When František Štorm set out in1998 to digitise Preissig’s Antikva, a type‑
face designed in 1925, he created two
versions: one maintains the original
expressive diacritics, and the second is
updated to reflect contemporary think‑ing about accents.

average‑quality diacritics have remained dominant even to this day. Even back then, theinfluence of globalisation was evident. For the most part, foreign type foundries logical‑
ly did not want to offer specifically Czech accents, with one é for Czech and another one
for French. The question remains, whether type foundries were even cognizant of Czech
typographic experiments. Type specimens from the period show that they did not seemto hold much interest in diacritics. Sometimes accent shapes for the same letterformdiffered from one size to the next, or some sort of universal diacritics were added to thebase letterforms Fig. 8.

Fig. 8 When texts were still set by hand,the shapes of accents often changed
from size to size, as can be seen in thissample of a narrow sans (Úzké kamen‑né) from the typeface specimen ofa standard Czech printing house (1960s).

Typography on the wane
Although World War II, followed by the communist coup of 1948, meant that any real
progress in Czech typography was put on hold for several long decades, even this dark
period brought a small number of valuable typefaces and a few outstanding booksin the field. The first and, thus far, the only Czech book exclusively focused on type22 ‹ CZTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

design – Oldřich Menhart’s Tvorba typografického písma (Type Design) – was published in
1957, but even this was an achievement Fig. 9. Until fonts were digitised in the 1990s, there
were only a few type designers in the entire country and only a handful of original fonts
were ever actually cast.

In Menhart’s book, one can see a certain change of opinion regarding diacritics, especial‑ly a more global approach to the entire issue. He writes, “If Latin script should be adapted
for printing in a multitude of languages, each stroke requires a good deal of forethought
and experience so that the demands for the practical and aesthetic nature (of the script)
may be balanced in an acceptable manner” (Menhart, 1957).

Throughout the totalitarian period (1948–1989), foreign typefaces prevailed in Czechoslovakia. Books were usually set in Baskerville, Plantin or Times. Diacritical marks wereoccasionally touched upon in Jan Solpera’s typeface reviews in Typografia magazine ora few short paragraphs in specialised books about typesetting and printing. The only
place where a certain distinctiveness still appeared in the general approach to diacriticalmarks was in lettering on posters and covers of books and music albums.

Fig. 9 Menhrat’s distinctive approachto diacritics is apparent from his illustra‑tions for Tvorba typografického písma(Type Design). Flat accents for the up‑

In the late 1980s, the state of printing in Czechoslovakia was downright tragic, particular‑

per‑case letters are in part determined

ly in regard to illustrated publications that required reproductions of excellent quality. As

nical limitations. From today’s perspec‑a result, some books were printed abroad, but international printers were not equipped
to respect Czech typographic conventions. Some books featured a publisher’s apology

by the typesetting machines’ own tech‑
tive, the strict shadowing of the caron –which is additionally rounded for Old
Style typefaces – is unusual.

that the book did not follow Czech standards. Frequent culprits were one‑letter words
hanging at the end of a line or diacritics (one typical mistake was printing the palatalisedt (ť) with a caron (ť). Similar errors also appeared in Czech books that were printed in ex‑
ile and smuggled into Czechoslovakia before 1989.

Digital revolution
Czechoslovakia’s printing industry underwent its much‑needed modernisation in the ear‑ly 1990s. From a typographical perspective, the introduction of computers to the type‑setting process (DTP) brought about the greatest change. Because PCs were suddenly
able to efficiently perform tasks that used to require specially‑trained experts and a lotof time, typesetting was decentralised and democratised. But history repeated itself: justas in the early C20th, Czechoslovakia’s cultural and economic isolation behind the IronCZECH DIACRITICS: FROM HUS TO UNICODE › F. BLAŽEK

CZ › 23

2. Admittedly, however, whereas theCzech and Slovak characters were
perfect, Latvian, Lithuanian and Polishcharacters contained many errors. Thiswas one of the reasons why typefaces
localised in the Czech Republic did notcatch on in neighbouring countries.
3. Until around 2001, computer
typefaces could contain no more than256 characters. As this number could notaccommodate both Western European
and Eastern European characters, fonts
were divided into separate families, i.e.,Helvetica and Helvetica CE (“Central
European”). Font files could not be transferred from one platform to another(e.g. a Windows font could not be used
on a Macintosh); character encoding in
fonts was incompatible between platforms, making it impossible to transfer
text documents without a special

Curtain following World War II meant that Western suppliers of typesetting t­ echnology
initially ignored Eastern European characters. This left no alternative but to modify thesoftware, but as computer geeks had limited knowledge of typography, the first localised
programs and typefaces were full of errors and problems.

The situation surrounding diacritics started to improve with the arrival of QuarkXPress,a typesetting and desktop publishing program (the Czech version was released in 1992),
and the expansion of Apple Macintosh computers. Mac OS supported vector fonts whichwere localised by Macron in collaboration with Adobe. Consequently, carefully localised
fonts were reaching Czech and Slovak readers by the early 1990s, with font diacritics of‑ten surpassing the originals2. Different accents for upper‑case and lower‑case letterswere a typical feature of typefaces localised by Martin Pruška, Martin Klimeš and (until
1996) Otakar Karlas.

converter.

Around the same time as the quality fonts mentioned above became available, the Czech
market started to be flooded with relatively cheap, terribly localised typefaces that re‑spected absolutely no principles of aesthetics. Particularly noteworthy in this respect
were all manner of pirated copies of genuine fonts available on CDs that were still of‑
ficially distributed. Whereas Adobe’s Futura font family featured accents in the spirit ofPaul Renner’s original designs, various copies and clones had generic diacritics that bore
no relationship to the structure of the letters. In some cases, the accents were complete‑ly wrong.

Rise of Czech type foundries and support for standards
In 1993, František Štorm entered the Czech market with První střešovická písmolijna,a type foundry that tried to sell its typefaces. The concept that a local designer com‑munity, which had grown accustomed to working with stolen fonts on stolen software,
proved a premature one. Initially, however, Štorm’s typefaces, which stood out for their
distinctive character and carefully executed diacritical marks, were widely pirated andmost of the foundry’s clients were outside of the country.

An important moment for Czech diacritics came roughly in 2001, when the Unicode
standard, defining character encoding across multiple platforms, became widely respect‑
ed and the OpenType format for multi‑platform fonts entered the market3. But the real

24 ‹ CZTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

change came with the launch of Adobe InDesign. OpenType typefaces were embraced
and within about ten years they had entirely replaced original formats despite some­early problems (as users transitioned to modern operating systems, their old, incorrectly­localised fonts stopped working). This was also the case for the oldest versions of Štorm’s
typefaces,which had non‑standard encoding.

Today
Even today, diacritics remain a very hot topic among type designers and typography­experts. 2006 saw the author of these lines launch diacritics.typo.cz, an open online­database of information about diacritical marks, meant as a response to the low‑quali‑ty accents being produced by many foreign type foundries. The site, which followed up
on the author’s article “Accents” in volume 10 of Typo, continues to operate to this day(Blažek, 2004). Accent marks were also addressed in great detail in the typeface reviews

that appeared in Typo, a bilingual (English and Czech) magazine published in Prague
from 2003–2012. Most reviews were written by Czech typographers Martin Pecina andDavid Březina. The latter made a major contribution to the debate on the form of diacrit‑
ical marks in his 2009 article “On Diacritics” (Březina, 2009), as did Radek Sidun the follow‑
ing year in his master’s thesis on diacritics. This included a “Diacritic Manifesto”, reprint‑
ed here in full:

DIACRITIC MANIFESTO

Every day I get about a billion emails, newsletters and Web updates about new
fonts. The authors blag on about how they spent 60 years making a new font, andhow their one in particular is the best thing since sliced bread. But if we try to use
their font for anything more than a simple ABCD, we’re out of luck.

The football World Cup’s on the TV, one of the guys running around on the pitch
is Nedved, but that’s not really his name. Football players have top notch kits withloads of features, but did anyone care to pay attention to whether or not the play‑er’s name is spelled correctly? Apparently not. These so far unsuccessful attempts
to abolish diacritics have about as much chance of success as if we tried to get theBrits or Germans to reform their grammar and write everything phonetically.

CZECH DIACRITICS: FROM HUS TO UNICODE › F. BLAŽEK

CZ › 25

All of these typeface designers and typographers spent vast amounts of time learn‑
ing their profession. Now, in their prime, they directly affect fonts as a means ofcommunication, but by the look of things don’t seem to be bothered much about
responsibility towards the media or a reader who might be trying to get informationin adequate quality.

We quickly got used to computer fonts having loads of language variants for oper‑
ating system fonts, but the obvious purpose seems to escape many. The whole cir‑cus around “Web‑fonts” and other cool Internet tidbits is really laughable when
you realise that in the end, you won’t be able to display and view the thing correct‑
ly. Let’s openly admit that 256 characters of the basic font set won’t save the planet.
The underlying principle of what they were creating got lost on the geezers who de‑fined it back then, and instead of creating a meaningful language unit, they shoved
in loads of nonsensical mathematical characters that no‑one knows how to use an‑yway. The technical options have moved on quite a bit, but half of Europe would
probably still rather use the Wingdings picture font.

Doing business in these conditions is a bit like selling a British Rover car in Warsaw.
Looking inside, it looks like the steering wheel’s missing, and when someone
does actually find it, it’s on the wrong side. The only difference is that someone in
Warsaw can change the fonts; we can hardly do that with the Rover. This situation
is miles away from the ideal universe, where someone would sell a font and some‑one else wouldn’t have to do the language customisation for a different language
in order to print the poster for the play Polish Blood, for example, so that the client
would be happy. The people in Warsaw don’t give a toss about the fact that I can’teven say “hello” in Polish, all they’re concerned about is that they can read the playprogramme in their theatre (Sidun, 2010).

As at 2016, there are several established type foundries operating in the Czech Republicthat are very much concerned about the quality of the diacritics in their typefaces. In­addition to František Štorm’s Storm Type Foundry, Tomáš Brousil’s Suitcase Type Foundry
and David Březina’s Rosetta have earned solid reputations. Prague is also the official
headquarters of TypeTogether, a type foundry established by two graduates of the MA
Typeface Design course at the University of Reading – Prague’s native Veronika Burian,
who is currently living near Barcelona, and José Scaglione from Rosario, Argentina.

26 ‹ CZTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Several more have opened in recent years: Rostislav Vaněk’s Signature Type, Vojtěch
Říha’s Superior Type, Filip Matějíček and Jan Horčík’s Heavyweight and others.

The main centre of action now is Prague’s Studio of Type Design and Typography at the
Academy of Art, Architecture and Design, led by Karel Haloun and his assistants, Tomáš
Brousil and Radek Sidun. The studio is primarily focused on type design and its students
have repeatedly proven that when it comes to excellence in diacritics, they are worthy
followers of their predecessors’ traditions.

Dos and don’ts of Czech diacritics
Some of the best learning aids to understand correct Czech diacritics include typefaces
designed by leading Czech type designers, as they offer an invaluable insight into how
the workshops of František Štorm, Tomáš Brousil, David Březina and Veronika Burian
have all approached accent marks Fig. 10. Czech accents should be drawn in harmony
with one another, as there are common words that contain all three marks (růžový –pink) and a string of accent marks will often appear next to each other (příští – next).
Consequently, the forms of accent marks should not be too wide as this would cause
them to blend into each other, especially in extremely light and heavy styles. At thesame time, they should always be drawn in harmony with other European accent marks,
since the very same diacritics are used in combination with other languages’ accents.
Unexpected combinations may appear in translated literature, as, for example, both theSwedish and the Czech ring appearing in the same word (Håkanův – Håkan’s).

When designing font families, diacritics become darker and wider, as light styles increase
in weight, though without much gain in height Fig. 11. This is even true of the ring, which,if needed for heavy styles, can be drawn somewhat flatter Fig. 12. For styles with various
weights within the same family, the carons and acutes are usually adjusted to the widthof the letterform; in narrower styles, the acute is steeper and the caron narrower, while

Fig. 10 Examples of fonts created by
Czech type designers with harmonious
and carefully designed diacritics. (Fonts:

in broad styles the acute is merely tilted and the caron is broader. The ring, especially if it

Tabac G2 by Tomáš Brousil, Baskerville 120

is a geometric circle, may remain the same.

Týfa, Clara Serif by Rostislav Vaněk, Skolar

by František Štorm, ITC Týfa by Josef
by David Březina, Adelle Sans by Veronika
Burian, Vegan Sans by Vojtěch Říha,Some traditional and widely‑used typefaces, like Helvetica and Futura, have a stable dia‑

Falster by Jan Novák and Solpera by Jan
Solpera.)critic form to which designers have become accustomed. Other approaches to accent

CZECH DIACRITICS: FROM HUS TO UNICODE › F. BLAŽEK

CZ › 27

Fig. 11

Fig. 11 Whereas very thin typeface styles
have stroke widths that are about thesame for both diacritic marks and letters,

Fig. 12marks are possible, of course, but may result in a lack of interest among Czech designers
to use typefaces featuring a significantly different accent style.

in bold styles the accents must be rela‑
tively light. Notice how the diacritics inthe first three light weights differ from

Fig. 13each other are more distinctively than in
the last three bold weights. (Font: Neue
Haas Unica).

Fig. 12 Within a single family, the heightof the acute and caron should be approximately the same while the ring in‑creases in size. The bottom edge of thevertical caron should ideally be some‑what higher than the x‑height. The
samples show that there are many
approaches to diacritics within a family;
it always depends on the specific typeof font and the designer’s style. (Fonts:
Neue Haas Unica, Ronnia, Republic).
Fig. 13 A comparison of various ap‑
proaches to Czech accents in Didone.
Whereas the rendition of the acutedoes not change much, efforts at creat‑
ing an asymmetrical caron and shad‑owed ring are clear – but not necessarily
within a single typeface. The final col‑umn shows a sample of Empiriana,
a variation on Bodoni from 1920 pub‑lished by Slévárna Písem typeface found‑ry in Prague and featuring a very charac‑

Readers can understand written Czech without accent marks, although in some cases
the meaning may change (jdu na krtiny vs. jdu na křtiny = I’m going to [get rid of] themole holes vs. I’m going to [attend] a christening). Although it is still common to write
text messages without diacritics, accent marks are now normally used in emails and chatmessages. Unaccented texts may occasionaly appear in various industrial or commercial
databases, such as on store receipts or address labels. In regular written communication,
however, it would be inconceivable to omit diacritics.

teristic caron shape. This version of
Bodoni was used in Czechoslovakia all
the way up until the letterpress era
came to a close at the end of the C20th.

28 ‹ CZTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Carons
In Czech, consonants with carons (ď, ň, ř, š, ť, ž) are treated as separate, independent
letters, placed in alphabetical order immediately following their respective unaccented
equivalents. The Czech caron softens (palatalises) the pronunciation of consonants andFig. 14 Each Studio Lettering font byalso appears above the vowel ě to palatalise the consonant preceding it. In addition to

House Industries includes culture‑spe‑

the basic shape of the caron (reminiscent of a small letter v), there is also the verticalpreferences of native users. Comparecific character sets that reflect stylistic

form used in Czech for the letters ď and ť (and in Slovak for ľ and Ľ), which arose due tothe generic caron (left) with the caron

technical reasons – the classic caron simply would not fit together with the ascenderhandwriting. (Fonts: Studio Swing, Studioof the letter, or rather take up too much space. In handwriting, the caron usually has justfor Czech texts (right) based on local
Sable, Studio Slant).

one shape for all letters – a breve (“swoosh”) or more or less horizontal stroke Fig. 14;
the pointy version almost never appears in handwriting.

Basic form
Since the early days, the caron has had three basic forms in text typefaces: symmetrical,
shadow and rounded Fig. 15. The symmetrical caron is the most common variety, now reg‑ularly used in most types of font, especially serif, sans and slab serif ones. The shadow ca‑
ron is a typical feature in script and calligraphic fonts, but it does occasionally appear inserif fonts, especially Didones. The rounded caron is specific to handwriting‑based type‑faces and makes rare appearances in serif italic types. (Vojtěch Preissig was probably the
first to create this design when he “Czechified” Garamond in the 1920s; since then it has
appeared only sporadically.)

Fig. 15 Symmetrical, shadow and round‑ed carons. (Fonts: Tabac G2, Adelle, Abril
Text, Walbaum 120, Republic, Maiola, Adobe

The shapes of the symmetrical and shadow carons are usually identical to the circumflex

Caslon CE, Bistro Script, Studio Lettering).

diacritical mark. As the two accents may (at least in Slovak) appear next to each other ina single word (môže – may, can), they should be identical or mutually harmonised to thegreatest possible extent.

The bottom part of the caron should be bevelled flat or rounded. It is theoretically pos‑sible for the caron to have a sharp vertex, but that would create complications in heavy
styles and when combined with other accent marks. In sans serif typefaces, the two
strokes of the caron typically terminate in a horizontal line (or almost horizontal, or evenorthogonal); a rounded vertex is common in serif fonts. The diagonal strokes of the caron
narrow to a greater or lesser extent as they ascend, even in strictly geometric fonts. EvenCZECH DIACRITICS: FROM HUS TO UNICODE › F. BLAŽEK

CZ › 29

diagonal strokes seem unnatural, and Czech type designers find fault in strokes that ex‑pand as they ascend.

The horizontal position of the caron above r is at the optical centre of the letter. This im‑
aginary line can match the right vertical edge of the stem, but depending on the style ofthe shoulder it can be shifted more left or right. The caron should never be placed above
the stem. Finding the optical centre is discussed in detail in David Březina’s (2009) article“On Diacritics”.

Vertical caron
The vertical caron presents the greatest problem to type designers, who confuse it with
an apostrophe and usually design a mark that is too large and wide. The form of the ver‑tical caron may in fact be based on an apostrophe, comma or other shape that is remi‑
niscent of a notably vertical acute Fig. 16.

Fig. 16 The vertical caron forces thedesigner to apply kerning. If ď is just as

apostropheľ – l with caronwide as d, kerning pairs with a positive
value must be created (ďk, for example);comma

but if ď is wider than d, pairs with a neg‑
ative value must be added (such as ďa,
including Czech and Slovak accented
graphemes: ďá). Czech and Slovak typedesigners today prefer a shape that is
not based on an apostrophe or comma,
but is less decorative and practicallyvertical. For comparison, an apostrophe
and a caron appear at the end of eachline after the letter t. Note a uniquesolution created by Samuel Čarnoký in
his Inka family: k following letter ď hasa special form without the head serif.
(Fonts: Adobe Garamond Pro, Neue Haas
Unica, Skolar PE, Inka B Text, Adelle, Tabac
Sans).

30 ‹ CZTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

The caron in ď and ť should create as little white space as possible in situations where
the letter is followed by another letter with an ascender, such as in the word loďka (row‑

4. The standard Czech keyboard has
no letters ť or ď. Instead, they are typed
in the same way as capital accentedboat), or punctuation: buď! (be!). Hence, recent years have seen Czech and Slovak typeletters – first the separate non‑spacing

designers lean more towards creating a practically vertical acute. The mark is placed tois how uppercase accented letters are

the right of the stem Fig. 17. For ď, the accent is usually on the same level as the ascender,

boards – except for iOS, which ignores

while for ť it could be placed higher than the stem, and, consequently, end up at a differ‑caron (ˇ), then the letter. To date, thistyped on all hardware and software keythis established method.

ent height than for ď (especially for very heavy styles). Although in normal handwriting,Czechs usually write a basic caron next to the letter instead of a vertical caron (ď or ť).
Nevertheless, the correct, vertical form is used in calligraphic fonts and type designers
view the use of the basic caron as incorrect4.
Fig. 17 Among the most frequent errors
made in designing characters with a ver‑tical caron are the follows: 1. Use of an1

apostrophe, which in the context of theother diacritics is set too low or is toolarge; 2. Application of a vertical caronon small caps or uppercase letters; 3.
Use of the basic caron; 4. Accent place‑ment too far from the letter. The fifth2line shows original accents for compari‑son. (Fonts: Neue Haas Unica, Adobe
Caslon Pro).

3

4

5

Acute
The acute mark indicates a lengthened vowel (á, é, í, ó, ú and ý), although the í and ý do
not differ in pronunciation. In terms of design, the acute is perhaps the least complicatedaccent mark. It is usually placed slightly to the right of the optical centre of the letter; theCZECH DIACRITICS: FROM HUS TO UNICODE › F. BLAŽEK

CZ › 31

5. Slovak approached this dipthongsimilarly, replacing the original uo with ô,which to this day is pronounced as [uo].

extent to which this deviates depends on the type designer’s own approach. Usually themark narrows as it descends, and the extent of this narrowing depends on the typeface
style. Nevertheless, even strictly geometric typefaces feature a slight narrowing because,
like in carons, even diagonal lines seem unnatural.

The most common type of acute in sans typefaces terminates in strokes that are parallel(or almost parallel) with the baseline. Less frequently the terminals are orthogonal, andsome typefaces combine both types of terminal. The level of variability in stroke align‑
ment and terminals is far greater for serif typefaces, which feature rounded or other styl‑
ised terminals.

Czech type designers have no particular preference regarding the angle of the acute. The
acute should neither be completely vertical nor horizontal, but the angle that is chosen
Fig. 18 The angle of the acute should bebased on the on the character of thetypeface – compare different solutions
by Storm Type Foundry. (Fonts: Jannon

should be based on the character of the typeface Fig. 18. For this reason a more verticalslant should be chosen for Old Style typefaces, while a decorative Grotesque may feature
an acute that is practically horizontal.

Antiqua, Sebastian Text, John Sans, Farao,
Tusar, ITC Týfa).

Ring
The letter ů first appeared in the Kralice Bible, where it replaced the dipthong uo, whichat the time was pronounced as [u:] – the same as ú, but the inventors of this innovationconsidered it important to differentiate between the two long u’s for grammatical rea‑sons. The ring can thus be interpreted as a vestige of a lower case o. The vanished o does
continue to manifest itself in declensions: the genitive of the word for horse, kůň, iskoně5. Whereas ů is always in the middle or at the end of a word, ú always appears at the
beginning of a word or word root. In terms of pronunciation, there is no difference be‑
tween ů and ú, creating a major stumbling block for Czechs.

In early book printing, the ring was in the shape of a circle (sometimes with a shadow),
sometimes of a dot. The shape started to stabilise only after Czech switched over to Latin
script in the latter half of the C19th. The first issue of Typografia in 1888 (which, with brief
hiatuses, remained in print until 2014) used a ring, regardless of the many typefaces usedin the magazine, and the shape was always a geometric circle that differed only in size
and thickness Fig. 4.

32 ‹ CZTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

The pioneers of quality Czech diacritics, especially Vojtěch Preissig, interpreted the ringas an integral part not only of the letter, but the grapheme itself. In his designs, Preissig­always drew the ring expressively, often leaving it open and sometimes changing or
shortening the right stem of U so that he could lower the ring down into the letter; inserif letters the right serif of the grapheme “encircles” the open ring. Although Preissing’s
contemporaries did not accept this bold interpretation, nearly all type designers in thefirst half of the C20th adapted the ring to the character of the typeface; the ring start‑
ed to feature a shadow and its shape changed in accordance with the typeface. Oldřich
Menhart followed up on Preissig’s work, his rings for some typefaces seemingly emanat‑
ing from the right stem of the lower – and upper‑case U. However, these experiments
remained outside standard print production. The typefaces available at Czech printing
houses, as evidenced by the examples, have the circle separate from the letter; the shapeis usually based on a circle or oval, and sometimes features subtle shadowing. This con‑
cept of the ring became a certain standard that remains in place to this day.

The size and character of the ring should correspond to other diacritical marks. Geometric typefaces normally feature a ring in the shape of a geometric circle. Theoretically, thering could take on the curvature of one of the letters – in the Eurostile font family, for ex‑

Fig. 19 From a geometric circle toample, the shape of the ring may be based on the letter o. In Old Style typefaces, the ring

the shape of the ring. (Fonts: Fishmonger,

usually features a slight shadow, while Didones tend to be circular in the shape Fig. 19.

and Bistro Script).

a brush stroke – different approaches to
Vegan Sans, Walbaum 120, Teuton, Maiola

Other accents
Although, officially, Czech uses no other accents, several thousand Czechs have surnameswith umlauted letters (Müller, Jäger, etc.). The German umlaut is commonly understoodand people with such surnames have little problem registering their names at govern‑
ment offices. There are also tens of thousands of Slovaks, Poles and Vietnamese livingin the Czech Republic and a number of them would like to maintain the original ortho­
graphy of their names (Ľuptovský, Książczak, Nguyễn); however, their names are usual‑ly either garbled and the diacritics are misinterpreted (Ĺuptovský), completely removed(Ksiazczak) or simplified (Nguyên). The mainstream media treats foreign first names andwords the same way.

CZECH DIACRITICS: FROM HUS TO UNICODE › F. BLAŽEK

CZ › 33

BibliographyBlažek, Filip: “Accents.” Typo 10. Prague 2014.
Březina, David: “On Diacritics.” I love Typography, January 24, 2009,http://ilovetypography.com/2009/01/24/on‑diacritics.
Dyrynk, Karel: Typograf o knihách. Prague 1993 (reprint; originally published in 1911).
Dyrynk, Karel: Krásná kniha, její technická úprava. Prague 1924.
Dyrynk, Karel: České původní typografické písmo. Prague 1925.
Kosek, Pavel: “Vývoj české ortografie.” In Historická mluvnice češtiny – překlenovací seminář.
Brno 2014. Available online: http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/131106.
Křístek, Václav: “Staročeské pravopisné systémy,” http://vokabular.ujc.cas.cz/informace.as
px?t=MSS_Dodatek&o=slovniky.
Menhart, Oldřich: Tvorba typografického písma. Prague 1957.
Mrkvička, Josef: “Výrobky písmolijen starší i moderní.” In Ročenka českých knihtiskařů.
Prague 1911.
Pleskalová, Jana: “Jan Hus a nabodeníčka,” http://www.phil.muni.cz/cest/lide/pleskalova/
CJBA14_Hus_a_nabodenicka.rtf.
Sidun, Radek: “Diacritic Manifesto,” http://www.diacritics.eu/en/index.php?/
diakriticky‑manifest/.
Stivín, Emanuel: “Pájení akcentů.” Typografia VI/1890, Prague.
Tyl, Josef Kajetán: “Pannám českým.” Gindy a Nynj, no. 3, 1833.

34 ‹ CZTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

36—6136 ‹ PL

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

ROBERT KRAVJANSZKI HU

The caseof Hungary

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLO

PL › 37

p. 50The fact that the type casting business did
not exist in Hungary made typesetting work
even harder when dealing with publicationsin Hungarian, as local printers were put at themercy of non‑Hungarian type founders. This is
one of the reasons why they occasionally used
foreign characters to mark certain sounds.
(Kravjanszki, 2016)

p. 53

The history of diacritical marks in printing isbarely mentioned in the literature. While there
is a wealth of material in numerous volumes
accompanied by heated debates about themanuscript‑era, the printing period left thescholars seemingly indifferent.
(Kravjanszki, 2016)38 ‹ PL
HU

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

p. 53

Zoltán Trócsányi's most important statement
is, however, that the use of different diacritics
is nothing else than a series of endeavours tomark Hungarian sounds, depending on eras,
geography (dialects) or font sets. In his opinion,
several diacritics differ in form only and markthe same sounds.
(Kravjanszki, 2016)

p. 56

Only one rule is to be mentioned here, i.e. therule of the optical centre (the diacritical markis adjusted to the optical centre of the baseletter). However, this rule works just as anyother rule – it is possible to deviate from it.
(Kravjanszki, 2016)

POLISHTHE
CASE
DIACRITICS:
OF HUNGARY
THE› HISTORY
R. KRAVJANSZKIAND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLOHUPL › 39

1. Hungaricana, http://hungaricana.hu.

In the Ohio mine your hand slips, the pickaxe

2. Magyar Nyelvemlékek,Thuds down and your name loses its diacritical marks.

http://nyelvemlekek.oszk.hu/tud/nyelvemlekek.
3. Arcanum Digitheca,
http://adtplus.arcanum.hu.

Funeral Oration
Sándor Márai (1951)
translated by: George Gömöri & Clive Wilmer

4. Országos Széchényi Könyvtár – EPA –http://epa.oszk.hu/new_index.phtml.
5. Sajtómúzeum,
http://sajtomuzeum.oszk.hu.
6. MEK (Magyar Elektronikus Könyvtár),

In recent years, reliable internet access has become necessary to reach certain sources.
An astonishing number of original documents have been digitised in the past twenty

http://mek.oszk.hu.

years and a good proportion of these are free to access or can even be published under

7. E‑codices,

certain conditions. Due to the nature of the process, the rate of processing and its quality

http://www.e‑codices.unifr.ch/en.

is uneven. Undoubtedly, we need to wait a few more decades before the majority of thedata available online is of good quality and presented in a well‑structured fashion. The
situation in Hungary is quite good in this respect. This essay would not have been possi‑
ble without the Hungaricana project1. Several of the sources were taken from the website,
including, in particular, the RMK and Oklevelek. The OSZK Magyar Nyelvemlékek2 site served
as a source for medieval monuments of literature. The majority of professional journals
in Hungary are also available from several sources. As at now, the Arcanum Digitális
Tudománytár’3 contains 8 million pages (and is continuously growing). It is an invaluable
source for professional periodicals, which dates back to the beginning of the C19th. Albeita pre‑paid service, the list price is a reasonable €10 per month, i.e. the price of a single
meal, and is worth every penny. The Országos Széchényi Könyvtár Elektronikus Periodika
Archivuma4 és Sajtómúzeuma5 offers free access to a wide range of digitised periodicals.
A rich collection of materials, either digitised or processed textually, can be found in the
OSZK Magyar Elektronikus Könyvtára6 free of charge. The control material for the analysis of
the Hungarian manuscripts was provided by a wonderful repository of Western European
manuscripts, the Swiss Virtual Manuscript Library7, where more than 1500 digitised titles
are available (and is continuously growing) in exceptional quality and under liberal licenceconditions towards free use.

I would like to thank my colleagues for their valuable comments. Special thanks go out
to László Fejes, for the linguistic support, and to Gergő Erdei, for his work on the English
version of this text.

40 ‹ HU

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

On diacritical marks in general

8. For their description and interpreta‑tion for latin languages, see: Maunde
Thompson: An Introduction to Greek andAs the study of diacritical marks usually falls within the scope of interest of linguists, pal‑

Latin Palaeography. Oxford 1912, pp. 84–

aeographers and librarian‑bibliographers, the typographical point of view is often over‑mon Lővy & László Novák: Betűművészet.

looked. The aim of this essay is to explore the subject from this angle. They are called

90. In Hungarian, schematically: Sala‑
Vol. 2, Budapest 1926, pp. 17–18.

accents in vernacular and diacritical marks in linguist circles. There are no Hungariantranslations for those marks. In the rare cases that we do come across a discussion about
them, we find inaccurate descriptions. For example, the dotaccents above i and j arecalled dots – the same name that is used for the full stop. This can also be found in theterms kettőspont (colon) and pontosvessző (semicolon). The former, written separately(kettős pont), stands for the dieresis. The old form of e with hook stands for the e ogonek,
cover or bent accute for the circumflex and o with tail for the o dieresis with certain au‑
thors. In the absence of a standardised terminology, I will be using standard postscript
names for diacritical marks.

The letters of the alphabet are just a portion of the conventional marks (codes). Punctuation marks are used for setting texts. Although these are conventionally called írásjelek(writing marks) in Hungarian, the term is confusing. For more information on their histo‑ry, please see the outstanding work by Borbála Keszler (Keszler 2004). I will not deal with any
numbers, names of currencies or certain typographical or mathematical marks. It is im‑
portant to emphasize the abbreviations and contractions, which were preserved until theturn of the C18th and C19th8. After this time, only the apostrophe remained for a time andit is rarely used today. These abbreviations can sometimes be confused with diacriticalmarks, just like certain embellishments from the days of manuscripts.

Based on the preserved and available authentic sources, we can estimate the following
eras in the use of diacritical marks:
1) Early manuscripts. Beginning with the C11th, diacritical marks can only be stumbled
upon by a stroke of luck. A loosely related but noteworthy fact is that in those times
there were almost as many producers of texts as there were consumers.
2) A revolution takes place at the turn of the C14th–C15th. This is the era of Bible trans‑
lations to national languages, when, probably following Jan Hus, attempts are madeto represent the rich set of Hungarian sounds in translations more accurately, basedon the "one sound, one sign" principle. This is achieved by the diacriticisation of cer‑tain vowels and consonants. Some later monuments also follow this principle, while

THE CASE OF HUNGARY › R. KRAVJANSZKIHU › 41others retain the chancery spelling convention, i.e. have no diacritics. With the slow

9. Due to the small number of sources,
the history of early literacy is rather

propagation of education, there is a rising number of consumers of content but the

obscure. Some indirect statistics about
literacy are only available from therate of literacy is still very low9.

second half of the C15th (see e.g.
ourworldindata.org).

3) From the C16th onward, namely from the time when Hungarian books begin tocome out in print, almost every publication contains diacritical marks. In the begin‑ning, there is a considerable disarray caused by the lack of standardised spelling aswell as the great diversity in the font sets used for printing. A number of typogra‑
pher scholars (those who use and form the language consciously, based on the leg‑acy of Aldus Manutius and his followers) also explain their usage of spelling in writ‑ing, especially János Sylvester, Gáspár Heltai, Miklós Misztótfalusi Kis (hereafter Kis)
and János Tsétsi. The era closes with the publication of the first edition of Academic
Orthography (Magyar helyesírás’ és szóragasztás’ főbb szabályai, 1832). This is when thesince‑unaltered system of diacritical mark usage appears.
4) The situation today. The vast majority of textual content is consumed on digitalplatforms. Text production and consumption is on a similar scale, which makes it
analogous to the early times in this respect. There is a huge difference, however. As
opposed to the early days, when content consumers represented only a trace of theadult population, virtually all of it is involved now, as Fig. 1 shows. The chart also re‑veals that the knowledge of the use of diacritical marks has never been as impor‑tant a skill and affected as many people as today.

Fig. 1 Producers and consumers

100

of written content. Own calculations,approximate estimation based on con‑80
Adult population (%)

temporary data.

60
40
20

Content consumers

0
1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

2000

Content creators

Early manuscript era
Crinkled, torn, stained, defective, faded remnants of the past, these monuments con‑tain texts that are difficult to make out at times and often features marks that are

42 ‹ HU

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

indistinguishable from each other (dotaccent from acute, macron from tilde, etc.). The
language of the decisive majority of these works is Latin. The first preserved text in

10. In fact, we see a connected i and j(a ligature), so the dieresis and the dou‑
bleacute denominations are misleading,Hungarian, the Halotti Beszéd (Funeral Oration), which dates back to the turn of the C12th

although it definitely looks like those.

and C13th, does not contain diacritical marks. To be more accurate, there are a few acute

bly the ligature of the dotlessi and jaccents and dotaccents added post‑factum in an disorganised manner. The y dotaccent,placed at the optical middle for aesthetic

on the other hand, might be original Fig. 2.

The ealiest form (y dotaccent) is proba‑
where the dotaccent might have beenreasons.
Fig. 2 Excerpt from the Halotti Beszéd(Funeral Oration), nyelvemlekek.oszk.
hu. National Széchényi Library.

The techniques which were later adopted in print evolved in the era of manuscripts. There
were no diacritical marks in the beginning. Even the i did not have a dotaccent, which waspossibly added later to the glyph for easier recognition (to avoid confusion between thecharacters i, m, n, u). In the first literary monuments from Hungary, it was followed by y,
but based on its origin, it is more of an ij ligature. These are contained in Latin documents
coming predominantly from the Chancellery, loca credibilia, in 3 forms: y dotaccent, y dou‑
bleaccute (often in bent or broken form) and less frequently, y dieresis10 Fig. 3.

Fig. 3 The different forms of ij ligatures.
1165: Diplomatikai Levéltár (DL), DL‑DF
76136. Standard y dotaccent. 1198: DL‑DF
40001. i acute j acute ligature in dotac‑
cent value. 1201: DL‑DF 61124. Similarly.
1255: DL‑DF 97856. 1256: DL‑DF 39394.
The latter two show freely placed dia‑critics, which is incorrect according tosome authors. My opinion is that it is at
the transcriptor’s discretion to do so.
1261: DL‑DF 106108. This is the best ex‑
ample for the origin; the i dotaccent andthe j acute (with a dotaccent value).

THE CASE OF HUNGARY › R. KRAVJANSZKIHU › 43

At this point, I would like to put forth a hypothesis that there is probably no difference
between the sound value of the acute‑shaped and the dot‑shaped accents. It was pre‑sumably more elegant or easier to place a dash above the character than a dot. Anotherreason against treating it as a difference is that it is a commonly perceived problem intranscriptions, too. This method is also characteristic of other eras, e.g. the C18th Fig. 4.
As for the Western European practice Fig. 5, which shows an excerpt of a C9th codex.
There is no dotaccent on i but we can find the y dotaccent.
Fig. 4

Fig. 5

Fig. 4 O dieresis with long diacritic(Hajdúböszörmény).
Az első katonai felmérés(The First Military Survey). 1782–1785.
DVD. Arcanum, 2004.
Fig. 5 Codex excerpt from the C9th
e‑codices. Ms. lat. 22. 30v. C9th.

Although we do not know the identity of the authors of these charters and other docu‑
ments, we do know that they were ecclesiastics, as only parochial education was avail‑able at the time. They knew how to read and they spoke Latin. It is also impossible toknow, where they had come from as migration among educated people was common in
those days, either through following their lords or receiving an invitation they could not
reject. The territories under the reign of particular lords were constantly changing due todiplomatic or war efforts, causing certain areas to populate or depopulate. Anyone withthat sort of attitude would keep moving. Any free and adventurous person could study
at numerous locations in Europe and could reach a professional status in different writ‑
ing systems and styles, for which there was high demand. This might explain why original
documents show such a great diversity of character styles and spelling rules.

While discussing vowels in his 1928 essay on the early stages of Hungarian literacy, István
Kniezsa refers to a document from 1234 (Kniezsa, 1928, p. 192), where he finds the following
Fig. 6 Possibly one of the firstexpression: Bááchien[si] Fig. 6. He claims that the double vowels are not long sounds but

diacritical marks, 1234. DL‑DF 194.

separate syllables which are supported by the hyphens. He may be right, though I find it

44 ‹ HU

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

difficult to make an informed judgement on this as I am not that well versed in the areaof historical phonetics. It is also possible, however, that we see one of the first instancesof the use of diacritical marks (á). If this is the case, it would read bácsi or bácskai. We canfind vowel duplication in the name András/Endre, [Andréé], from 1240 Fig. 7. It is very pos‑sible that this also marks a sound variant, a fragment of a text in French shows that thepractice of using diacritical marks existed in the European manuscripts as well Fig. 8.

Fig. 7

Fig. 8In criticism of the above, it may be stated that Hungarian names of people and settle‑
ments could be found in Latin texts, too, and to determine whether the use of diacritics
was to mark sounds, stresses or something else is a task for linguists. The possibility thatthese marks are embellishments or were put above the characters post‑factum or by ac‑cident cannot be ruled out either.

Fig. 7 Probably an e acute, 1240
DL‑DF 12796.
Fig. 8 A fragment of a French text fromthe C12th. e‑codices. Comites Latentes
183, 4v. C12th.

The era of codices
As László Deme states "…the younger the ortography of a European language in Latin
letters, the more consistently perseveres the phonetic marking of its sounds. Czech,
Romanian, Slovak and Hungarian in particular are good examples of that. […] It unites theolder and more Western solutions of combining characters, with the younger and more
Eastern single‑character diacritical solutions” (Deme, 1979).

At the turn of the C14th–C15th, the circumstances became conducive to the translationof the Bible. A growing number of people became educated and this strengthened inde‑
pendent thinking and initiated the strive for breaking out of the slavish ties of feudal sub‑ordination. As a result, the strengthening and propagation of the vernacular language
and its endowment with individual features became stronger. The number of producers

THE CASE OF HUNGARY › R. KRAVJANSZKIHU › 45

11. E.g. one page each in the following
publications: Ernő Vende: A magyar
irodalomtörténet képekben. Vol. 1, Budapest
1905, p. 18. József Molnár & Györgyi Si‑
mon: Magyar Nyelvemlékek. Budapest

and consumers also rose, along with the demand to acquire information in the moth‑
er tongue. The ones who may be associated with the first Bible translation might as wellhave studied at the university of Prague, where they came across the ideas of the new

1976, p. 74.

heresy and became familiar with Jan Hus’s principles of spelling. According to contem‑

12. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek

porary knowledge, two scholars named Tamás and Bálint were the ones who undertook(München), BSB‑Hss Cod.hung. 1. Hun‑garian edition with some restored pages:

the translation work and introduced the diacritical system of writing sounds.

Antal Nyíri (ed): A Müncheni kódex
1466‑ból. Budapest 1971.

The three codices that contain the copies of these translations are collectively called
the Hussite Bible (Huszita Biblia). The Vienna Codex (around 1450), held by the National
Széchényi Library, contains the translation of the Old Testament books. A few facsimile
excerpts of it have been published in different places11. The Munich Codex12 (according to
the colophon, the copying procedure was finished in 1466 by a György Németi) contains
the four Gospels. It is kept in the Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek). The
digitised version is of exceptional quality and it is free to use. The Apor Codex (late C15th)is a translation of the Psalms. Its original can be found in the Székely National Museum
and its facsimile was published in 1942 (Szabó, 1942).

From the mid‑C18th until now, the transcriptions of these manuscripts were done inroughly four waves. All of them emphasise adherence to the originals, the newer ones
even palaeographically. Upon visual comparison to the originals, however, one cannot
help but notice that typographic authenticity was not among the main priorities andthus each transcription variation can be misleading in one way or another. Consequently,
examining the originals is necessary (or their replicas, to be exact).

As I became aware of the digitisation of the Munich Codex quite late, I examined the Apor
Codex more thoroughly. It might as well be for the better as I would probably have got lost
among the arguments about the e grave. The community is divided about the designationof some e characters Fig. 9.

An ambiguity is already present in the first line of the sample and only becomes strong‑er in line 7. We see either occurrences of è, two‑stroke e or even é (diacritical marks can put
on with fewer strokes). Two centuries later, Geleji laments in his grammar book (Geleji Katona,
1657) that they would need an e grave, but the glyph is not in the printers’ set, although it isevident from Fig. 10 that it is there indeed. This is a somewhat curious thing.

46 ‹ HU

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Fig. 9Fig. 10

Fig. 9 The assumed e grave of the Mu‑
nich Codex. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
BSB‑Hss Cod.hung. 1, 8v.
Fig. 10 An excerpt from Geleji’sgrammar. RMK I. 773. National Széchényi

The three copies of the Hussite Bible took almost a hundred years to complete. The first

Library.

translation might have been done in the first decades of the C15th and the phrasing of thePsalms dates back to the end of the century, which is almost a hundred years’ difference.
May I mention, from my field of expertise, the magnificent Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta by
György Bocskay and Joris Hufnagel, where the phrasing and the illumination were not cre‑ated simultaneously, but rather with a 30 years’ difference. Time constraints were prob‑
ably not an issue in those days and patience was in abundance. The majestic flow of theyears or decades in which a codex was being completed would not be rushed.

It is also undecided whether other copies were created in the meantime. It would be
a noble palaeographic endeavour to find out if the known volumes were copied froman original manuscript or from presently unknown copies. Whether the three copies
are based on one translation is also a question. Apparently, the spelling among the cop‑
ies is inconsistent. It even changes under the same hand in the Apor Codex. I was able todistinguish at least 4 hands in this codex and the notes at the bottom of the page (andsometimes at the top) tell of a fifth. The first 175 pages were created using a richly dia‑critical writing. Apart from the formerly known i and ij variations, the new characters ap‑
pear including a acute, v acute, o with acute below and even oacute with acute below:bv́n�ſ�k; lcaron as well as the palatalisation marks: gcaron, ncaron and tcaron:
valamelľeket, felegǵe, menńeknek, ańatol, igazolatťa, hoǵ (hogÿ) Fig. 11.
An intriguing posterior attachment can be found below Psalm 57. It is unclear whether
the writing is contemporary or not. The writer of the note might not have understood

THE CASE OF HUNGARY › R. KRAVJANSZKIHU › 47

the concept of the “one sound, one sign” principle as palatalisation at y’ is duplicated:keńyerenek, hoǵy Fig. 12. A new hand appears on page 176 where the Hussite spellingis abandoned and only one diacritical character (i.e. y dieresis) remains. Page 189 marks
the beginning of a third hand, which is more archaic, uses more abbreviations and con‑Fig. 11 A fragment from the Apor Codex.
Dénes Szabó (1942) i.m., p. 46.

tains numerous untranslated latin expressions. The fourth hand comes on page 199, witha similar spelling to the second hand. Other available documents from the second half ofFig. 12 Note at the bottom of the pagefrom the Apor Codex.
Dénes Szabó (1942) i.m. p. 44.

the C15th and C16th are diverse and often inconsistent in their use of diacritics. In othercases, they are not used.

Fig. 11

Fig. 12

Number of glyphs with diacritics

The first 450 years of Hungarian press
60

I will discuss this long and diverse era in one section, although the changes are numer‑

50

ous. The use of diacritical marks arches gradually from fragmented and incidental to uni‑

40

fied. The use of diacritics becomes simplified as they disappear from consonants. The

30long vowels (á, é, í, ó, ú) gain a foothold by the end of the C18th and the same happens to20ő and ű, the long form of ö and ü by the early C19th (first as the provisional dieresisacute10

and then in the final hungarumlaut form). From that point on, there is no substantive

0
-1600

-1700

Consonants-1800

change in the use of diacritical marks.

VowelsIn her 1986 essay (Ecsedy, 1986), Judit V. Ecsedy lists 178 variants in addition to the charactersFig. 13 The use of diacritics in Hungarian
typography, 1530–1800.
Judit V. Ecsedy 1986, op cit., based ondata found on pages 250–251. Author’s
own calculation.

of the standard alphabet. However, most of these are ligatures and typographical vari‑ants (e.g. swash). Only 70 characters contain diacritical marks. Unfortunately, their digi‑tisation is of such low quality that the aforementioned numbers can only be an estimate
and may be inaccurate. What the data shows is that diacritics on consonants basicallydisappear by the second half of the C18th, and the consonants with diacritics, which are
not in use anymore, go extinct by the end of the 1700s. This is illustrated in Fig. 13.

48 ‹ HU

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

I had the opportunity to examine Judit V. Ecsedy’s (and later: et al.) grand work13 concern‑
ing diacritical marks. The four imposing volumes are an inexhaustible treasure vault for

13. Judit V. Ecsedy: A régi magyarországi
nyomdák betűi és díszei, 1473–1600. Buda‑
pest 2004, Balassi Kiadó, Országos

those interested in Hungarian typography, recording types of printing houses until the

Széchényi Könyvtár (Hungaria Typo‑

1800s. The end results of this effort (along with some of my observations) are summa‑

országi nyomdák betűi és díszei, XVII. század.

rised below. I did not differentiate between Antiqua and Fractur types or normal and cur‑nyomdák. Budapest 2010, Balassi Kiadó,

sive forms Fig. 14.

graphica I). Judit V. Ecsedy: A régi magyar‑
Vol 1. Nyugat és észak‑magyarországi
Országos Széchényi Könyvtár (Hungaria
Typographica II).
14. There is no evidence to prove that
Rudolf Hoffhalter, a renowned punch‑cutter in Vienna (see for example: Georg
Fritz: Gesichte der Wiener Schriftgiessereien.
Wien 1924, p. 23.) and later a travelling
typographer, would have a separate
typeset during his stay in Hungary.
According to György Haimann, Kis cut
punches in Kolozsvár in sizes 9, 10, 11 and13 but no display types (see György
Haiman: Tótfalusi Kis Mikós a betűművész
és a tipográfus. Budapest 1972, p. 42).
Fig. 14 Inventory of glyphs withdiacritical marks, C16‑C19th.
Judit V. Ecsedy, 2004, 2010, 2014.

There are about 90 forms with diacritics (excluding tildes and macrons, which are usual‑ly abbreviation marks). It is impossible to create an exact list. The condition of the books
is uneven, sometimes they are greasy, blurred, stained or contain broken fonts. A part of
the type chipped off in the printing process, maybe a diacritic itself.

Typesetting is not always used systematically. This is not to mean print errors, but cases
where the font set was not complete or not every letter was available, as some had al‑
ready been used. Furthermore, the typesetter might not have spoken Hungarian or was
unable to read altogether and recognised the characters from their shapes.

Nothing points to the assumption that any commercial type foundry had existed in
Hungary before the 1900s. Punches were obviously cut (and counterpunches, too),(Smeijers, 1996) as it is not a profession with particularly demanding tool requirements, but

requiring a high level of expertise and practice. These tools were mainly used to repair
items already in stock14. They naturally had matrices, firstly, because types were quite
heavy, and secondly, because the nearest type founder’s workshop was in Vienna. They

THE CASE OF HUNGARY › R. KRAVJANSZKIHU › 49

15. Bikfalvi Falka Sámuel, http://font.hu/
digitart/0108.html.

also used German, French, Italian and Dutch types, but their transport was quite prob‑
lematic in turbulent times. For this reason, better print shops had small casting shops(where separate types were cast by manual casting) saving them the transport costs andrisks. As type casting was a delicate process, from organising the work process and alloy‑
ing a good casting metal to heating up the furnace. The alleged involvement of the fa‑
mous Hungarian printer, Sámuel Falka15 in punchcutting seems unlikely. The University
Press bought its sets from Vienna and Falka could have made minor modifications tothem at best. The fact that the type casting business did not exist in Hungary made type‑setting work even harder when dealing with publications in Hungarian, as local printerswere put at the mercy of non‑Hungarian type founders. This is one of the reasons why
they occasionally used foreign characters to mark certain sounds.

If, for instance, one would like to examine the evolution of certain characters with dia‑critics, here is an apparent example Fig. 15.
Fig. 15 The development of e dieresis.

It would be intriguing to follow the progress through where the upper e, which was orig‑
inally almost the same size as the e, became smaller, rotated 90 degrees and turned intoa dieresis, losing its original attribute. It is not impossible that it happened like this, after
all, the bigger upper e already appeared in the period of charters Fig. 16. However, the dier‑esis variant appears a few decades before the rotated small e, so as agreeable as this the‑ory may seem, facts prove otherwise.
Fig. 16 The marking of the upper e fromthe 1300’s. DL‑DF 86476. Korneuburg,1354.

50 ‹ HU

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Let us follow up with the details of three publications to illustrate the contemporary
use of diacritics.

János Sylvester’s translation of the New Testament is one of the earliest publications in
Hungarian (Sárvár‑Újsziget, 1541). Fig. 17 shows a part of the cover page of this volume. It has
only six lines, yet there is so much to examine! We can see the remnants of Hussite spell‑ing in the palatalisation of consonants: maǵar, ńelven, kereſʒťen, melľet. Onlythe ö and the ü have diacritics among the vowels: goͤroͤg huͤtben. Not one, but two
forms of ij can be found: Uỹ̃, ford�tank. The word Testamentum did not fit, hence theabbreviation mark above the u.

Fig. 17 Sylvester: New Testament,
part of cover page. RMK I. 15a. National
Széchényi Library.

Mátyás Dévai Bíró, author of one of the first Hungarian spelling guides (Dévai Bíró, 1549), de‑scribes each vowel and consonant with diacritics in detail. See Fig. 18 for a model of his al‑phabet. The book describes the writing techniques as well as sound values in a languagethat is still comprehensible today. The fragment of the book shown in Fig. 19 contains two
pages I put together leaving the sheet sign and custos for authenticity.
Fig. 19

Fig. 18

This, apparently, stands for the sound values of é and á and is still marked differently.
We might guess that the presence of e ogonek (which is a character of the Polishalphabet) is no coincidence. After all, the book was printed in Wietor’s print shop in
Kraków. However, according to Ecsedy’s 1986 report, this character was in gener‑

Fig. 18 Dévai's alphabet.
RMK I. 20. National Széchényi Library.
Fig. 19 Interpretation of certain vowels
by Dévai. RMK I. 20. National Széchényi
Library.

al use from 1559 until 1679 and was present in virtually every print shop’s set. I also

THE CASE OF HUNGARY › R. KRAVJANSZKIHU › 51

Fig. 20 E ogonek in a reader from
Leipzig. Reiner, Typo‑Graphic II. St. Gallen
1950, p. 9. [1544, V. Bapst, Leipzig].

found it in a 1544 reader from Leipzig, so the e ogonek could be found in the German
speech area, too Fig. 20.

We can also see the é, which was a diphthong (ei) at that time according to the descrip‑
tion. So, there would be an i above the e instead of an acute. This is hardly surprising, as
the Unicode Consortium accounts for the small i among the diacritical marks which has
its own code. Another possibility, though, is that the adverb of place (felett = above) did
not only mean a vertical relation at that time, but also the one after. The other glyph
worth noting is the ű. One might think that this is the first appearance of the uhun‑
garumlaut. Dévai breaks the illusion, however, when he states that those are two dots
above the u. Consequently, it is not a hungarumlaut but a dieresis Fig. 21.
Fig. 21 Uhungarumlaut?
No, udieresis! RMK I. 20. National
Széchényi Library.

Our third sample Fig. 22 shows a part of Kis’s publication from 1700 (Innepi ajandekul…). Just
one look at the cover page makes it clear that, in terms of diacritics, he uses caps entire‑ly at his discretion.
Fig. 22 A part of the text froma Kis publication. RMK I. 1556. National
Széchényi Library.

52 ‹ HU

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

If there is a type with a diacritic then he uses it, if he does not find it, the basic character
remains. This is visible in the running head, too. Certain missing types are substituted
with smaller ones with diacritics while others are not replaced. This is not an uncommon
phenomenon, as caps were often cast for a body with no room for diacritical marks. This
was not considered an error (e.g. in French, apart from a few exceptions, it is still not re‑quired to put diacritics above caps). Abbreviations are still present at the end of the C17th

Iſteñek as well as a good number of apostrophes. Also, no differentiation is made be‑
tween the short and long forms of ö and ü.

***

The history of diacritical marks in printing is barely mentioned in the literature. While
there is a wealth of material in numerous volumes accompanied by heated debates
about the manuscript era, the printing period left the scholars seemingly indifferent.
Scrappy notes and sporadic references are all we have. In a report from 1955 (Trócsányi, 1955),
Zoltán Trócsányi prepared a record of the ageing of publications. He counted 114 marksfor Hungarian sounds. This number cannot be set against our previous data as he listed
unmarked letters as well (e.g. a, b, c, d,… x, y, z, or Eszett). The scope of his work does notinclude caps and there are a few marked consonants which our list does not contain. This
also shows that further research is needed.

His most important statement is, however, that the use of different diacritics is nothingelse than a series of endeavours to mark Hungarian sounds, depending on eras, geogra‑phy (dialects) or font sets. In his opinion, several diacritics differ in form only and markthe same sounds.

A short diversion towards the hungarumlaut
It does not initially have a separate mark and appears in dieresisacute form in the C18th.
It is clearly visible in maps with handwritten notes Fig. 23 shows a selection of its different
forms, the three different interpretations of the same mark (dieresisacute) is really funny(military survey maps were not written by a single hand and the writers could have beenof different ethnicities, too).

Fig. 23 Depiction of the o hungarumlautin late‑C18th maps. Az első katonai
felmérés (The first military survey).
1782–1785. DVD. Arcanum, 2004.

THE CASE OF HUNGARY › R. KRAVJANSZKIHU › 53

16. The digital version can be found in
the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.

The Nagyszombat University’s book of sample letters (1773) (Haiman, 1997) still contains thee above form, but the dieresisacute variant appears in smaller sizes. Fig. 24. This form does notstay for long, either, and the hungarumlaut [ő, ű] appears at the turn of the C18th–C19th.

Fig. 24 Tyrnavia 1773 Haiman (ed)(1997) op cit.

It permanently supersedes the dieresisacute form by the first decades of the C18th.
Tudományos Gyűjtemény16, a popular periodical of the day, first uses dieresisacute, thendieresis for a while, dieresisacute again from 1833 and finally hungarumlaut in the wordGyűjtemény while the body text is set with the hungarumlaut form (ő, ű) since the begin‑ning. The vertical hungarumlaut appears in the middle of the C19th Century Fig. 25
but does not stay long, either.
Fig. 25 The vertical hungarumlaut.
Pesti Hírlap, 1844, author’s
own copy.

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THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Digital age, digital letters
Vernaculars which use diacritical marks in a sovereign way can be expected to stay be‑hind after each technological advancement. This is what happened in the early days ofprinting and also after the digital conversion. Make‑shift practices had to be invented,
to substitute certain characters of the standard code page. Hacked fonts, which did
not conform to any standards, were passed from hand to hand. The lack of expertiseamong hackers resulted in numerous problems. For example, most of the metric infor‑
mation was ignored, although, at least the hungarumlaut characters, if there were any,
looked as if they had been real. These were created by duplicating the acute. Comparedto the neighbouring countries, the situation in Hungary was relatively good, since only
four hungarumlaut characters (ŐőŰű) had to be substituted. Initially, localisation being
the magic word, Ventura (GEM) and Monotype (fonts for Windows, then for Word, witha character set becoming gradually richer) pioneered the way, but then, apart from spo‑radic attempts, there were no significant advancements until the beginning of the 2000s.
By introducing its EuroWorks CDs in 1993, URW made an exception when, in addition to
the standard codepage fonts, they presented almost 1000 fonts in accordance with thestandard Central European codepages. It was too late, however, not only because the le‑gitimate culture of font licensing was almost unheard of, but also because time could
not hold still, and the printing industry did not receive any support from the big manu‑
facturers at the start. It would have been impossible to work under these circumstances.
The clarification of standards, the birth of OpenType, the emergence of new generationsof operating systems and the launch of sophisticated layout software have all improved
the situation to a great extent and the activity of the Unicode Consortium has become
more meaningful as well. However, the 20‑year‑old technology is still used by many.
Unfortunately, there are prints still using tilde or circumflex in the place of hungarum‑
lauts even to this day. This is an obvious sign of a lack of expertise, but perhaps someprinters still think this is the right method.

The introduction of the OpenType standard made it considerably easier to add richer
content to fonts. Since the early 1990s, TrueType has been technologically capable of this,however, the user got confused by the conflict of the top dogs. Many times a series oftricks was needed to conjure up the already existing Central European characters. Thisis a necessary attribute of heroic times. Adobe only supported postscript fonts for a longtime. TrueType did not get the appreciation it deserved: it was impossible to use it to

THE CASE OF HUNGARY › R. KRAVJANSZKIHU › 55

write a postscript file necessary for raster image processing, it would not embed into pdf,
etc. These problems have only been solved by the turn of the millennium. Considering
that, compared to the time font production takes, preparing the Central European glyphs
takes only a negligible fraction of the time, it is difficult to understand why we still do nothave enough fonts containing the glyphs of our region.

The widespread use of the internet in Hungary started in the late 1990s. Consuming on‑line content does not shatter offline media right away, but the situation has changed
by now. A considerable part of the content is consumed online on screens of different
sizes and resolutions, in fonts that are supposed to be optimised for this very purpose.
Although printed media today cannot be superseded in terms of legibility and easy acces‑
sibility, low prices lure the consumer towards the screen. Initially, the different browsers
and email programs, and especially communication issues between them, produced illeg‑
ible results. It was better to forget about diacritical marks. Consequently, they were onlyused by the most determined ones. Although serious coder teams decoded texts at first,
later the fight of the most determined resulted in a regulated situation by the second halfof the 2000s. This was especially thanks to UTF‑8 encoding, which also ensured back‑ward compatibility. Inaccurate uses of diacritical marks still occur on Hungarian websites
and the situation is not much different in the printed media.

The design of Hungarian diacritical marks
Nowadays, the Hungarian alphabet only uses three diacritical marks on vowels. The
marks are the acute, the dieresis, the hungarumlaut and the vowels are the following: Áá,
Éé, Íí, Óó, Öö, Őő, Úú, Üü, Űű. It can be observed that the form of the acute and the dieresis
does not differ from international practice, only the position of the hungarumlaut is dif‑ferent. Only one rule is to be mentioned here, i.e. the rule of the optical centre (the dia‑critical mark is adjusted to the optical centre of the base letter). However, this rule works
just as any other rule – it is possible to deviate from it. After all, it breaks the monotonyof digital fonts if there is something else to engage the eye. Of course, I do not wish to
say that diacritical marks should be put anywhere one pleases.

Let me illustrate the unresolved situation of the accurate form and display of diacriticalmarks by a personal example. While the t caron in one of my fonts was acclaimed by one
excellent Czech typographer, it was criticised by another excellent Czech typographer.

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THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Obviously, they might represent two different schools, but this does not help find theright solution. There might be several right solutions. This could be true about the hun‑garumlaut as well.

In Hungary, there are no rules or literature for designing and displaying diacritical marks.
There are legends, principles attributed to great masters, and quasi‑rules. However, these
are not based on professional literature, either, and they are only used and acknowledged
by a relatively small circle of enthusiasts.

For this reason, it was an important day when I discovered Adam Twardoch’s site on
Polish diacritical marks around the turn of the millennium (Twardoch, 2009). It provides
a consistent set of the rules for designing Polish diacritical marks with geometric elabo‑
ration and detailed illustrations. One can criticise or contradict these, saying, for example,
that the e ogonek is an e with a diacritical mark (ogonek) indeed, but still, this was thefirst detailed online description. The “kreska” [stroke] has been used as a diacritical markby some typographers since then and taken into account when dealing with OpenType
features.

Filip Blažek published his site about diacritical marks (Diacritics Project, 2004) after 2004 and it
has been used a reference source ever since. Currently, it contains the descriptions of dia‑critical marks for 49 languages and a vast collection of links leading to further sources.
Fig. 26 Displaying diacritical marksin Hungarian texts.

THE CASE OF HUNGARY › R. KRAVJANSZKIHU › 57

What exactly are these national quasi‑rules? For example, at least the size and verticaloffset of the dotaccent and the diaresis should be consistent. Fig. 26 illustrates the situa‑tion with fonts picked from my system at random. It is clear that none of the fonts com‑
ply with the “rule” entirely, the dieresis is usually smaller and not aligned with the dotac‑
cent. If the rule is narrowed down, stating that the two diacritical marks should be in thesame line, almost half of the examples do not comply.

There are traditions in connection with the hungarumlaut (see Fig. 27), faulty horizontal
offsets are marked with colour). Its vertical offset should not diverge too much from e.g.
the acute or be much higher, but of course can have a different angle and, if necessary,be thinner as well. FontShop, Lucas de Groot and others create hungarumlauts which
are not parallel and this suits them very well. Often their height is also different. This isa friendly gesture, a sign of being aware of the hungarumlaut, which I am quite pleased
with, to be honest. For fixed, formalist eyes these variations are difficult to handle. The
followers of this ideology prefer the diacritical marks keeping to the line without any di‑versions. This point of view can also be accepted, especially in the case of technical, me‑chanical glyphs. However, it is not a mistake – quite to the contrary – it is often the casethat the hungarumlaut is created by duplicating the acute accent (its alternative post‑
script name doubleacute suggests the same), provided that it can fit (consider the rather
slanted acute in e.g. AvantGarde, Benguiat Gothic or the black variations, where the du‑plicated acute could not fit at all).
Fig. 27 The different forms
and display of the hungarumlaut.

58 ‹ HU

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

All the fonts attributed to Robert Slimbach (Jenson, Garamond PP, Minion, Myriad) use
the diacritical marks perfectly, even the optical centre is where it should be. Although thisis not easy, an experienced eye should be able to find the optical centre. It is not strictly
fixed and there is a certain freedom to it, still, the practice in which the hungarumlaut isabout to drop off the base letter on its right side is incorrect (there is an example of thisin the sample). Robert Slimbach’s work Fig. 28 illustrates the most important guidelines.
Fig. 28 Robert Slimbach’s interpretationof hungarumlauts.

Garamond PP

Garamond PP display

The lowercase and uppercase letters are marked with diacritics that fitting their respec‑tive shapes (the minuscule has a steeper angle and can even be longer than its upper‑
case equivalent). The difference between the text and display fonts is clearly visible, as
the latter have less protruding diacritical marks. It is difficult to tell if the hungarumlautof the roman display Ű is eccentric or a mistake. In any case, I find them to be within
acceptable limits.

Big manufacturers usually assign placing the diacritical marks to operators who complete
the task to varying degrees of success. Being amorphous shapes, the base letters and dia‑critical marks are difficult to calibrate but there seems to be no other way.

THE CASE OF HUNGARY › R. KRAVJANSZKIHU › 59

Bibliography
Arcanum Digitheca, http://adtplus.arcanum.hu/.
Bánfi, Szilvia & Ilona Pavercsik, Péter Perger, Judit V. Ecsedy: A régi magyarországi nyomdákbetűi és díszei, XVII. Század. Vol 2. Kelet‑magyarországi és erdélyi nyomdák, Lőcse, Kassa.
Tanulmányok és katalógus. Budapest 2014, Balassi Kiadó, Országos Széchényi Könyvtár(Hungaria Typographica II).
Nyíri, Antal (ed): A Müncheni kódex 1466‑ból. Budapest 1971.
Bikfalvi Falka Sámuel, http://font.hu/digitart/0108.html.
Deme, László: “Helyesírásunk és a nagyvilág.” Magyar Nyelvőr, No. 4, 1979.
Dévai Bíró, Mátyás: Ortographia Ungarica. Krakkó 1549 (second edition, there is no traceof the first).
Diacritics Project @ Typo.cz, http://diacritics.typo.cz/.
Ecsedy, Judit V.: A régi magyarországi nyomdák betűi és díszei, 1473–1600. Budapest 2004,
Balassi Kiadó, Országos Széchényi Könyvtár (Hungaria Typographica I).
Ecsedy, Judit V.: “A régi magyarországi nyomdák betűi és díszei, XVII. század.” Vol 1. Nyugatés észak‑magyarországi nyomdák. Budapest 2010, Balassi Kiadó, Országos Széchényi
Könyvtár (Hungaria Typographica II).
Ecsedy, Judit V.: “A régi, magyar nyelvű nyomtatványok betűkarakterei 1533–1800.”
Magyar Könyvszemle, No. 4, 1986.
Geleji Katona, István: Magyar Gramatikatska. 1657.
Haiman, György (ed): A nagyszombati egyetemi nyomda betűmintakönyve, 1773. Hasonmás.
Budapest 1997.
Hungaricana, http://hungaricana.hu/.
Keszler, Borbála: Írásjeltan. Budapest 2004.
Kniezsa, István: “A magyar helyesírás a tatárjárásig.” Magyar Nyelv, Vol. XXIV, 1928.
Lővy, Salamon & László Novák: Betűművészet. Vol. 2, Budapest 1926.
Magyar Nyelvemlékek, http://nyelvemlekek.oszk.hu/tud/nyelvemlekek.
MEK (Magyar Elektronikus Könyvtár), http://mek.oszk.hu.
Molnár, József & Györgyi Simon: Magyar Nyelvemlékek. Budapest 1976.
Országos Széchényi Könyvtár – EPA, http://epa.oszk.hu/new_index.phtml.
Sajtómúzeum, http://sajtomuzeum.oszk.hu.
Smeijers, Fred: Counterpunch. London 1996.
Szabó, Dénes (ed): Apor‑kódex. Kolozsvár 1942.
Thompson, Maunde: An Introduction to Greek and Latin Palaeography. Oxford 1912.

60 ‹ HU

PROBLEMS OF DIACRITIC DESIGN FOR CENTRAL EUROPEAN LANGUAGES THE INSECTS PROJECT

Trócsányi, Zoltán: “A kisbetűk a régi magyar nyomdászatban.” Magyar Könyvszemle
No. 3, 1955.
Twardoch, Adam: “Polish Diacritics: how to?,” http://www.twardoch.com/download/pol‑ishhowto/intro.html.
Vende, Ernő: A magyar irodalomtörténet képekben. Vol. 1, Budapest 1905.

THE CASE OF HUNGARY › R. KRAVJANSZKIHU › 61

62—91AGNIESZKA MAŁECKA PLZOFIA OSLISLO PL

Polishdiacritics:
the history
andprinciples
of designp. 67

Had the Polish ruler Mieszko I chosen to bebaptised in the Eastern (Byzantine) Rite in 966
A.D., we would most likely be using Cyrillic in
Poland today.
(Małecka, Oslislo, 2016)

p. 68

The C16th, also known as the Golden Age ofPrinting, was a period of rapid development for
the Polish language and the spelling rules thenestablished have seen little change to date.
(Małecka, Oslislo, 2016)64 ‹ PL

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

p. 67It should be noted that there are no universal
solutions, and any tips regarding accent shape,
positioning and size may only be viewed assuggestions rather than directives.
(Małecka, Oslislo, 2016)

p. 78

Poland’s accession to the European Union
in 2004 meant a substantial change ofapproach towards these issues, marked by the
re‑focussing of type design from national tointernational perspective.
(Małecka, Oslislo, 2016)

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLO

PL › 65

Introduction
In his Problems of Diacritic Design for Latin Script Text Faces, one of the first comprehensive
essays on special characters, English researcher J. Victor Gaultney draws attention toa small number of reliable sources on accent design. Since the release of his essay in 2002,
a number of similar research projects have appeared in different countries, attesting to
the importance of diacritical marks as a pertinent area of study for many researchers andtypographers. This issue is becoming all the more important when we consider the glo‑
balised typography market striving to serve multilingual users from different continents.
As new technologies emerge, such as especially the Open Type format, it is now possible
to create universal typefaces which are increasingly more responsive to local users’ needs.

Fig. 1 Two different proposals foraccenting the character Ł within thesame publication, https://polona.pl/
item/11447688/6.

However, and not dissimilarly to this essay, most modern papers on diacritic design are
based primarily on the direct analysis of prints and typefaces. Studying old prints and thehistory of language, we become aware that a number of specific design solutions may
have come about as a result of some commonplace reasons, such as technological con‑straints, lack of appropriate accented fonts, wear and tear of typesetting materials, am‑biguous spelling codifications, as well as the fact that a single text was set by several
people who may have trained in different centres and therefore adhered to various spell‑ing traditions Fig. 1, 2, 3.

Our research focuses primarily on diacritical marks in typefaces intended for continuous
text setting, but due to the limited availability of other, more experimental examples inprevious studies, we have decided to also present job and italic types, as well as some ex‑treme (very light or very heavy) varieties. This study is aimed at all type design students
and professionals, whether Polish or international, and seeks to discuss the spelling rules
and specific nature of the language in order to facilitate the design of correct accentswith respect for local traditions and reader preferences.

What are diacritics and how to design themFig. 2 Accenting the sound Ł with theogonek (customarily added to thecharacters a and e to change theirpronunciation), https://polona.pl/
item/11659188/4.

66 ‹ PL“Diacritics are marks added to glyphs to change their meaning or pronunciation. They
are also commonly called accents or diacritical marks. These marks can be made above,
below, through, or anywhere around the letter. The name comes from the Greek wordδιακρίνειν meaning ‘that distinguishes’” (Gaultney, 2002, p. 2).

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Although the majority of diacritics do not connect to the base letter (floating accents),
there are those that form its integral part (connected accents). The question therefore
arises, whether such characters are true diacritics, or whether such combinations should
be viewed as separate glyphs – additional letters of the extended Latin alphabet – andhow this impacts on the design practices Fig. 4, 5, 6.

An important problem in accent design is how to embrace local typographic traditions.
The same diacritical mark (e.g. acute) is used in many languages, but may be designed

Fig. 3 Different ways to accent the char‑a bit differently due to varying local preferences of language users. Is this really goodacter ę (ogonek, strikethrough) within

practice? How should diacritical marks be designed, then? This essay seeks to answer thetury, https://polona.pl/item/7852961/8.

the same publication, Elementa architek‑

above questions, present the various standpoints and opinions on the matter, whether
contradictory or complementary, as well as provide an accurate historical review of par‑ticular diacritics occurring in Polish.

If all diacritics were simple in shape – such as a perfectly circular dot – and if all baseglyphs were lowercase, symmetrical and had unchanging stroke weight, the design
and positioning of diacritics would be trivial (Gaultney, 2002, p. 4).

Fig. 4 Shape, size and proportion of theogonek in relation to the base character,Dąsy, https://polona.pl/item/667490/4.

Unfortunately, as each font has its own characteristics, e.g. contrast, centre, x‑height‑to‑ascender ratio and caps height, the task is rather more difficult, requiring bothknowledge and a keen eye. It should also be noted that there are no universal solutions,and any tips regarding accent shape, positioning and size may only be viewed as sugges‑
tions rather than directives.

Fig. 5 Shape, size and proportion of theogonek in relation to the base character,

Part 1Skąpcy, https://polona.pl/
item/1244109/0.

In search of the Polish alphabet
Had the Polish ruler Mieszko I chosen to be baptised in the Eastern (Byzantine) Rite in
966 A.D., we would most likely be using Cyrillic in Poland today. Despite the power of
the then Byzantine Empire, however, Constantinople seemed a very long way from thestate of the Polans, so, driven by political reasons (alliances) and logistical considerations

Fig. 6 Shape, size and proportion of the(proximity of the developed urban centres), Mieszko decided on baptism in the Westernogonek in relation to the base character,(Latin) Rite. This decision was critical for further development of our language, because

item/1312382/2.

Wspomnienia Sycylji, https://polona.pl/

it put Poland in the cultural sphere of Western Christianity. The history of Polish is thus

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLO

PL › 67marked by an unending series of borrowings: first from Greek and Latin, then from
German and French, and finally from English.

To the best of contemporary knowledge, our ancestors did not seem to have any writing
system prior to the adoption of Christianity. Neither has the alleged existence of the an‑
cient Slavic runic script been confirmed by any reliable academic research. Poland’s bap‑
tism, therefore, meant a symbolic transition from an oral culture to a hand‑written or
manuscript one that was based on the phonetic Latin script (Malinowski, 2011, pp. 13–14). The
modest inventory of 23 Latin letters, however, was nowhere near sufficient to repre‑
sent the phonetic richness of Polish spoken at that time, which needed as many as 45
letters (12 vowel and 33 consonant characters). Paradoxically enough, an alphabet thatwas much better suited to this task was that of Old Church Slavonic – the so‑called
Glagolitic alphabet (Glagolitsa), created by Byzantine Greek brothers and Christian mis‑
sionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius for the purpose of missionary work among the Slavs.
At the turn of the C9th and C10th, the Glagolitic alphabet evolved into Cyrillic to become
the basis for the alphabets used in Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbian and
Macedonian as well as partially Armenian and Georgian. Poles and Czechs, on the other
hand, were consistent in their adherence to the Latin alphabet and set out to adapt it to
the needs of their languages in a process that took considerable effort and a few centu‑
ries to complete (Malinowski 2011, p. 15).

The task of devising a transcription system for medieval Polish was first taken on by for‑eign church chroniclers, scribes and copyists, who followed the spelling rules used in e.g.
German and Czech to write Polish local names. In the absence of any codified rules ofPolish spelling, their notes were written very erratically, sometimes using solutions only
they could understand. The method of recording would often change, even within a sin‑gle document, which caused problems for the readers and writers alike. This situation
was only resolved with the invention of print and a huge role in this process was playedby printers and typesetters. Before the spelling of the Polish language became fully es‑
tablished, it went through three distinct stages of development: Stage 1: Polyphonemic
Orthography (C12th to first half of C14th), Stage 2: Compound Orthography (late C14th
and C15th), and, finally, Stage 3: Diacritical Orthography. The C16th, also known as theGolden Age of Printing, was a period of rapid development for the Polish language andthe spelling rules then established have seen little change to date.

68 ‹ PL

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Puzzling Polyphonemic Orthography (C12th to first half of C14th)
In Polyphonemic Orthography, one Latin letter was used to represent several similarsounds (based on acoustic or sound similarity), creating huge discrepancies between the
pronunciation and spelling. For example, the letter s could mean as many as six different
sounds: s, ś, š, sz, z, ź and ż; the letter d represented d, ƺ', ƺ (d, dź, dz); the letter z was used
to transcribe z, ś, ź, ž; while c was used for writing the sounds k, c, č (Jodłowski, 1979, p. 19).
The nasal vowels ą and ę, in turn, were transcribed as a combination of two sounds, e.g.
an, am, en, am, em, um (Malinowski, 2011, p. 17). This type of spelling is found in the following
three monuments of the Polish‑language literature: The Bull of Gniezno (1136), The Book ofHenryków (1270) Fig. 7 and The Holy Cross Sermons (late C13th to early C14th) Fig. 8 (Malinowski,
2011, p. 18).

Fig. 7 Księga Henrykowska [The Book ofHenryków], http://digital.fides.org.pl/

Although published in Latin by Pope Innocent II, The Bull of Gniezno contains original

dlibra/doccontent?id=744.

Polish‑language spellings of local and personal names, providing an invaluable insight
into the then state of the Polish language and proof that the letter s, in addition to its
base function was also used to record the phoneme sz (voiceless retroflex fricative,
similar to English sh): Calis = Kalisz, z: Posdech = Pozdziech and ź: usrewsy = uźrzewszy(Malinowski, 2011, p. 18).

An extremely important work from the period of Polyphonemic Orthography is theafore‑mentioned Book of Henryków, dating back to the mid‑to‑late C13th. This Cistercian
chronicle, written in Latin by a German abbot, contains the very first Polish sentence re‑corded in writing. In the nearby village of Brukalice, a Czech settler named Boguchwał(aka Brukała) reportedly uttered the following words to his Silesian wife: “Day, ut ia po‑
brusa, a ti poziwai”, which roughly translates as “Let me grind [with quern stones] andyou take a rest” Fig. 9 (Lehr‑Spławiński, 1978, p. 99). The chronicler probably decided to describe

Fig. 8 Kazania Świętokrzyskie [TheHoly Cross Sermons], https://polona.pl/
item/304920/7.

this story because grinding grain with quern stones was a woman’s job at the time, so fora husband to relieve his wife of the chore must have been regarded as unusual. As jok‑
ingly put by acclaimed Polish linguist Jan Miodek, peasant Brukała was Poland’s “first lin‑
guistically validated gentleman”.

An important innovation to Polyphonemic Orthography found in The Holy Cross Sermons
from the turn of the C13th and C14th was an attempt to write the nasal vowels ą and ę.
Used for this purpose was the Greek character φ (Phi), as e.g. in the word pφte = piąte

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLO

Fig. 9 The initial sentence, The Book ofHenryków, http://digital.fides.org.pl/dlibra/doccontent?id=744.

PL › 69

[fifth], and later the non‑Latin character ø (strikethrough o), originating from the Norsealphabet (still present Danish and Norwegian spelling), e.g. prawdø = prawdę [accusativeof truth], sø = są [(they) are] (Malinowski, 2011, p. 21).

Improved (though still imperfect)
Compound Orthography (C14th – C15th)
Obviously, the highly inconsistent and ambiguous Polyphonemic Orthography caused
considerable confusion and inspired multiple interpretations even among monks andtranslators, i.e. manuscript writers themselves. This often led to perplexing situations
where there were almost as many ways to understand a given word as there were read‑ers and writers. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the steadily growing number ofpeople using written Polish sparked numerous efforts to improve the functionality of its
spelling.

Compound Orthography came as the second stage in the development of written Polish.
This system was based on the use of combinations of two or three characters to create
new and permanent digraphs and trigraphs with distinctive phonetic values (e.g. ss, sy, sz,
zs, zy, cz, dz, r, rs, ssz, sch), such as scham = sam [alone], schobye = sobie [self], schuka = szu‑
ka [he/she looks for], czasz = czas [time], owocz = owoc [fruit] (Malinowski, 2011, p. 22). The work
which best documents Polish spelling at the time is the Bible of Queen Sophia (1455), theoldest surviving attempt to translate the Old Testament into Polish, commissioned by
Sophia of Halshany, the wife of King Władysław II Jagiełło.

A unique role was also played by the Psalter of Puławy, which, according to prominent
Polish linguist Stanisław Urbańczyk, is the greatest achievement of pre‑diacritical Polishorthography. It was based on combining different consonant characters with the letter y(replaced over time by I) to denote soft consonants occurring before vowels, e.g. zyemya,
kamyen, swyat, myedzy, kwathky, neysye, lyosem, lyud (Malinowski, 2011, p. 22).

It should be noted at this point that when Polish writing was still governed by Compound
Orthography, Czech spelling had already begun to shift towards diacritics. In his 1411 trea‑
tise De orthographia bohemica [On Bohemian Orthography], Jan Hus (Czech clergyman, re‑former and ardent advocate of his native Czech language, in which he gave sermons)contained the famed Abeceda, i.e. a sentence consisting of all the letters of the alphabet

70 ‹ PL

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

from a to z: “A Budé cele czzeledi given diedicztwie…” (A Budé celé čeledi Dano diedict‑vě…). Hus proposed that the former letter combinations, such as digraphs and trigraphs(with the exception of the digraph ch, which remained to denote the sound), be replacedby diacritical marks placed over the letters (Malinowski, 2011, p. 24). Not only was Hus’s worka great contribution to the development of modern Czech spelling, but it also provided
a key inspiration on how to write the sounds of the Polish language. Unfortunately, al‑most a century had passed before his ideas were finally adopted on Polish soil. A certain
apprehension towards diacritical spelling and the resulting delay were caused by the factthat the creator of Czech diacritical orthography was condemned by the Catholic Churchand burned at the stake for heresy, which naturally stirred controversy in Catholic Poland.

Towards Diacritical Orthography
A decisive, though largely unsuccessful, attempt to prevent Polish spelling from lagging
behind other European languages was made by Jakub Parkoszowic, professor and rectorof Kraków’s university. Regrettably, the impractical spelling solutions he proposed in his
1440 Obiecado failed to make a lasting impact on Polish orthography (Malinowski, 2011, p. 28).

The next century, however, brought a larger number of Polish spelling reformers, orsometimes merely codifiers. These included, among others, Stanisław Zaborowski, au‑thor of Ortographia seu modus scribendi et legendi polonicum idioma quam utilissimus (1513),
Stanisław Murzynowski, author of Ortografia polska [Polish Orthography] (1525), and last
but certainly not least, Jan Januszowski, the famed co‑author and editor of Nowy Karakter

Fig. 10 Nowy Karakter Polski [NewPolski [New Polish Typeface] (1594), a collection of 3 treatises on Polish orthography Fig. 10.

https://polona.pl/item/22764216/4.

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLO

Polish Typeface],

PL › 71

The last‑mentioned work undoubtedly takes precedence over the others in terms of last‑ing impact. Created by humanist, printer and publisher Januszowski, it contained three
proposed, Hus‑inspired alphabets by poet Jan Kochanowski Fig. 11, courtier Jan Górnicki
Fig. 12 and Jan Januszowski himself Fig. 13 (Malinowski, 2011, p. 11). In hindsight, the last alphabet

Fig. 11 The new alphabet,
Kochanowski’s proposal,
https://polona.pl/item/22764216/56.

proved to be the most functional one, as evidenced by the fact that it is closest to mod‑ern Polish spelling. Nowy karakter Polski contains various proposals for writing individ‑
ual sounds. As for the book’s layout, the author used a specially designed typeface in

two styles: karakter prosty (upright) and karakter ukośny (italic) (Czernecki, 1902). Visually, it
Fig. 12 The new alphabet
Górnicki’s proposal,
https://polona.pl/item/22764216/57.

drew on Roman type styles and marked a shift away from the then prevalent blacklet‑
ter. Januszowski was a trailblazing reformer of printed and hand‑written Polish in boththeoretical and practical terms. He established spelling rules and introduced new simpli‑
fied characters corresponding to the sounds of the Polish language. In 1600, his typeface
was used in the Statuty, Prawo i Konstytucja [Statutes, Law and Constitution] of the Polish
Kingdom.

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THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Fig. 13 The new alphabet, Januszowski’s

We owe a great deal to the printers and the bourgeoisie

proposal, https://polona.pl/
item/22764216/65.

A key factor contributing to the development of the Polish language, and especially tothe standardisation of its written from, was the invention of print. In one of his inter‑views, Professor Jan Miodek recounts a heated (and still unresolved) dispute among lin‑
guists about whether the standard Polish language formed with the establishment ofstate power in Greater Poland, or thanks to the work of Kraków printers.

In those days, printers, proof‑readers and typesetters were educated people, often hold‑ing degrees from the Kraków Academy. Being well versed in linguistic matters, they wereable to play a prominent role in rooting out foreign dialects, archaisms and regionalisms
that were still present in the manuscripts. “It was the codifiers associated with the print‑
er communities that systematised Polish spelling in the C16th” (Polański, 2004, p. 32). Notablenames among them included Florian Ungler, Hieronim Wietor and Maciej Wierzbipięta.

Since printers were intent on achieving uniform spelling and, consequently, economical
typesetting (i.e. fitting as many words as possible on one printing sheet), they were keen
to eliminate any unnecessary digraphs and trigraphs. As Zygmunt Klemensiewicz notes,
various competing print shops contributed to the development of spelling, grammaticaland stylistic standards, thus overcoming the casual freedom and diversity of mediaeval
orthography (Klemensiewicz, 1980, p. 251).

An important fact for the development of Polish in general and its consistent written
form in the C15th and C16th was the intellectual growth and gradual polonisation of the

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLO

PL › 73bourgeoisie. Towns and cities brought together educated people to become administra‑
tive, commercial and cultural centres with a range of relevant facilities. The social struc‑ture of the C16th town consisted of several social strata. The highest of these was the pa‑
trician class, i.e. the richest merchants, usually of Italian or German descent. Although theC16th saw gradual polonisation of patricians, they would still often use German or Latinin order to maintain power and differentiate themselves from the commoners. The mid‑dle class was composed of artisans and small traders of Polish origin, who were the big‑gest proponents of the Polish language and national identity, as this gave them a chance
to aspire for positions in local administration and municipal institutions. Artisan guilds
led their meetings and correspondence in Polish, which was also the language of choice
when drafting legal documents. The lowest class were the plebeians (the urban poor)
who also used Polish, but at a lower level than the middle class. The main recipients ofbooks published in the Polish language, therefore, included the middle class, less edu‑
cated gentry (due to inadequate education in Latin), and a modest number of peasantry
with elementary education (Klemensiewicz, 1980, p. 257).

Decline of the middle class spells trouble for the Polish language
The C17th saw the bourgeoisie being gradually pushed into poverty as a result of politicaland economic oppression by the gentry and nobility. Due to a lack of generous patrons,
towns and cities began to decline and church censorship ensued with a detrimental im‑
pact on independent book and secular printing. This inevitably led to a gradual loss of qual‑
ity and collapse of the printing trade. Books were printed using worn‑out sorts with little
attention to proper grammar and spelling. This situation lingered on until the times of
Stanisław II August (C18th), when the growth in expenditure on culture had a positiveeffect on the quality of printing and the Polish language in general (Klemensiewicz, 1980, p. 256).

C17th Polish still adhered to the spelling principles developed in the previous century.
Polish books were printed using mainly blackletter (Schwabacher), while Roman typefac‑
es were only just gaining ground, initially being used almost exclusively for the composi‑tion of Latin texts Fig. 14. Unfortunately, the transfer of the royal residence by Sigismund III
Vasa from Kraków to Warsaw in 1609 meant that the standard‑setting Kraków printersbegan to lose their leadership position. The situation was further aggravated byon‑going wars, resulting in the deterioration of the economic situation of the entire
country and, consequently, the overall level of Polish.

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Fig. 14 Kronika starodawna y ktemu poboż‑na o poważnych rozmowach Ptolomea
Filadelfa (…) [The Ancient and Pious
Chronicle of Serious Deliberations byPtolemy Philadelphus (…)], 1578,
https://polona.pl/item/628418/5.

Following the latest Western trends, the local gentry took a fancy to sprucing up their
Polish with Latin words, phrases and even whole clauses, often in blatant disrespect for
linguistic correctness. The royalty and nobility, on the other hand, developed a keen taste
for French. In his 1741 treatise De emendandis eloquentiae vitiis [On correcting eloquence er‑rors], the Enlightement educational reformer Stanisław Konarski criticised the pompous
style and corrupt language of contemporary elites, calling for the use of simple and com‑municative language in speech and writing, recommending the Polish language writers of
the C16th (mainly Jan Kochanowski), as worthy model to follow (Malinowski, 2011, 47).

A nation that survived through its language
The reign of King Stanisław II August (1764–1795) marked a notable revival of intellectu‑
al life and the rise of state educational institutions. The then established Commission of
National Education managed to reform the Academies of Kraków and Vilnius. Working
under the auspices of the Commission, the Society for Elementary Books modernised
primary education and introduced innovative textbooks. Unfortunately, these favoura‑
ble changes were interrupted by Poland’s deteriorating political situation leading to thethree partitions (1772, 1793 and 1795.) and the division of its territory among the neigh‑bouring powers of Russia, Prussia and Austria. The attitude of the respective oppressors’
governments towards Polish education varied considerably. Prussia and Austria german‑
ised the acquired school systems, incorporating them fully into their own organisational

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structures. On the other hand, educational facilities annexed by Russia had enjoyeda much greater freedom until the fall of the November Uprising (1830–1831), when theirautonomous status was revoked and stricter russification policies were adopted (PWN
Encyclopaedia).

Quite paradoxically, the greater the occupants’ efforts to exterminate the Polish na‑
tional identity, the more respect was gained by the language and its literature. Polishculture was treated almost reverently, its cultivation regarded as an act of patriotism.
Throughout the entire partitions period, Polish‑language newspapers and literary works
were published, and (often secret) lectures, readings and meetings were organised. Not
surprisingly, perhaps, when Poland regained independence after World War I, its national
culture began to grow almost explosively.

Renaissance and demise in the C20th
The young Polish State, re‑born to include its historical territory after 123 years of foreign
rule, had the ambition to reactivate a coherent and distinctive national culture. This trend
was also observed among typographers, who had a driving ambition to modernise print‑
ing after long years of backwardness and create a national typeface that would best suitthe needs of Polish language typesetting. Despite the many attempts, most of the new
typefaces, which typically drew on folk culture, were excessively ornamental and hardly
lent themselves to book typesetting.

A completely different design philosophy was adopted by Polish graphic artist and ty‑
pographer Adam Półtawski, who approached the problem from the vantage point of lan‑
guage and typography, starting from the study of legibility and differences in the compo‑
sition of texts using the same font in different languages. This way he was able to codify
specific Polish kerning pairs and the most common signs, including diacritics. His inves‑tigations led him to a conclusion that, in comparison with other languages, Polish fea‑tures a large proportion of letters with slants, such as w, k, y, z. Having established that,
Półtawski set out to improve general legibility and enhance optical text regularity (typo‑graphic colour) by designing these characters in an alternative way to weaken the slants.
His work on the national typeface was completed in 1928, and 1931 saw Jan Idźkowski’s
foundry cast a full set of sorts for manual typesetting Fig. 15 (Frankowski, 2005, pp. 30–34).

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World War II and its aftermath slowed down the enthusiasm for advancements in many
areas of life including printing and typography. After 1945, difficult times ensued for
Poland, marked by political isolation and technological backwardness. Despite this un‑
favourable environment, the Polish People’s Republic managed to produce some inter‑esting typefaces, though few of them ever saw the light of day. One glorious exception
in this respect is Antykwa Toruńska [Toruń Antiqua], designed by Zygfryd Gardzielewski
in 1952–1958 and cast by the Warsaw Font Foundry (pre‑war foundry Idźkowski i Ska,
nationalised after WW2). The typeface is historicist and ornamental in style drawing

Fig. 15 Adam Półtawski, Antykwa
Półtawskiego, 1928.

on Toruń Gothic architecture. Trying to adapt his design to the quirks of the Polish lan‑
guage, Gardzielewski studied Półtawski’s research done while working on the first PolishAntiqua decades before. Despite a few practical applications, Antykwa Toruńska gained
nowhere near as much popularity as its predecessor – perhaps due to its very decorative
style and limited versatility Fig. 16 (Misiak, Szydłowska, 2015, pp. 88–91).

The problems of the printing industry and the need to create a centre for the design of
new typefaces for the Polish market became pressing issues, which were raised to publicFig. 16 Zygfryd Gardzielewski, Antykwa
Toruńska, 1952–58.

attention in specialist magazines, such as “Poligrafika” and “Litera”, by the likes of RomanTomaszewski – the most prominent typoactivist of the time. His efforts led to the crea‑tion of the Centre for Print Types [Ośrodek Pism Drukarskich] in 1968, which brought to‑gether a number of talented type designers, including Helena Nowak‑Mroczek (Helikon,
Hel), Andrzej Heidrich (Bona), Jerzy Desselberger (Alauda, Acanthis). Another centre for
typeface design active at the time was Katowice’s Linotype Matrices Plant led by typog‑
rapher Henryk Sakwerda Fig. 17. Unfortunately, many of these award‑winning typefaces
failed to achieve wider recognition because of the iron curtain separating Poland from

Fig. 17 Henryk Sakwerda, Akant,
1975–1980.

the West. After the Centre for Print Types was closed down in 1978, stagnation was inevi‑
table in domestic type design (Misiak, Szydłowska, 2015, pp. 92–114).

The technological revolution
After the fall of Poland’s communist regime in 1989 came a technological revolution
which flooded the market with an abundance of solutions imported from the West. The
optimism of those early days prevented any criticism of the new technologies and hun‑dreds of computer fonts which either lacked, or contained very poorly designed Polishdiacritics. A reflection did not come until the turn of the millennia when the debate oncontemporary Polish typeface and the need for properly designed Polish diacritics gained

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLO

PL › 77momentum once again. The design effort was taken on by a few typographers and mostsuccessful ideas then produced drew directly on Półtawski’s Antiqua. These included
Grotesk Polski [Polish Grotesque] Fig. 18 designed by Artur Frankowski and Danova Fig. 19
by Jacek Mrowczyk with an interesting proposal to create ligatures for Polish digraphs.

krzywykrzywyFig. 18 Artur Frankowski, Grotesk Polski, 1998–2006.

aśbłcdegaśbłcdeg
Fig. 20 Łukasz Dziedzic, Lato,

Fig. 19 Jacek Mrowczyk, Danova, 2010.

Poland’s accession to the European Union in 2004, meant a substantial change of ap‑
proach towards these issues marked by the re‑focussing of type design from nation‑
al to international perspective. An excellent example of a universal typeface, created by
a Polish designer but free from specific national features and suitable for multi‑language
use both in print and on the screen, is undoubtedly Lato by Łukasz Dziedzic Fig. 20.

2010–2014.

In modern‑day Poland, type design as separate branch of graphic design is still a niche
discipline, although its enthusiasts are growing in numbers thanks to, inter alia, the Letter
Design Studio at Poznań’s University of Arts, which through the efforts of its long‑timeleader Krzysztof Kochnowicz, has managed to provide a steady supply of professionals
to our type design scene for the last 20 years. Several other cities, including Warsaw,
Wrocław and Katowice, have also had similar departments established. Most young
Polish typographers work in the global environment, trying to market their designs via
online services, such as Font Shop, MyFonts and Google Fonts.

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THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Part 2Polish diacritics
We owe the presence of diacritical marks in the contemporary Polish alphabet to ourSouthern neighbours, the Czechs. Similarly to Czech, the sounds of the Polish language
were simply impossible to put in writing with the basic letters of the Latin alphabet. So,after a series of earlier‑described evolutionary changes and numerous attempts to codi‑
fy its spelling, Polish finally reached its diacritical spelling form. Not all the special charac‑ters, however, appeared at the same time while some of the proposed diacritics fell into
disuse. The modern Polish alphabet contains four types of diacritical marks that affectthe sound of nine phonemes. Two of them, the dotaccent and the acute, are detachedfrom the base glyph. The remaining two, i.e. the slash and the ogonek (the only Polishword in the international typographic terminology), are permanently integrated into thebase letter.

In the era of the traditional printing, letters with diacritical marks were cast as one sort
Fig. 21, although separate sorts with diacritics to be put together with the base glyph were

often used for larger font sizes and sorts made of wood Fig. 22.

This worked well for the majority of above and below special marks, but in the case of

Fig. 21 Wood and metal types with

Polish, was possible only for two of them: the dotaccent and the acute. The letters ł, ę

ASP Katowice).

diacritical marks (Oficyna Drukarska

and ą, on the other hand, required a different approach and had to be designed as sepa‑
rate glyphs. Unfortunately, as font sets often lacked a complete collection of Polish dia‑critics, printers made spontaneous attempts at improvising the missing glyphs. The prac‑
tice of separating diacritics from the basic glyphs was adopted in monotype, from which
it found its way into phototypesetting and then modern computer font generation soft‑
ware, where all accents are treated as separate components having a unique Unicode

Fig. 22 Wood type diacritical marks(Oficyna Drukarska ASP Katowice).

number. Although this approach has proven feasible in most cases, it is not without its
problems when it comes to designing connected diacritics (Kramek, 2005, pp. 10–13).

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLO

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TittleThe tittle (Latin: titulus), also known as the i‑dot, first appeared in Latin manuscripts inthe early C11th and served to individualise the neighbouring letters i and j (Dictionary.com).
It is also found in C13th manuscripts, where it saved space by helping to distinguish indi‑vidual letters in the dense structure of Gothic writing (Gaultney, 2002, p. 2).

While in the letters i and j, the tittle forms their integral part and its omission has mean‑
ing changing consequences (e.g. In the Turkish alphabet, there is a separate characterı/I without a tittle parallel to an i with a tittle), in some cases it can serve as a diacriticalmark (dot accent) changing the form of the base glyph. In Polish, for instance, this situa‑tion occurs when the letter z/Z receives a dot accent to form ż/Ż. It is also worth noting
here that the same sound will be achieved by putting a strikethrough line across Z. This
form of writing, which dates back to the Renaissance, has survived to date in handwrit‑ing and can be used in projects based on handwriting styles (Kramek, 2005, pp. 10–13) Fig. 23.
Fig. 23Łukasz Dziedzic, Ringo, 2014.

Zuzanna Rogatty, Rudolf, 2014.

Joanna Angulska, Jubiler, 2014/15.

Designing dotaccents is possibly the least problematic task, as the size and shape of the
dot serving as a diacritical mark should resemble the i‑dot. Exceptions to this general rule
include certain calligraphic fonts where the shape of the tittle can differ significantly fromthe dotaccent, being closer to an acute, a dynamic pen stroke, or even a circle Fig. 2.4.
Fig. 24

Szymon Sznajder, Grind, 2012.

Damian Langosz, Tilia Black,2015.

Viktoriya Grabowska, Rymex, 2016.

Zuzanna Rogatty, Rialto, 2015.

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Horizontal positioning of diacritics for lowercase letters should be the same as that of
the i‑dot and dieresis, i.e. in the optical centre of the letter, which can be a bit more diffi‑
cult to achieve in italic varieties Fig. 25. As for vertical positioning, the choice is a matter ofthe designer’s individual judgement and would normally depend on the nature of the font
and the length of the ascender.
Fig. 25

Robert Jarzec, Talia, 2015.

Robert Jarzec, Metrum, 2013.

Szymon Sznajder, Shelf, 2012.

Also in this case, the position should be fixed for the i‑dot, dotaccent and dieresis. For theuppercase letter Ż, the dotaccent is frequently positioned slightly closer to the base char‑acter due to the smaller amount of space allocated for diacritics above capitals (Twardoch,2009) Fig. 26.

Fig. 26

żółw ŻÓŁW

żółw ŻÓŁW

Anna Giedryś, Signika, 2010.

Anna Giedryś, Yrsa Light, 2016.

Acute
Many European languages have two stroke‑type diacritics which are either tilted to theleft (grave) or to the right (acute). Both of these appeared in early‑C16th Polish spelling,
but only the latter has survived in the contemporary Polish alphabet. The same diacrit‑
ical mark may play different roles depending on the language. In Polish, for instance, it

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLO

PL › 81either softens the consonants ć, ń, ś and ź, or provides a distinctive quality of the vowel ó.
In French, on the other hand, a similar glyph is used as an accent, while in Czech it serves
to elongate vowels (Kramek, 2005, pp. 10–13).

Initially, the shape of the mark used in Polish was similar to that used in other languag‑
es, even though it served a different function. The angle of slope would vary dependingon the letter over which it was placed (steeper for í than for á and ó), because the stem
Fig. 27 Androzzi, Fulvio (1523–1575)
Scieszka poboznego chrześcianina (…)
W Krakowie : w drukarni Jakubaof the letter i offered less space and extending the accent beyond the character would
cause obvious kerning problems Fig. 27.

Sibeneychera, 1600,
https://polona.pl/item/14978681/0.

In handwriting, the angle of slope depends on the gesture, writing speed, and tempera‑
ment of the writer. In commercially available typefaces, on the other hand, different ideas
concerning the angle of the acute in relation to the basic character may result from thedesigner’s creative vision or the nature of the typeface at hand. In all cases, it is important
to be mindful of general legibility and accord with the base character and other diacrit‑ics. One of the rarer but quite permissible solutions is to put a horizontal stroke throughthe base character. This method may be of use in handwriting‑inspired typefaces intend‑
ed for job printing Fig. 28.

Fig. 28 Barbara Pospischil,Otil, 2016.

In view these differences, some typographers have suggested that cultural characteris‑tics should be incorporated into acute design, especially that OpenType font formats lendthemselves well to this task. Adam Twardoch, for instance, claims that the Polish “kreska”[stroke], being distinctly different from the acute and requiring an individual design ap‑
proach, should be more vertical and have a slightly different contrast than the acute
Fig. 29 (Twardoch, 2009).

Fig. 29 Rafał Włodarek,
Woodchuck, 2016.

Alternatively, the “kreska” [stroke] and acute may be designed by selecting an angle ofslope that would strike middle ground between the two and thus appeal to users of dif‑ferent languages Fig. 30 (diacritics.com).

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THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Fig. 30Łukasz Dziedzic, Lato, 2010–2014.

Szymon Sznajder, Shelf, 2012.

Robert Jarzec, Metrum, 2013.

The horizontal alignment of the acute above the letter is much more challenging than in
the case of the dot, because it is an asymmetric accent, often having a contrast. This rais‑
es a number of positioning controversies among designers, as common ground on thismatter is not easy to achieve due to the diacritic’s long history of occurrence, aesthetic
reasons and the above‑mentioned cultural differences. Microsoft’s Character DesignStandards, for instance, recommend two alternative strategies. Both start with finding
the optical centre of the letter to which a diacritic is to be added. For asymmetric letters,
it is a kind of imaginary line which requires a trained eye to determine. According to thefirst strategy, the left, narrower end of the acute should be placed slightly through theoptical centre. For italics, this alignment ought be corrected by shifting the acute slight‑
ly to the left Fig. 31.

The second strategy, developed by Monotype and Mergenthaler Linotype typographic
corporations, the guidelines are more precise, suggesting that the front one‑third of theacute should be placed on the left and the other two‑thirds on the right of the opticalcentre. Unfortunately, there is one more parameter that affects the alignment, i.e. theangle of slope. Although the above‑mentioned strategies work well for highly verticalslopes, reduced slopes will require further adjustment, involving a shift of the diacritic to
the left Fig. 32 (Gaultney, 2002, pp. 7–8).

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLO

PL › 83Fig. 32, 33
Maciej Majchrzak, Słownik, 2013,(example prepared for the

1/3

purpose of the article).

1/2

2/3

mathematicalcentre1/2mathematicalcentre

The angle of slope may also be different for lowercase and uppercase letters. In capitals,
accents often use shallower angles, which means that their horizontal position must also
be adjusted Fig. 34. The angle of slope has changed historically, early prints using steeper
angles in comparison to trends observed in contemporary designs. This is partly due
to the fact that designers want to use the same component for uppercase and lower‑case letters. Since, in capital letters, the acute has to be more inclined due to space con‑straints, the same component is used for lowercase letters, not necessarily for the benefitof the overall design.
Fig. 34
52°
52°
41°

Szymon Sznajder, Shelf, 2012.

Slash
Although the first attempts to distinguish the spelling of l and ł date back to the late‑C15th
treatise by Jakub Parkoszowic, we owe their modern form to Stanisław Zaborowski(Orthographia seu modus recte scribendi et legendi Polonicum idioma quam utilissimus, Kraków,

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THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

ÁÂĂÄĹĆÇČÉĘËĚÍÎĎŰÜ
áâăäĺćçčéęëěíîď

)c. 1513) as well as many unnamed C16th printers and typesetters who consistently distin‑
guished between these two characters (Polański, 2004). In contemporary Polish the slash put
across the letters l, occurs in both lowercase and uppercase: ł, Ł. Noteworthily, the meth‑ods of recording this sound in print and handwriting are distinctly different.

In fonts used for both lowercase and uppercase text layouts, the slash is added to theNN, 1900

digitized by Linotype,base glyphs l and L. It is usually sheared at both ends, though this depends on the natureof the design and should correspond to the shape of other endings and serifs Fig. 35.
Fig. 35

ÂĂŰÜÝŢ&€1éęëěíîďđńňó
ÂĂŰÜÝŢ&€1éęëěíîďđńňó
Agata Pietraszko, Arin, 2012.

Anna Giedryś, Signika Light & Bold, 2010.

The angle of slope should be steep enough to avoid mistakes in distinguishing between łand t in smaller font sizes. Its vertical position is not arbitrary, either. Adam Twardoch de‑scribes two alternative ways of dealing with this problem. One solution is to place themark in the optical centre of the letter, while the other, less orthodox method is a rec‑ommendation given by Andrzej Tomaszewski. His approach suggests placing the slash atsame height of the crossbar in t. The pitfall of the second method is a reduced difference
between ł and t, as well as a some irregularity at the x‑height line Fig. 36 (Twardoch, 2009).

In the lowercase ł, the slash is usually symmetrically aligned on both sides of the stem,
while in the case of the capital Ł, most of it remains on the right of the stem and its

Fig. 36Încercaţi
băuturiajmogą
položaj
WywołaćsportůmnejběžnějšíchPróbářešeměl používaných
A conventional (preferred)

An unconventional solution

Basic Commercial, 1900, digitalised by Linotype,solution, Signika Bold.

(example prepared for the

Linotype Originals Library, Polish language version

purpose of the article),by Kuba Tatarkiewicz.

Signika Bold.

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLO

PL › 85

Fig. 37

Anna Giedryś, Irsa, 2016.

Fig. 38

Zuzanna Rogatty, Rudolf, 2014.

Bartosz Mamak, Medley, 2015.

weight may also be increased to adjust it to the design requirements Fig. 37. In job printing
fonts, on the other hand, the slash may be placed entirely on the right Fig. 38. Certain, more
Fig. 39experimental design attempts at slash design are featured in e.g. Półtawski’s Antiqua,
where a wave is used, and Antykwa Toruńska, having a curved arc instead of a straight line.
Such solutions are acceptable if they are suited to the character of the typeface and meet

Adam Półtawski,

legibility requirements Fig. 39.

Antykwa Półtawskiego, 1928.

In handwriting, the lowercase ł takes the form of the letter l with a crossbar or wave at‑tached to the top. This is due to a very high degree of similarity between the handwrittent and ł and, as such, should be taken into account while designing handwriting‑inspired
Zygfryd Gardzielewski,
Antykwa Toruńska, 1958.

typefaces Fig. 40.

For a double ł cluster, in turn, a ligature may be used, the two letters I being crossed witha single line or wave Fig. 41. The handwritten capital letter Ł, similar in appearance tothe pound sign £ (and causing a design challenge of distinguishing the two), is marked
with a straight strikethrough, similarly to its lowercase equivalent Fig. 42.

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THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Fig. 40

Diana Dobrut, Liszka, 2014.

Joanna Angulska, Jubiler, 2014–15.

Fig. 41

Underware, Liza Script.

Joanna Angulska, Jubiler, 2014–15.

OgonekEven though the ogonek is the only Polish‑language term in international typographic

Fig. 42nomenclature, the character ę was not a Polish invention. Somewhat surprisingly, per‑haps, it originates from Latin, where it was used from the C9th to represent the vowel
ae or æ. It came to Poland from the West along with matrix sets as e caudata (tailed e),
but was adapted to record a different sound, i.e. a certain distinctive nasality which dates
back as far as pre‑Slavic times. However, while other Slavic languages, e.g. Czech, had

Underware, Bello Script.

evolved to simplify the pronunciation of nasal vowels (zuby vs. zęby [teeth], dub vs. dąb[oak]), they became well established in Polish (Miodek, 2013). The first half of the C16th al‑
ready saw a distinction between the front nasal vowel ę and rear nasal vowel ą appliedsystematically by Kraków’s Wietor and Haller print shops. This can be seen in such works
as Rozmowy Salomona z Marchołtem [Solomon Conversations with Marchołt] (1521) andŻywot Pana Jezy Krysta [The Life of Lord Jesus Christ] (1522). Previously, they were record‑

Joanna Angulska, Jubiler, 2014/15.

ed as ø or øø and also (ę) (ą) (Klemensiewicz, 1980, p. 254). In contemporary Polish, nasal vow‑els have become even more established, replacing such regionalisms as (chodzo, jedzo)

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLO

PL › 87

Fig. 43

still present in the 1950s and 1960s in the dialect spoken in and around Lesser Poland’s
Miechów (Miodek, 2013).

The greatest challenge in designing the ogonek is related to the fact that it is an integrat‑
ed diacritic, forming an integral part of the letter to which it is attached. Although in con‑Viktoriya Grabowska, Rymex, 2016.

ventional hot metal printing, it was designed and cast together with the base glyph, inmonotype and then phototypesetting and computer systems it has usually been treatedas a detached diacritic, causing a number of objectionable irregularities. Not only are sep‑arately designed ogoneks often too small (akin to the cédilla), but, above all, tend to beincorrectly connected to the base characters. When designing this diacritic, one shouldtake into account the letter’s proportions and character. The ogonek is not formed by

Joanna Angulska, Jubiler, 2014–15.

a single pen stroke. Instead, it is written smoothly, in the semblance of a wind‑filled sailor a curved hook, so it is a mistake to design it as a comma – or apostrophe‑inspired
shape. Fortunately, calligraphy comes to the rescue in understanding appropriate ogonek
design, since a single pen stroke is customarily used in handwriting to write the base let‑ter and the diacritic, rather than two separate strokes Fig. 43.

Fig. 44

Damian Langosz, Tilia Regular, Tilia Italic, Tilia Italic Plus, Tilia Black,2015.

Maciej Majchrzak, Rainbow Display, 2015.

Maciej Majchrzak, Rainbow Regular, 2015.

The ogonek, as used in ę and ą, does not necessarily need to have exactly the same shapeand should, as a rule, be adjusted at the attachment point to the base glyph. Due to its
shape, the letter e normally requires the diacritic to be extended Fig. 44.

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The problem of attaching the ogonek to capital letters is somewhat different, especiallyFig. 45in serif fonts. In his study, Adam Twardoch shows some good practices in this respect,e.g. drawing the ogonek directly from the serif in Ą Fig. 45. This method physically changes
the base letter A in the Ą (Twardoch, 2009).

It should also be noted that the ogonek should not extend beyond the basic character(A, E, a, e). Excessively shifted to the right, it can cause kerning problems in words where
ę and ą neighbour with letters containing descenders. Prominent ogoneks are recom‑

Robert Jarzec, Metrum, 2013.

mended in fonts used for text typesetting, as they ensure enhanced legibility in smaller
font sizes. In extreme cases, where descenders are very short, ogoneks may be the samelength, or even (being rounded elements) – after applying appropriate optical correc‑
tions – extend slightly beyond the descender line Fig. 46.

Robert Jarzec,
Talia Regular, Italic A, Italic B, 2013.
Fig. 46 Veronika Burian, José Scaglione,
Karmina Bold, Regular.

Kerning
Kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between pairs of characters (letters, num‑bers and punctuation marks) for a typographic colour (Mrowczyk, 2008, p. 67). It should be ap‑
plied whenever the selected standard spacing is inappropriate due to the relative shapesof the neighbouring glyphs. Kern pairs occur with varying frequency in different languages and some are unique to individual languages. Special attention is usually required
when it comes to accented letters.

While attending the needs of local users, designers should not limit themselves solely tothe design of appropriate diacritical marks, but should consider some popular kerning
pairs . In Polish, the letter ł proves to be the chief troublemaker. In many fonts spacing for

Fig. 47 An example of capable handlingof popular kern pairs in Karmina Sans.

1

ł and l they is the same in disregard for the fact that ł is wider. This often leads to colli‑
sions in such pairs as Iłł, eł, łt, Łó, łw, Pł Fig. 47.

1. For more kern pairs, which should betaken into consideration when designing
fonts for use in Polish, please see thefollowing source: Robert Oleś Study,
https://d2d.pl/test/kerning_pl.html.

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLO

PL › 89

Conclusion
In the C21st, type design has become a globalised industry fuelled in equal parts by tech‑
nological advancements and new distribution methods through global online platforms.
Likewise, catering to the specific needs of small audiences and taking into account lo‑
cal typographic traditions has never been easier. Unfortunately, creating such globally
focused and locally sensitive fonts requires a contemporary typographer to have an ex‑
tensive knowledge coupled with a penchant for aesthetic sensitivity and keen powersof observation. The speed and ease with which fonts are produced these days as wellas their global reach and unification often result in the loss of important cultural values.
It seems highly recommendable, therefore, that the available technology be used con‑sciously to preserve those locally developed differences and to enhance legibility and pro‑
mote high‑quality typography.

Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Robert Oleś for sharing his knowledge and expertise with us
and to the young Polish typedesigners for preparing samples of their fonts to serve as
examples.

BibliographyBřezina, David: “On Diacritics.” I love Typography, January 24, 2009,http://ilovetypography.com/2009/01/24/on‑diacritics.
Černe Oven, Petra: “Skąd się wzięły znaki diakrytyczne?.” 2+3D, November 2012, http://
www.2plus3d.pl/artykuly/skad‑sie‑wziely‑znaki‑diakrytyczne.
Character design standards – Diacritics, http://www.microsoft.com/typography/devel‑
opers/fdsspec/diacritics.aspx.
Ciastoch, Marta: “Profesor Miodek o początkach języka polskiego.” Newsweek Historia, July
2013, http://historia.newsweek.pl/poczatki‑jezyka‑polskiego‑profesor‑jan‑miodek,ar‑tykuly,273406,1,3.html.
Context of Diacritics, www.urtd.net/x/cod/.
Czernecki, Józef: 1. Jana Januszowskiego: Nowy Karakter Polski z r. 1594. 2. Stanisława Serafina
Jagodyńskiego: Kaligraphia abo Cancellaria z r. 1695. Lwów 1902. Available online: https://polona.pl/item/848322/1/.

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THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Dictionary.com, “Word Fact: What’s the Name for the Dot Over the i and j?.” January 5,
2015, http://blog.dictionary.com/tittle/.
Diacritics Project @ Typo.cz, http://diacritics.typo.cz/.
Encyklopedia PWN, http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/.
Frankowski, Artur: “Adam Półtawski (1881–1952) mklasyk polskiej typografii.“ 2+3d, II
2005, nr 15.
Gaultney, J. Victor: Problems of diacritic design for Latin text faces. Dissertation submit‑
ted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master of Arts in Typeface Design,
University of Reading, 2002. Available online: http://typefacedesign.net/wp‑content/
uploads/2013/08/MATD01_VG_ProbDiacLo.pdf.
Henestrosa, Cristóbal & Laura Meseguer, José Scaglione: Jak projektować kroje pisma.
Od szkicu do ekranu. Kraków 2013.
Jodłowski, Stanisław: Losy polskiej ortografii. Warszawa 1979.
Juda, Maria: Pismo drukowane w Polsce XV–XVIII wieku. Lublin 2001.
Klemensiewicz, Zenon: Historia języka polskiego. Warszawa 1980.
Kramek, Martyn: “O projektowaniu polskich znaków diakrytycznych.” 2+3d, II 2005, nr 15.
Lehr‑Spławiński, Tadeusz: Język polski. Pochodzenie, powstanie, rozwój. Warszawa 1978.
Malinowski, Maciej: Ortografia polska od II poł. XVIII wieku do współczesności. Kodyfikacja, re‑formy, recepcja. Rozprawa doktorska, Uniwersytet Śląski w Katowicach, 2011. Available
online: http://sdl.org.pl/dlibra/docmetadata?id=93088&from=publication.
Misiak, Marian & Agata Szydłowska: Paneuropa, Kometa, Hel. Szkice z projektowania literw Polsce Kraków 2015.
Mrowczyk, Jacek: Niewielki słownik typograficzny. Gdańsk 2008.
Mrowczyk, Jacek: “Polacy nie gęsi….” 2+3d, November, 2009, http://www.2plus3d.pl/
artykuly/polacy‑nie‑gesi/strona:1.
Polański, Edward: “Reformy ortografii polskiej – wczoraj, dziś, jutro.” BULLETIN DE LA
SOCIÉTÉ POLONAISE DE LINGUISTIQUE, fasc. LX, 2004, ISSN 0032–3802.
Polish National Library online, http://polona.pl/.
Twardoch, Adam: “Polish diacritics. How to?” March, 2009, http://www.twardoch.com/
download/polishhowto/intro.html

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92—11592 ‹ PL

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PALO BÁLIK SK

Designing
Slovakdiacritics

POLISH DIACRITICS: THE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN › A. MAŁECKA, Z. OSLISLO

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p. 96

Just taking a look at internet forums makes
it immediately clear that two forms of Slovak
exist. The first, which is official and employs
diacritics, is used for writing articles, whereas
the second, “lazy” variant, without diacritics, isused in the comment boxes underneath.
(Bálik, 2016)

p. 96

There are also two coexisting types of Slovak
accent design. The first facilitates legibility
and the second, often designed away fromCentral Europe (frequently by renowned typedesigners), does not do much to help legibility,
or even renders it impossible.
(Bálik, 2016)94 ‹ SKTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

p. 114

With a growing number of Slovak typedesigners, a number of new solutions to olddiacritical problems will certainly accrue.
(Bálik, 2016)

DESIGNING SLOVAK DIACRITICS › P. BÁLIK

SK › 95

1. The Diakritika project came about at the

Introduction

Department of Graphic Design in Bratisla‑va as part of the subject History and Type
Design during the 2003/2004 summer
semester under doctoral student Palo
Bálik. Eleven students took part fromvarious year groups at the department.
The students were motivated and encour‑
aged to define a problem based on theirown experience with issues surrounding
diacritical marks. In the opening debate
they eventually managed to define fivebasic definitions of a possible solution to
the problem with their pros and cons,
which they tried to address in their exper‑
iments: 1. Is the current state of our writ‑
ten language with the absence of diacrit‑
ics in the electronic media sustainable?
2. If we were able to re‑codify our written
language into an aesthetically non‑intru‑
sive form, would foreign technology com‑panies accept it as standard and would
they support it sufficiently in their infor‑
mation technologies? 3. Is it possible tore‑work and re‑organise our written
language under the conditions of today’s
technological standards (e.g. ASCII cod‑ing), to maintain proper legibility of writ‑ten information? 4. Is it necessary to pre‑serve and promote our written language
as a symbol of cultural heritage and na‑
tional identity in order to enrich the World
Cultural Diversity Fund at the expenseof more complicated technical adaptability
and aesthetics of type? 5. Wouldn’t it beinteresting to re‑work our written lan‑
guage into an aesthetically attractive
written character system in order to dif‑ferentiate it from Latin script, and create
an original, national script with the ambi‑tion to enforce its uniqueness and creative

There is nothing that really makes Slovak orthography stand out among neighbouring
Central European languages in terms of how their spelling systems developed, save forone interesting detail. Approximately 1150 years ago, Slovak orthography was developedby Saints Cyril and Methodius, who made the first attempt at codifying it in the form ofa Glagolitic script system. Of course, this was without diacritics. If this script system hadtaken hold, today we would be discussing issues of adapting and supporting the Slovak“Klingon language” in the era of digital communication. An idea of surfing the web, send‑
ing text messages and tweeting in a Glagolitic script system, though in some ways in‑triguing, would stand no chance of becoming a reality today, even in this sci‑fi scenario.
Just taking a look at internet forums makes it immediately clear that two forms of Slovak
exist. The first, which is official and employs diacritics, is used for writing articles, whereas
the second, “lazy” variant, without diacritics, is used in the comment boxes underneath.
The world today is moving at an ever‑faster pace and diacritics are clearly slowing it
down. I first attempted to address this issue in 2003 as a fledgling teacher, working withstudents on the project Diakritika (Diacritics)1. The result of the experiment was a discov‑
ery that this phenomenon does not stem from issues surrounding type design or typog‑
raphy. It rather concerns the pragmatic encounter of a local culture with new commu‑
nications technologies and as such will not be of interest to us here Fig. 1. However, thepicture is more or less similar in the entire world of type design. There are also two co‑existing types of Slovak accent design. The first facilitates legibility and the second, often
designed away from Central Europe (frequently by renowned type designers), does not
do much to help legibility, or even renders it impossible.

extraordinariness in today’s global world?
Aesop’s fable Mercury and the Woodman
was chosen as an experimental text, inwhich practically all the Slovak diacriticalmarks occur. This text was broken up
into a block with left alignment and di‑
rectly juxtaposed first with its English
translation and then with the students’new solutions for Slovak diacritics. By
juxtaposing both texts bearing the same
name while maintaining the same condi‑
tions it was possible to highlight specificdiacritic marks more clearly within thewhole and point out the aesthetic, quali‑
tative differences in the typography ofboth blocks. The resulting project became
the publication Projekt_Diakritika witha print run of 1000 and an exhibition of

96 ‹ SK

This issue is described by J. Victor Gaultney in the introduction to his 2002 paper Problemsof diacritic design for Latin script faces. Among others, he cites Albert Kapr, who, in his
450‑page book The art of lettering, dismissed discussion on diacritics: “It would take us too
far if we were also to discuss italic letters, umlaut, accents, signs and figures individually”.
He also refers to the weak and often misleading knowledge base of manuals on whose ba‑
sis companies such as Microsoft (Vincent Connare: Character Design Standards 1999) and
AGFA (Agfa Corporation: Type Design Standards 1996) approached and still approach diacrit‑
ic accent design. This explains why, in early 1990s, there were only a couple of foreign dig‑ital typefaces with relatively satisfactory Slovak diacritics. These were the ones you were
happy to send to print, being sure that letters with acute accents and carons would not

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

turn into rectangles or empty spaces. This “horror vacui” has persisted to this day in theform of proofs from printers being signed, which always reminds me of the Dark Ages of

the results achieved displayed
at the Graphic Design Biennale in Brnoas part of the Czechoslovak typographic“home‑produced’, improvised diacritics. This was blatant tampering with copyright, as‑project EAT (Experiment and Typogra‑

sociated with the risk that a typeface would not work properly. For this reason, specialist

the project was covered by almost all thecompanies (Macron) began to appear in the Czech Republic which exploited the gap in thecated to graphic design, such as Typo,market and, for a fee, converted your purchased “Western” typeface into a “Czechoslovak”,
or even “Central European” typeface. It was interesting to compare how diacritic design inthese naturalised typefaces differed markedly from the original ones. Typesetting in theseadapted fonts had the effect of being far more compact and refined because the position‑phy). During the course of one year
regional printed press publications dedi‑
Typography and Designum.
2. Štorm Type Foundry,
https://www.stormtype.com.
3. Typoteque,https://www.typoteque.com.

ing, shape and size of the acute accents and carons did not attract any unwanted atten‑
tion. Localisation of foreign typefaces will always have its dimensional limitations, which is
why it always involves a certain amount of “tuning”. There are even typefaces that neverallowed for additional diacritical marks to be included in their basic design.

By contrast, if a Latin script is designed in the knowledge that it will contain all additional
diacritical marks, the result is better adapted to typesetting in languages that use thosemarks. This approach is reflected in the work of Czech and Slovak type designers whobegan to establish digital foundries in the second half of the 1990s. The first of these was
set up in Prague by František Štorm under the name Střešovická písmolijna (Střešovice
Foundry) (later renamed Štorm Type Foundry2), who capitalised on his knowledge of dig‑itising older Czech font types when designing his new proprietary typefaces. His work
also became popular in Slovakia thanks to its well‑constructed diacritics. At the turn ofthe millennium, type designers Peter and Johana Biľak set up the global type foundry
Typotheque3 in the Netherlands, where they had both previously studied. Its establish‑
ment signalled a major turning point for Slovak type design, and not only thanks to pro‑ducing new typefaces with optimised diacritics for Central European languages. Theirconsiderable use in the Slovak mass media opened up a public debate on the need forgood quality type, a need that was practically non‑existent until that time. Today, typog‑
raphy in Slovakia is a well‑established activity, a fact also reaffirmed by the work pro‑
duced by type designers from the second Slovak wave such as Michal Tornyai, Ondrej Jób
and Ján Filípek, whose notes stemming from their professional practice have also con‑tributed to this paper.

After saturating the domestic type market and raising the interest of the international
community in the work and approach to design of Slovak and Czech type designers, the

DESIGNING SLOVAK DIACRITICS › P. BÁLIK

Fig. 1 Projekt Diakritika, AFAD Press
2004.

SK › 97design of Central European diacritics has made it to the forums of professional confer‑ences abroad. A good example of this sort of edifying activity is the popularisation work
carried out by Filip Blažek, who, in 2004, published the article “Diacritical marks” in the
Czech periodical Typo Magazine. This article was later made accessible to international
type designers in English in the form of an information portal4 where he describes in de‑tail the fundamentals of designing not only Central European but also worldwide diacrit‑Fig. 2 Jersey of Slovak NHL player
Miroslav Šatan.

ics for Latin script. In 2009, David Březina published the article “On Diacritics” on the por‑tal I love typography5, where, in a condensed form, he summarises and spells out the basic
principles of designing diacritical marks which all type designers should learn by heart if
they intend to sell their type globally.

I think that the debate on designing Central European diacritics is finally moving in theright direction in international typographic circles. Outside the world of professional ty‑
pography, however, global awareness of diacritics in Central European languages, as wellFig. 3 Glagolitic script, 9th century.

as the sounds they represent, is close to non‑existent6. An excellent article on this topic
entitled “In the name of the father” was written by Peter Biľak in 20107. If you come from

4. Diacritics Project @ Typo.cz, http://
diacritics.typo.cz/.
5. David Březina: “On Diacritics.” I love
Typography, January 24, 2009,http://ilovetypography.
com/2009/01/24/on‑diacritics.
6. A good example of diacritics being

Central Europe and have a couple of accents in your name, it may have happened to you
that, while sitting in a café at the airport, you hear some unknown name come over the
PA system. It crosses your mind that an entire aeroplane is waiting for somebody who istaking their time. Later on, you realise to your horror that the person is you! That, how‑ever, is an entirely different problem Fig. 2.

ignored are the surnames of Slovak
sportsmen on the strips of international
clubs. The ice‑hockey player Šatan is

The Development Of Slovak Orthography

simply Satan.
7. The author of the article tries to per‑suade Dutch officials of the existence ofa lowercase l with a vertical caron in his
name overseas, which could be prob‑
lematic for the faint‑hearted. PeterBiľak: “In the Name of the Father (or the

For a better understanding of the function and origin of the design of the contemporary
form of Slovak diacritics, it is good to know the background of their historical develop‑
ment within orthographic processes.

troubles with L‑caron).” Typotheque,September 25, 2010, https://www.typo‑theque.com/articles/lcaron Fig. 2.

Orthography in the C9th–C14th
For some time, Slavs in Greater Moravia used Glagolitic script Fig. 3. We can assume thatalongside this they also wrote in the Latin script, although no coherent fragments writ‑ten in this way were preserved from C9th Pannonia or Greater Moravia. The beginnings
of Slavic script in early feudalism are associated with the development of society andits relationship with other tribes and regions, above all with the Mediterranean culture.

98 ‹ SKTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Glagolitic script, created by Constantine from Thessalonica, arrived here in around theyear 863 and was used up until Methodius' death in 885. We have no other evidence ofthe existence of Glagolitic script in Slovakia. In around 880, the so‑called St. Emmeram
Glosses were created. These are five Slavic words inscribed with a chisel directly into thevelum of the Latin codex: Collectio canonum Dionysiana adaucta Fig. 4. Messengers regu‑

Fig. 4 Slavic word “komusdo”
inscribed with a chisel, 860.

larly came to Greater Moravia and Pannonia from Bavaria and Rome. The Pope’s letters,
sent in the C9th to princes in Greater Moravia, are well known and have also been trans‑
lated into Slovak. Services in Latin existed alongside those in Old Church Slavonic even
before the arrival of Constantine and Methodius. Traces of liturgical texts translated from
Latin and Old High German are found in Old Church Slavonic manuscripts, especially in
the Euchology of Sinai and the Freising manuscripts Fig. 5.

In the early C10th, one of Constantine and Methodius’ students, known as Chrabr, wrote
a defence of Slavic script called On scripts. Right at the start of his defence, Friar Chrabr
states: “Previously, the Slavs had no scripts, but used lines and scores to read and surmise,
still being pagans. After being baptised, they attempted to write in the Slavic tongue us‑
ing Roman and Greek scripts, but without a system. But how can one write well in Greek

Fig. 5 Freising manuscript, around 972.

script bogъ (god), or životъ (life), or crъkъvь (church), or človekъ (person), or širota (breadth)or štedroty (generosity), or junostь (youth), or językъ (language) and other (words) simi‑
lar to those? And this is how it was for many years.” Friar Chrabr realised the basic differ‑ences between the Greek and Slavic Glagolitic systems. He noticed that the Slavic “yers”
and consonants š, ž, č, ť, ď, ň and ľ could not be properly denoted using Greek and Latin
scripts. For centuries, type designers had been trying to overcome this problem in differ‑ent ways, until it was resolved once and for all in the late C18th with the rise of the pro‑
gressive bourgeoisie.

In the C9th, Slavic consonants were simply recorded as one phoneme represented by
one grapheme, or as a phoneme represented by two or three graphemes. Slavic names
from Pannonia, for example, were written as follows: Skrъbenъ as Zcurben, Žiliь as Siliz,Trěbicь as Trebiz and Čьstilo as Zistilo. The consonants was most often written as s.
However, it could also be written using such graphemes as ss, se, and, less frequent‑ly, as z and sz. The consonant ž was most often denoted using the graphemes s and z,
and in isolated cases as g, which has its origins in Italian graphics where dž is written as
gi. The consonant š was most often represented by the grapheme s, and less frequent‑
ly by ss and se. The consonant č was most commonly indicated using the graphemes c,

DESIGNING SLOVAK DIACRITICS › P. BÁLIK

SK › 99ch or, sometimes s. The palatal ň was denoted as nn or less frequently ni. The soft ľ waswritten as l or li. The groups jь and ji were written as i. The soft ď was written as da or,in isolated cases, as t, g and z. The soft ť was denoted as t, th, ti and z. The consonant
k was recorded as k, most commonly c, and rarely qu. There were many deviations inwriting voiced consonants. German scribes were unable to pronounce these in their lan‑
guage, and therefore they often wrongly recorded a voiced consonant in place of an un‑voiced one and vice versa. For example, Priuuinna instead of Pribina. This points to thefact that Slavic names were written according to the practices of scribes recording Latin,
German and Italian texts. The German way, in particular, involved mixing voiced and un‑voiced consonants. The Italian way involved recording the soft consonant ď as g or z, andalso ť as z, and finally ž as g. Generally, by the C11th, one consonant was denoted using
one character. There were also important legal institutions, known as “places of authen‑tication” (locus credibilis), where the spelling of Slovak names developed in Hungarian
written manuscripts. In Slovakia, from the C13th, such places were found in chaptersin Bratislava and the Spiš region as well as in monasteries in Hronský Beňadik, Zobor,
Turec, Leles and elsewhere.

In the C11th, written communication went into decline. Over the following centu‑
ries, script and the writing of documents was mainly in the hands of those from ec‑
clesiastical circles. Few manuscripts have been preserved and their orthography was
not uniform. Following the Mongol invasion, the function of “places of authentication”
was consolidated and they became public authorities with notaries. Written records
were required as various kinds of testimonies (for property, citizenship, etc.), thanks towhich orthography in the C13th stabilised. Overall, the consonants s‑z were denoted asz‑z, apart from the grouping st, which was in the main written as st. The consonants
š‑ž were written with the grapheme s, the consonants c‑č with the grapheme c, andť, ď, ň, ľ as t, d or g (=ď), n and l, respectively. The consonant k was recorded as k, andv as uu, u and w. For example, knäz (priest) was written knaz, and the names Soběslav
as Zobuzlou, Židemer as Sidemer, Žemlár(i) as Semlar and Dimišä as Dímisa. Alongside thesecharacters, there were also graphemes which were only known later, for example
č, c written as ch: kouachi = Kováči, knesech = Kňäžic(i). The consonant k was recorded ask, c, ch, qu and q. The consonant v was usually written as w, in the middle of a word also
as u, and less often as v and vv. The letter s was mainly used to record s and z, but also
š and ž; cz and sometimes ch were usually used for recording c; and ch was usual for č.
Denoting the consonant č using the letters cz has its origins in the Czech and German

100 ‹ SKTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

chamber of King Sigismund. The spelling of Slavic names in Hungarian Latin documents
was gradually simplified and from the end of the first quarter of the C15th spelling sta‑bilised overall.

Orthography in the C14th–C15th
In the C14th, Czech manuscripts written in Czech started to arrive in Slovakia. Czech or‑
thography had more particularities. The first continuous text from Slovakia, Mariánska
pieseň (song of Mary) from Bratislava in 1380, for example, has a mixed system for writings and š. Ján Hus (in his work “Orthographia Bohemica’, 1412) established a set of charac‑ters with diacritical marks. In his teachings, š was written as ṡ, ž as ż, č as ċ, ř as ṙ, ť, ď andň as ṫ, ḋ and ṅ, soft ľ as l, and hard l as ŀ. He said that long consonants should be indicatedusing a line. This system was not immediately successful, but it did not fall by the way‑

Fig. 6 Kralice Bible, 1579–1593.

side. In the C15th and C16th it even crossed into Hungary. In Bohemia, points were com‑monly used in the letter č, also written as cż, then v ř, written rż, and in ň = ṅ. Above theletter l, the point changed in that a small half‑circle was placed on the upper right sideof the character, leading in turn to the “closed” l, which in its form is close to the Slovak ľ,
but the caron completely extends to the base character. Bernolák also used this “closed” lto denote the soft ľ. Carons above letters developed from points in print when indistinc‑
tive points were stretched a little. Diacritical orthography spread mainly from the C19th.
Deviations from today’s writing system included š being denoted as ss, as š with two
points at the end of a word, ž being written as Zi at the start of a word and č in the same
position as Cž. The consonant j was written as a g and the consonant v as w. The charac‑ter ě was already in use. At the start of a word, v was denoted as u. This was, in brief, theorthography of the Kralice Bible dated 1579–1593 Fig. 6.

Until the end of the C18th, a digraphic spelling system was in use. This system wasroughly as follows: s ~ š s (less frequently ss) ~ ss; z ~ ž: z; c ~ č: cz ~ cž, čz, č; ť, ď, ň: t, d,n, ti, di, ni, ny; ř: rz; j: g, y, (-ey); ä: a, e, ie; ie: ye; ia: ia, ya; u: u (at the start and sometimes
even in the middle of a word), v. Diacritical marks were placed only in quite isolated cas‑es above ž and cž (=ž and č). The consonant dz was written using cz: meczy (= medzi) (be‑tween); š was sometimes written as s: osklywosty (ugliness), bywsy (You have been).
Recording č using ch and š using the letter s represents the form of writing used in the
Hungarian Chamber. The genitive singular feminine adjective ending –ej was written –eg
rather than –ey: “z gedneg strany” (from one side). The vowel ä was commonly written

DESIGNING SLOVAK DIACRITICS › P. BÁLIK

SK › 101as e and sometimes as a: pany (páni) (gentlemen) Swetogenssczy = Svätojänščí, wod
Swateho Ondrege – vod Svätého Ondrejä. A Polish influence may be seen in writing š andž as ssz, a German one in writing s as sz, ssz and perhaps even in writing z as s; and lastly
a Hungarian influence could be glimpsed in the writing of š and ž using the character s.

Modern orthography
The birth of the Slovak written language was the result of a rather long development.
The modern spelling system of the Slovak language came about after the careful ap‑
praisal of older orthographic traditions. The first attempt at its codification was made byAnton Bernolák in his work Dissertatio philologico‑critica de literis Slavorum (Bratislava, 1787)
Fig. 7, because he saw many shortcomings in Slovak orthography. At that time, Literaturefrom Trnava over a century‑long orthographic tradition, but it lacked fixed rules. SomeFig. 7 Dissertatio philologico‑critica deliteris Slavorum, 1787.

of its elements made it stand out from the system commonly used in Czech. Even be‑fore Bernolák, Slovak literature had removed some Czech marks, for example ě, au (writ‑ten ú) and ř, and, the denotation of the palatal ň before e and i was introduced occasion‑
ally: naplňený (filled). In some contemporary writings, softenings in the groups tě, dě andně were indicated by a mark above the ě: buděš, imper. pitě, etc. In 1691, Mikuláš Thamassyin the book Prawa katolicka ručny knyžka (The True Catholic Handbook) wrote, e.g. powstaťi
Fig. 8. Writing an initial u as v ceased in Catalogus onomasticus in 1707. Prívod ku dobropísem‑nosti (An introduction to good spelling) from 1780 requested that Jozeff and similar words be
written with a J and not a G. However, y and i caused confusion. The diphthongs ie anduo were already written in this way in Ostrihomský ritual (the Esztergom Ritual) Fig. 9. This
work already contains the contemporary way of recording the palatal t, d, n + e, i and ie;
although sometimes an è appeared: tèla, wedèt.

There is a special group of Slovak printed manuscripts including five Slovak books, print‑
ed between 1750–1758 in Debrecín in the Zemplín dialect of East Slovakia. These are theFig. 8 Prawa katolicka ručnyknyžka, 1691.

first books printed entirely in Slovak, intended for the religious needs of Calvinists. Thesebooks employed the Hungarian spelling system, whose influence also appears in othermanuscripts. Some smaller writings addressed orthographic issues even before Anton
Bernolák. T. Masník (Masnycius), for instance, wrote Zpráwa pjsma slowenského, gak se mádobre psati, čjsti, y tisknauti (Rules of Slovak writing, how best to write, read and print) (Levoča,
1696) Fig. 10. Then there was Zač latinského a slowenského gazyka (Why the Latin and Slovak)(Košice, 1763) and Začátkowé latinskýho a slowenskýho gazyku (The Origins of Latin and102 ‹ SKTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Slovak) (Trnava, 1777), and others. Although Czech is often the basis in these documents,

8. Apart from the above mentioned

Slovakisation is already perceptible. Jozef Ignác Bajza (1754–1836), Anton Bernolák’s pre‑the simplification of the Slovak writing

decessor in the efforts to codify written Slovak, wrote č, š, ž, í, s (always as s), and ť, ň even

amendments, Bernolák also contributed tosystem with some smaller amendments.
For example, for denoting the sound [š] hein cases such as bráňiťi (defend) and dopusťiťi (allow). Bernolák stopped writing q andaccepted the letter š (s with a caron; it was

x and then introduced í instead of today’s j. He also put u instead of the formerly usedcaron), unlike Bajza who, following older

v at the start of a word and following a vowel, and removed y and ý, saying that just i andbooks ss for š. It is true that following theí should be used. He still kept g to function as j and wrote g (pronounced) as g. Moreover,he marked every palatal ť, ď, ň and ľ with a caron, even before e and i and began to simpli‑

actually a long Gothic s with an added
spelling practices, wrote in the first of his
publication of his Dissertatie, Bajza also
accepted one letter for the sound [š] (com‑pare his Epigrammata, published in 1794).

fy the complex way of writing [s] and [š] and wrote s and š 8. He also wrote the diphthongie as ge and replaced the Czech ů with the Slovak ó and was against using the diphthonguo, which he found vulgar. Bernolák’s written language persisted for around sixty years.

His writing system was taken over entirely by Ľudovít Štúr, who did not differentiate be‑
tween y and i, and marked every ť, ď and ň, but not l’, which he recorded as l. He denot‑
ed the diphthongs ja and je in the first digraph using the character for j, just as Bernolák
had for ge. However, Štúr no longer wrote j using the grapheme g, so even in diphthongs
he introduced a j. He wrote the diphthong uo as uo, which is the way it was written in
many old texts and the Esztergom ritual from 1625. Štúr stopped writing w and replaced
it with the grapheme v. He denoted the bilabial ṵ with the grapheme u: prauda (truth).
Both Bernolák and Štúr required long vowels to be meticulously indicated. The only dif‑

Fig. 9 Ostrihomský rituál, 1625.

ference was that Bernolák recorded them in the Western Slovak way, whereas Štúr as‑
sumed the Central Slovak system with its rhythmic rule, according to which two long syl‑
lables cannot immediately follow each other. Printing in accordance with Štúr’s spellingsystem began in 1844 with the Nitra collection. In 1846, his grammar book Theory of the
Slovak Language was published.

Our Slovak language has its own sounds which other languages lack. It has its own syllables,
lengthenings and shortenings, its own set of sounds, declensions of various nouns and verbs dis‑tinct from other languages, thousands upon thousands of its own words…
Ľudovít ŠtúrMichal Miloslav Hodža contested Štúr’s writing system in his works Epigenes Slovenicus(1847) and Větín o slovenčine (Theorems on the Slovak language) (1848), with a confus‑
ing effect on issues surrounding the Slovak writing system. Ondrej Radlinský’s Prawopis
slowenský s krátkou mluwnicí (The Slovak spelling system with a short grammar) (Vienna, 1850)

DESIGNING SLOVAK DIACRITICS › P. BÁLIK

Fig. 10 Zpráwa pjsma slowenského,
gak se má dobre psati, čjsti, y tisknauti,
1696.

SK › 103

signalled a step backwards, as it re‑introduced elements of the Czech language, which
had acquired the name of “old Slovak” in Slovakia. This confusion was cleared up by
Martin Hattala in his commemorative book Krátka mluvnica slovenská (A Short Slovak
Grammar) (1852) Fig. 11, finally bringing the much needed stabilisation of the writing sys‑tem. According to Hattala, ť, ď, ň and l’ were to stop being marked before e, i, ia, ie and iu,
and elsewhere be denoted with a caron. He also recommended, that the diphthong uo
be written as ô. This grapheme is used in the French writing system, however not to de‑note a diphthong. This was a new symbol that had no previous tradition, but took hold.
He wrote the diphthongs ia, ie, and iu with an i, thereby returning to the old custom frommany non‑literary manuscripts and the Esztergom ritual (1625). He wrote the consonantv as v, even in cases where it is pronounced bilabially (pravda (truth), stav (status), etc.).
Fig. 11 Krátka mluvnica slovenská, 1852.

Hattala introduced ä (mäso (meat) etc.) and the diphthong iu (svedomiu (conscience)). He
also introduced a differentiation between y and i Fig. 12.

Despite various minor modifications that have been introduced in the course of time,
his orthographic system based on a combination of Bernolák’s and Štúr’s ideas, Martin
Hattala’s writing system has endured to this day.

Fig. 12 Historical orthographic develop‑

9th–14th centuries

14th–15th centuries

Modern

á

a

a

á

é

e

e, ee

é

í

i

ij

j, í

ó

o

uo

ó

ú

u

uu, au

ů, ú

ĺ

ul

el

ĺ

ŕ

ur

er

ŕ

ý

y

y

ý

č

c, ch

c’, č

š

s, ss, sc, zcz, Ċ, čz, tsch
ss, ssz, sch, s∙žz,sz, ssz, ss, Ż, z’

z’, ž

ď

t, g, zdi, dy, ḋdě, dè, d’, ďment of Slovak diacritics.

104 ‹ SKs̈, šTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

n, nn, ni

ti, dy, t∙
ni, ny, n∙ně, ňe, nè, n’

ľ

l, li

l, ly

łÿ, l’, Ǐäaa, e, ie, â

ä

ô

o, uo

vo, vuoó, ú, ôťt, th, tiňtě, tè, t’, ť

9. Slovak has consonants and vowels –as do all other languages. However, it
does not have nasal vowels, which occur
frequently in e.g Polish and French. It does
use diphthongs. Some languages only
have short vowels. Slovak has both longand short vowels. There are certain
sounds that are identical in all languages,
but some are only characteristic fora specific language. In theory, it is impor‑tant to strictly differentiate sounds fromcharacters. For example, the character v
may have many forms in a language. Its

Contemporary Slovak

pronunciation is different in the word vták
(bird), different again in the word vláda(government), it is pronounced differently

Today, the Slovak language9 has a combined digraphic and diacritical spelling system,in the word krov (roof) and differently
again in the word polievka (soup), etc.

which, alongside the basic characters of the Latin alphabet, also employs digraphs (dz, dž

There are many examples like that. Fur‑and ch; q and x in loan words) as well as characters with diacritical marks (á, ä, č, ď, dž, ô, ŕ,sarily sound the same everywhere. R isetc.), which occur relatively often in flowing text.

German; it sounds different in French andthermore, the same letters do not neces‑pronounced differently in Slovak anddifferent again in English. It is a similarstory with other letters. All languages

In Slovak, the order of characters according to the frequency of occurrence in continuous

mainly have in common the characters n,

text is as follows: n (5.7%); s (5.0%); t (4.9%); r (4.7%); v (4.7%); k (4.0%); l (3.9%); m (3.6%);

that sound soft are different (š, č, ď, ť, r,d (3.4%); p (3.0%); j (2.2%); z (1.9%); b (1.8%); h (1.4%). In this regard, it is clear to see thats, t, v, k, l, m, d, b, z, and h. Those lettersetc.). The former are the most frequently
occurring in all languages.

approximately one in twenty characters in Slovak is either n, s or t. A little less frequent
are the characters r and v. This also shows that every twenty‑fifth character in Slovak is
k or l or m. In practical terms, this probably means that in a single line of written Slovak
text there are three occurrences of n, s, t, r and v, each, and at the same time around twoof k, l and m, each.

The frequency of occurrence for diphthongs in Slovak is as follows: ie (0.88%); ia (0.48%);
ô (0.22%); ou (0,20%); iu (0,16%). Slovak is composed of 41.69% vowels (including shortand long vowels and diphthongs) and 58.31% consonants. Characters that came to us inloan words have the lowest frequency of occurrence: f (0.165%); g (0.175%); x (0.028%);w (0.001%).

DESIGNING SLOVAK DIACRITICS › P. BÁLIK

SK › 10510. Diacritics, once seen as “type‑

Strategies for designing slovak diacritics-founders’ step‑children, can then become
fully‑fledged members of the Latin typo‑graphic family.” J. Victor Gaultney: Problemsof diacritic design for Latin text faces. Disser‑
tation submitted in partial fulfilment of
the requirements for the Master of Arts
in Typeface Design, University of Reading,
2002. Available online: http://typefacede‑
sign.net/wp‑content/uploads/2013/08/
MATD01_VG_ProbDiacLo.pdf.

In the chapter on diacritic design of his 2012 book Knihy a typografie (Books and typogra‑phy), Martin Pecina points out that even non‑typographers should become familiar withthe parameters of quality diacritics in order to have a better grasp of the type market.
Working in an environment requiring a quality representation of a language’s diacritics,
all good graphic designers or typographers tend to choose types with suitably designed
accents. This is not only a professional aspect, but mainly a commercial aspect, which no
decent foundry or typographer should ever ignore. Basically, good accents sell in Central
Europe. Even large multinational players are slowly beginning to realise this fact (Adobe,
Apple, Microsoft, etc.). These companies not only produce types, but their main role is toco‑create technological platforms for types or international standards for codifying them.

According to J. Victor Gaultney’s10 classification Fig. 13, it should be possible to divide Slovak
accents according to their horizontal features and vertical positioning as follows:
Fig. 13 Classification of Slovak diacritics

Horizontal featuresby horizontal features and vertical posi‑
tioning according to J. V. Gaultney.

Symmetric (accents are
symmetrical on bothsides of the central
axis)

Asymmetric (accents drawn in a different style on right and left sides witha focus outside the central axis)

Centred (optical centreof the accent is alignedwith that of the baseglyph)

Offset (optical centresof accent and baseare not aligned)ÄäČčŠšŽž
ŇňĎŤÔô

ÁáÉéÍíÓ
óÚúÝýĹĺ
Ŕŕ

Variable (alignmentchanges according tobase)Right (accent is aligned
to the right of the baseglyph)

ďťĽľ

Vertical positioning
Above (accent rests over base glyph)ÄäČčŠšŽžŇňĎŤÔôÁá
ÉéÍíÓóÚúÝýĹĺŔŕ

Top Right (accent is aligned to upper rightcorner of base)ďťĽľ

Through (accent is vertically centred throughthe middle axis)
Below (accent is positioned below base)106 ‹ SKTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

As we can see, many foreign typographers still base their accent designs on old foundry
logic, where punctuation was widely used to represent diacritics. Of course, that is a rel‑
ic today, the result of which is that accents are often disproportionately shaped, too light,
dark or badly positioned. Some Slovak typographers blame font creation software pro‑grams which use system font characters with added diacritics often designed using theabove‑described logic as their basic templates. So, how to design fonts with multi‑lan‑guage support so that they are clearly legible to native readers? Martin Pecina summed up
a rule for designing quality diacritics in one sentence: “all marks must create a perfect cre‑
ative and functional unit with the base letters and be in harmony through their size andcontrast”. The following advice and strategies serve as initial reference points when trying
to determine appropriate weight, size, positioning, style and kerning for Slovak diacritics.

Weight and size
Diacritical marks or accents form part of the character and should therefore be easily dis‑tinguishable from punctuation. In order to preserve their function, they should neither
attract too much attention, nor be too inconspicuous, so that they are not overlooked
when being read. Their size must be proportionate to the optical size of the type Fig. 14.

Peter Biľak, Fedra Sans Light, Fedra Sans Bold

Peter Biľak, Greta Light, Greta Bold

Ondrej Jób, Klimax Minus, Klimax Plus

The rule is: the smaller the type, the more distinct the accents. Their size is often pre‑de‑termined by the height of the uppercase letters or length of the ascenders. This, howev‑

Fig. 14 Strong contrast of the accent
weight with light and bold type styles.

er, is not the case for types with a reduced x‑height. Some Slovak typographers slightly
shorten the descenders due to accents on uppercase letters in order to prevent collisions
when typesetting with more compact line spacing Fig. 15.

DESIGNING SLOVAK DIACRITICS › P. BÁLIK

SK › 107Fig. 15 Shorter descenders allow nar‑rower line spacing. Fedra Serif A Book
(Peter Biľak) Fedra Serif B Book (PeterBiľak) Empirk Normal (Michal Tornyai)
Fedra Sans Book (Peter Biľak).

Peter Biľak, Fedra Serif A Book

Peter Biľak, Fedra Serif B Book

Positioning
Most symmetrical accents in Slovak (caron, umlaut and circumflex) are positioned above
11. “(…) it is evident by now that diacritics
are not merely an add‑on to the basic
letters. They make letters.” David Březi‑na: “On Diacritics.” I love Typography,
January 24, 2009, http://ilovetypography.
com/2009/01/24/on‑diacritics.

the optical centre of the character, with a slight shift to the right or left as required.
The asymmetrical acute accent is positioned more or less the same as symmetrical ac‑
cents. The difference is a slightly shifted optical centre, which needs to be compensatedwith a shift to the right of the central axis of the letter. The vertical accents of the palatal
characters ď, ť, Ľ and ľ are an exception to this rule. Completely different rules apply here,
as horizontal positioning of accents is no simple task and may vary considerably in dif‑ferent combinations. That is why there is no universally recognised solution derived frommathematical and geometric ratios. Instead, individual designers set accents according totheir own aesthetic preferences. However, the general rule is that when positioning theaccents, one should be careful not to shift them too far to the left or right. Their verticalFig. 16 Positioning of symmetrical andasymmetrical accents. Fedra Serif A Book
(Peter Biľak), Preto Sans Regular (Ján Filí‑pek) Dora Regular (Slávka Pauliková)
Jigsaw Regular (Johana Biľak).

distance from the base characters is also important11. It should neither be too small, mak‑ing the accents run into the characters, nor too big, as that would make them appear de‑tached from the base letters Fig. 16.

Peter Biľak, Fedra Sans Book

Ján Filípek, Preto Sans Regular

Johana Biľak, Jigsaw RegularMichal Tornyai, Empirk NormalPeter Biľak, Fedra Serif A Book

Slávka Pauliková, Dora Regular108 ‹ SKTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Style
The aim of all type designers is to achieve a certain optical balance between the designof the characters and the accents. This can sometimes lead to problems because accentsare not characters. If we were to approach them in the same way, we would probably
end up with vignettes containing subtle details likely to vanish in smaller sizes and con‑sequently weaken their articulation. This problem often arises in efforts to preserve thecharacter elements of a type’s calligraphic design, such as contrast, stress axis and ductal
logic. The result is usually an asymmetrical accent style, specifically of the caron and cir‑cumflex, with an alternating thick and hairline diagonal stroke. In this case, thin strokes
should be slightly thickened. A big challenge surrounding asymmetrical accent style istheir very positioning on the central axis of individual letters. That is why most type de‑signers today prefer a symmetrical accent style, where the caron and circumflex are sym‑
metrical on both sides of the central axis. This significantly facilitates their positioning. To
improve legibility, type designers can moderate the contrast between thinner and thick‑er accent strokes, thereby preventing the thinner parts from dwindling away. A very

Fig. 17 Asymmetrical style, symmetricalnon‑standard solution is the “mono‑line” accent style. This is where a letter preserves its

style and monolinear accent style. Fedra

character aspect, which is in stark contrast to the hairline strokes of one diacritic weight(Ondrej Jób).

Sans Book (Peter Biľak) Sonda Medium

Fig. 17.

Michal Tornyai, Empirk NormalPeter Biľak, Greta Light

Ondrej Jób, Odesta Regular

When designing accents, typographers also need to bear in mind the style in which
strokes are executed. This should copy the logic of the stems, diagonals, brackets and ter‑minals of the type itself, thereby achieving a more harmonious result within the entire
set of marks Fig. 18.

Michal Tornyai, Empirk Regular

DESIGNING SLOVAK DIACRITICS › P. BÁLIK

Fig. 18 Various styles of shaped
endings in accent strokes.

Peter Biľak, Fedra Sans Book

Ondrej Jób, Sonda Medium

SK › 109For increased economy and a more compact visual impression, some typographers de‑sign a special set of diacritical marks for uppercase letters, which have reduced vertical
proportions compared with lowercase letters, causing changes in their slope and width.
Fig. 19 Various sets of drawing variantsof accents for uppercase, lowercase andThis logic can also be applied to capitals if they are taller than the x‑height. If their heightsmall capitals.

is the same as the x‑height, it is better to use lowercase accents Fig. 19.

Ján Filípek, Deva Ideal Book

Peter Biľak, Lava RegularPeter Biľak, Greta Light

Peter Biľak, Fedra Sans Book

Kerning
Characters with diacritical marks should definitely avoid collisions with the preceding or
following letters. In Slovak, this is a particularly salient issue with the vertical carons of
the characters ď, ť and ľ, which are often followed by characters drawn on the x‑height(often also with accents) or the ascender line. There are two ways to approach thisproblem: 1) maintaining the same width as the base characters d, t and l and add posi‑tive kerning against the characters drawn on the ascender line; or 2) making the accent‑ed characters a little wider and add negative kerning against the characters drawn on
the x‑height. This solution may be more appropriate for typesetting in programs that do
not support kerning. For a capital Ľ, one should be mindful of the very probable collision
when followed by the uppercase characters V and T. For thicker styles, positive kerning ofcharacters with vertical accents should be increased Fig. 20.

The problem of a less‑than‑elegant gap when setting a lowercase ľ and ď followed bya character with a left ascender can be resolved with an alternative design of the lettersin question. For sans‑serif types, it is advisable to consider shifting the lower terminal of
the characters d and l to the right, thus creating a vertical space for a vertical accent. For
serif types, an interesting solution is to create contextual alternatives where the follow‑
ing letter with a left ascender has a truncated upper serif Fig. 21.

110 ‹ SKTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

Ondrej Jób, Doko Bold

Peter Biľak, Fedra Sans Bold

Fig. 20 Kerning of an accented upper‑
case L followed by uppercase characters
T and V.

Ondrej Jób, Doko Regular

Ján Filípek, Deva Ideal Book

Andrej Dieneš, Fazeta RegularFig. 21 Problem of a large gap between
a vertical accent and character with anascender. The slope of the accent should

Designing slovak diacritics

run off the demarcated area above thecharacter í and the following letter withan ascender on the left, with which the

The above‑described strategies are valid for designing any diacritical marks more or lessaccent should definitely not collide.

universally. When addressing the forms of individual diacritical marks, however, certain
additional issues may arise. After consulting active Slovak type designers, solutions to
the most frequent dilemmas when designing specific Slovak accents may be summa‑
rised in the following practical principles: Dĺžeň/acute (á, Á, é, É, í, Í, ĺ, Ĺ, ó, Ó, ŕ, Ŕ, ú, Ú, ý, Ý).
The Slovak dĺžeň (acute accent) is used to denote the length of a sound: used specifical‑
ly above vowels (a, e, i/y, o, u) and the consonants r and l. If it is placed above the letter i,it replaces the dot. The slope of the accent should run off the demarcated area above thecharacter í and the following letter with an ascender on the left, with which the accentshould definitely not collide Fig. 22.

Dinamit Regular, Marek Chmiel

Lava Regular, Peter Biľak

Fig. 22 Various tilt angles of the acuteaccent.

Fazeta Regular, Andrej Dieneš

Akceler Regular, Andrej Dieneš

For a lowercase ĺ, it is worth considering whether to use the same accent as for the otherlowercase characters, or to apply its uppercase form Fig. 23.

DESIGNING SLOVAK DIACRITICS › P. BÁLIK

SK › 111

Ján Filípek, Preto Serif RegularFig. 23 The difference between theuppercase and lowercase form of the

Marek Chmiel, Dinamit Regular“Mäkčeň”/caron (č, Č, ň, Ň, š, Š, ž, Ž – ď, Ď + ť, Ť + ľ, Ľ)

acute above the lowercase ĺ.

In Slovak, the “mäkčeň”, or caron, serves to mark the softness of a sound and is used spe‑cifically above the consonants c, s, z, d, t, n and l. Positioning a horizontal caron above an
uppercase D is problematic because this is not a symmetrical character. An ideal solution
is to find the focal axis of the letter itself and set the accent according to this. If we posi‑tion the caron using an asymmetrical style, their mutual optical centres must be harmo‑
nised, and a purely aesthetic solution should possibly be pursued, based on a subjective
feeling about their best configuration Fig. 24.

Michal Tornyai, Empirk RegularPeter Biľak, Fedra Serif A Book

Fig. 24 Positioning of an asymmetrical

A vertical caron should be clearly distinguishable from any punctuation, especially apos‑

and symmetrical caron style above an
uppercase D.

Peter Biľak, Lava Regular

Andrej Dieneš, Akceler Regulartrophes, commas and upper quotation marks. In terms of shape, it should be closer toan acute mark or other diacritical marks. For a lowercase ť, a vertical caron is positioned
in the right‑hand space, created by the crossing of the horizontal and vertical strokes.
Usually its distance from the letter is approximately the same as with other lowercase
accents Fig. 25.

Fig. 25 Positioning of an asymmetricaland symmetrical vertical caron above
a lowercase t.

Michal Tornyai,
Empirk Regular

112 ‹ SKJán Filípek,Preto Serif RegularPeter Biľak,Greta RegularPeter Biľak,Fedra Sans Regular

THE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

The horizontal placement of a vertical caron on an uppercase Ľ is similar to its lowercase

Fig. 26 Positioning of an asymmetricalvariant, the difference being that more distance is necessary between the accent and thenext to an uppercase L.

and symmetrical vertical caron style

stem. For vertical placements there is no hard and fast rule. Some type designers position
the vertical caron slightly above the ascender line, while others try to keep it just on theascender line, arguing that there is less of a chance of a collision with the descenders of
the letters of the previous line Fig. 26.

Ondrej Jób,
Doko Book

Ján Filípek,Preto Serif RegularPeter Biľak,Greta RegularPeter Biľak,Fedra Sans Book

“Vokáň”/circumflex (ô, Ô)
In Slovak, the “vokáň”, or circumflex, is used to denote a diphthong, although it is com‑posed of just one character: more specifically, it is positioned above the vowel o. In thesimplest terms, this character is created by turning a horizontal caron 180 degrees, andthus the ductal logic also remains preserved in the accent. If the form of the circumflex

Fig. 27 Relationship of a circumflex

is modified, it should arguably have the same weight as the caron, because it is highlyand caron. Fedra Sans Book (Peter Biľak)probable that both marks will appear next to each other in the same word Fig. 27.

lar (Slávka Pauliková).

Preto Serif Regular (Ján Filípek) Dora Regu‑

Ondrej Jób, Odesta Regular

Ján Filípek, Preto Serif RegularPeter Biľak, Fedra Sans Light

Ondrej Jób, Doko Book

Marek Chmiel, Dinamit Regular

Andrej Dieneš, Akceler Regular

Slávka Pauliková, Dora Regular

Ondrej Jób, Sonda Medium

DESIGNING SLOVAK DIACRITICS › P. BÁLIK

SK › 113

“Dve bodky”/umlaut (ä, Ä)“Dve bodky”, or umlaut, is also (though more rarely) referred to in Slovak as tréma(trema), dieréza (diaeresis) or rozluka (separation). Two dots are employed in Slovak tomark a short vowel and are used specifically above the vowel a. The size of both dotsshould be the same as above the letter i and a little smaller than a full stop. Their vertical
positioning should also follow the position of the dot above the letters i and j Fig. 28.
Fig. 28 The contrast in size between thetwo dots of the umlaut and punctuation.

Ján Filípek, Preto Serif RegularPeter Biľak, Fedra Sans Book

Slávka Pauliková, Dora Regular

Conclusion
How will the design of Slovak accents develop in the future? With a growing number of
Slovak type designers, a number of new solutions to old diacritical problems will certain‑ly accrue. The issue of searching for the most harmonious solution will definitely not be‑come a closed subject. Today, accent design is more or less formally codified. Nowhere isit expressly stated, however, how diacritical marks should look in specific combinations
within a specific typeface. This opens up space for alternative accent styles within exist‑
ing or new type families, from which designers can choose the most suitable solution for
their own purposes, whether this concerns the form and/or position of diacritics, or any
other original or radical solution. Since modern technology lends itself to the task, why
not make creative use of available resources?

Acknowledgments
I would like to express my gratitude to young Slovak typedesigners: Ján Filípek,Ondrej Jób and Michal Tornyai, whose expertise, practical insight, and patience, added
considerably to my research.

114 ‹ SKTHE INSECTS PROJECT Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages

BibliographyBiľak, Peter: “In the Name of the Father (or the troubles with L‑caron).” Typotheque,September 25, 2010, https://www.typotheque.com/articles/lcaron.
Blažek, Filip: “Accents.” Typo 10. Prague 2014.
Březina, David: “On Diacritics.” I love Typography, January 24, 2009,http://ilovetypography.com/2009/01/24/on‑diacritics.
Gaultney, J. Victor: Problems of diacritic design for Latin text faces. Dissertation submit‑
ted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master of Arts in Typeface Design,
University of Reading, 2002. Available online: http://typefacedesign.net/wp‑content/
uploads/2013/08/MATD01_VG_ProbDiacLo.pdf.
Húščava, Alexander: Dejiny nášho písma. Bratislava 1951.
Menhart, Oldřich: Tvorba typografického písma. Praha 1957.
Mistrík, Jozef: Jazyk a reč. Bratislava 1984.
Pauliny, Eugen: Fonologický vývin slovenčiny. Bratislava 1963.
Pecina, Martin: Knihy a typografie. Brno 2012.
Stanislav, Ján: Dejiny slovenského jazyka. Bratislava 1958.

DESIGNING SLOVAK DIACRITICS › P. BÁLIK

SK › 115

THE INSECTS PROJECT

The project was carried out with the support ofProblems of Diacritic Design

the Ministry of Science and Higher Education forfor Central European Languages

the statutory activities of the Academy of Fine Arts

2 editionin Katowice – grant for maintaining the researchndpotential of the Faculty of Design.

Concept and editorial development:

Print:

Agnieszka Małecka PL

Centrum Usług Drukarskich,

Zofia Oslislo PL

Ruda Śląska, Poland
Typeface:

Authors:

Fedra Sans Pro by Peter Biľak

Palo Bálik SK

Paper:

Filip Blažek CZ

Munken Pure 300 (cover)

Robert Kravjanszki HU

Munken Pure 120 (inside)

Agnieszka Małecka PL

Printrun:

Zofia Oslislo PL

200

Review:

Publisher:prof. Tomasz Bierkowski PL

Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice

prof. Krzysztof Kochnowicz PL

www.asp.katowice.pl

Translation from Polish,

License:editing and proofreading:

All texts are licensed under the Creative CommonsRafał Drewniak

Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0),
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0.

Technical editing:

All photo licences as per respective captions.

Zofia Oslislo

Book design:
Agnieszka Małecka
Katowice 2016
Website:theinsectsproject.eu

ISBN: 978‑83‑61424‑87‑1

THE INSECTS PROJECT: Problems of Diacritic Design for Central European Languages is
a proud product of a collaborative international research effort aimed at sharing
knowledge about Central European typography and promoting design that is sen‑sitive to the needs of all those who are unlucky enough to be native users of Czech,
Hungarian, Polish and Slovak.

Perhaps few users of “diacriticless” languages (such as e.g. English) realise how lucky
they are to be able to choose from literally thousands of typefaces. Central Europeans,on the other hand, are nowhere near as spoiled for choice, because many fonts avail‑able on the market still seem to overlook the specific needs of the knotty languages
in our part of the continent. We hope to encourage designers to create fonts that are
sensitive to local users’ needs.

AGNIESZKA MAŁECKA PLZOFIA OSLISLO PL