Talk:Blackletter

message: I am coming to this, and related pages, in order to decipher some text. I have found this article to be almost unusable. For example, words like "England" and "Germany" are linked, presumably, to England and Germany yet words that one would not reasonably expect a reader of this article to know (bow, minum, etc.) are not defined or explained.
Therefore, this:
-when a letter with a bow (in b, d, p, q, etc) is followed by another letter with a bow (such as "be" or "po"), the bows overlap and the letters are joined by a straight line (this is known as "biting").
- German Blackletter typefacesa related characteristic is the half r, the shape of r when attached to other letters with bows; only the bow and tail were written, connected to the bow of the previous letter. In other scripts, this only occurred in a ligature with the letter o.
-similarly related is the form of the letter d when followed by a letter with a bow; its ascender is then curved to the left, like the uncial d. Otherwise the ascender is vertical.
-the letters g, j, p, q, y, and the hook of h have descenders, but no other letters are written below the line.
is virtually incomprehensible.
Visual examples of what is primarily a discussion of a visual subject are necessary. An "A to Z" illustration of the alphabets discussed would help a lot too.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Incitatus (talk • contribs).
===Typeface merge===
I've flagged both the Typeface and the Blackletter articles with merger tags because I think the Blackletter section of the Typeface article should be integrated into this one, the main Blackletter article. As you can see, the Typeface article only has short descriptions of each font family, linking to a main article if the topic warrants it (like Serif, Sans-serif, and Slab serif). I think the Blackletter section should do the same. However, I don't know very much on the topic and I can't decide how exactly it should be done. Vontafeijos 05:38, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that one should fairly careful here. Although the Blackletter font is based on the Blackletter script, they are produced in fundamentally different ways, and have different histories. I would prefer to see the Blackletter section broken into a new article, rather integrated with an article about a type of handwriting. Dsmdgold 04:18, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

text: You are, of course, correct in saying that Blackletter fonts and actual Blackletter handwriting are different. However, since the fonts are modeled on Blackletter handwriting, I think it would be better to put the font info in this article (probably at the end) so that comparisons can easily be drawn between the handwriting and the fonts. But again, I don't know enough about the subject to do it myself, otherwise I would. Vontafeijos 04:36, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: General comments

message: I've flagged both the Typeface and the Blackletter articles with merger tags because I think the Blackletter section of the Typeface article should be integrated into this one, the main Blackletter article. As you can see, the Typeface article only has short descriptions of each font family, linking to a main article if the topic warrants it (like Serif, Sans-serif, and Slab serif). I think the Blackletter section should do the same. However, I don't know very much on the topic and I can't decide how exactly it should be done. Vontafeijos 05:38, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that one should fairly careful here. Although the Blackletter font is based on the Blackletter script, they are produced in fundamentally different ways, and have different histories. I would prefer to see the Blackletter section broken into a new article, rather integrated with an article about a type of handwriting. Dsmdgold 04:18, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

text: You are, of course, correct in saying that Blackletter fonts and actual Blackletter handwriting are different. However, since the fonts are modeled on Blackletter handwriting, I think it would be better to put the font info in this article (probably at the end) so that comparisons can easily be drawn between the handwriting and the fonts. But again, I don't know enough about the subject to do it myself, otherwise I would. Vontafeijos 04:36, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Typeface merge

message: http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/scripts/history4.htm
:We have Visigothic script for that. Adam Bishop 01:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Visigothic minuscule

message: That article links here ("Broadsheet ballads (also known as broadside ballads or blackletter ballads)") but it is not obvious what the connection is? Broadsheet ballads were printed in a period generally later than that discussed in the English section of this article. Rmhermen 21:39, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ballads

message: I think the article could be improved by answering the subject question in the opening para. I just skimmed the article and it's not answered anywhere I could find. I don't know the answer myself or I would consider fixing it. Contrast with Merovingian script which explains why it's called Merovingian right away. ++Lar: t/c 01:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's called that because it was moved to this title from "Gothic script" around this time last year (see J mach wust's comments above, which I disagreed with somewhere at the time, but oh well). Adam Bishop 03:07, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Why is it called "blackletter"?

message: I'm looking for a gothic cursive typeface, one that would have been taught mid-20th century to schoolchildren, in Germany/Eastern Europe. My uncle tried to write it down for me, but couldn't remember many of the letters. It had three distinctions: 1) written with pencil on paper, so no nib, no ink. 2) its cursive, so the letters get joined together. 3) vaguely hints of American schoolhouse cursive, except that any loop in the American cursive typically turns into a sharp point. 4) some letters get pulled apart into pieces: e.g. lowercase a looks like a lowercase o followed by a short horizontal stroke followed by the downstroke (so that it looks like o followed by an undotted i) Similarly the lowercase g looks like a round o followed by a downstroke. I really want to see what the full alphabet looks like, upper and lower case. linas 18:07, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you thinking of Sütterlin? Adam Bishop 03:07, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Gothic cursive

message: When was the change to Antiqua? Der Barbar 19:31, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Till what time was the Blackletter mainly used in England?

message: A minor nit; I'm finding reputable dictionary definitions of this term spelled as "black letter," rather than "blackletter." (Check a physical Mirriam-Webster dictionary, also dictionary.com for differing definitions of both "blackletter" and "black letter.") Respectfully suggest doing a search/replace of this article.
I empathize with your spelling issue but given Webster's Bastard English or American, I should hardly consider it the proper source for terms of foreign or at least pre-americana discription. At any rate Blackletter seems to me to be an unambiguous clarification. That is to say a black letter seems to me to be about a written page while blackletter is about a technique specific to writing not unlike woodcut, overbearing and so on!--MicPowell 01:45, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Correct spelling includes space (black letter, not blackletter)

message: Is there a reason why Textualis, Hybrida, & Cursiva are preferred to Textura, Bastarda and Corsiva?
Textilius is a reference to textiles and the naive idea that modern Calligraphers and some Art Historians have used to surplant Textura based on the non-working belief that these gothic forms were more uniform in vertical structure. I would argue that vertical and uniform minimums don't quite impress me as woven or tile like. Textura is actually the idea that the terminals are "web" shaped. I have no knowledge of any serious work using the term Corsiva and dismiss it on that grounds, ie be consistant. Bastarde, Bastarda, and Bastard are the standard terms and technically do mean Hybrid but this Website is the first place I have heard of that tried to make some politically correct pretense of the issue. The ancient stigma was that a Bastard had gained insight, thus an ill gotten gain by being the product of broken traditions, save as war brides. At any rate research needs be consistant and knowing the term bastarde may prove a better sign post, whether we like it or not. --MicPowell 02:44, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Awkward terminology

message: IIRC, I've learnt somewhere that it was also used (more than the current script) for the Danish language until the early 20th century. If this is true, I think it should be mentioned in the above sentence. Can anybody confirm or disprove this? Wikipeditor 15:19, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some Danish books still used it up to the beginning of the 20th century, but the main shift to antiqua occurred around 1850s, that was the period when the amount of books printed in antiqua superseded the Gothic letter books in number. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:26, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Danish

message: The top of this article says:
Blackletter is not to be confused with Old English, despite the popular, and untrue, tradition that Blackletter was used to write that language. Old English pre-dates Blackletter by many centuries.
However, the Old English (disambiguation) page says:
Script/Typeface: Blackletter, a script/typeface which is often confused with, and misnamed as, Old English.
Which is correct? Or is there just no page on the wiki for Old English (script)?
Barry Kelly 15:49, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the language Old English predates Gothic script, but the typeface Old English is constructed to look Gothic-y. There is no "Old English script" really, it's a modern typeface, not a medieval style of handwriting. Adam Bishop 21:39, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Old English script - is it distinct, does it exist?

message: This image does not include lowercase "e", but does include "$" (which clearly did not exist at that time) and a non-typographic quote mark (and it is not explained how quotations are typically handled in medieval books that use blackletter). Please recreate the image. -- Alexander Patrakov 12:41, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: About the "Textualis lettering" image

message: There is some discussion going on at that the Talk page for that template regarding the classification of typefaces and the place of Gaelic in the paradigm. -- Evertype·✆ 17:50, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Antiqua, Blackletter, Gaelic and the [[Template_talk:Typography_terms|Typography terms Template]]

message: Article says that the Nazis abandoned Fraktur but they actually banned it because they saw it as "Jewish". Quite ironic since people associate it with the Nazis today.
See http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100921002006AAFQpP0 SpeakFree (talk) 17:34, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Nazis and Fraktur

message: We say that U+017F is the Fraktur long ess, but it's just the Roman long ess: ſ. Has a separate Fraktur letter not been encoded? — kwami (talk) 21:17, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: long ess

message: At least the illegibility problem is mentioned. The displayed sample is a great example of that illegibility.
"Textualis ... characteristics ... are: minims, especially in the later period of the script, do not connect with each other. This makes it very difficult to distinguish i, u, m, and n. A 14th-century example of the difficulty minims produced is, mimi numinum niuium minimi munium nimium uini muniminum imminui uiui minimum uolunt ("the smallest mimes of the gods of snow do not wish at all in their life that the great duty of the defences of the wine be diminished"). In black letter this would look like a series of single strokes. Dotted i and the letter j developed because of this[citation needed]. Minims may also have finials of their own." (this article)
"Minims often have a connecting stroke which makes it clear that they form an m, n, etc.; however, in Gothic scripts, also known as textualis especially in late examples, minims do not connect to each other at all and it is nearly impossible to tell what letter is meant. A 14th century example of this is: mimi numinum niuium minimi munium nimium uini muniminum imminui uiui minimum uolunt ("the smallest mimes of the gods of snow do not wish at all in their life that the great duty of the defences of the wine be diminished"). In Gothic script this would look like a series of single strokes (this problem eventually led to a dotted i and a separate letter j[citation needed])." (minim article) --A876 (talk) 18:40, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess if you know what you're looking at, it's not all that illegible (in fact this picture looks perfectly clear to me). I suppose we should also mention that "mimi numinum niuium minimi munium nimium uini muniminum imminui uiui minimum uolunt" is a joke, an intentional construction that would look like a bunch of lines, since 14th century copyists were aware of this problem and did not lack a sense of humour. Adam Bishop (talk) 03:38, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Illegibility

message: I've added some citation needed tags to the section on the evolution from Carolingian minuscule. In particular we need citations that back up the claim that it was faster to write/required less effort than Carolingian minuscule (which to my eye at least looks like a more flowing script, so it is not at all clear why black letter would be faster to write).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.17.107.176 (talk) 11:13, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evolution from Carolingian Miniscule 

message: Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but this statement honestly makes no sense to me. How on earth is Carolingian "labor-intensive"? In what way does it have a "large size" that "consumed a lot of manuscript space"? Due to the ongoing lack of citation (inline citation requests are almost 3 years old now and still haven't been fulfilled) I think these statements should be removed.
For one, Petrarch's La scrittura indicates that blackletter was considered labor-intensive compared to his preferred semi-gothic script. Most forms of blackletter obviously have much more stroke contrast and more intricate serifs than Carolingian minuscule. Blackletter is harder to write and harder to read, in my opinion. My understanding has been that gothic minuscule scripts were preferred for stylistic reasons.
It's true that some blackletter manuscripts were eventually written or set extremely densely, but 1) there's nothing about Carolingian that precludes doing the same, and 2) the extreme density didn't come until later. Earlier gothic scripts took up just as much space, if not more, yet still possessed most of the morphological features of later scripts like textualis quadrata.
So how could that have been the decisive force that promoted the development of blackletter scripts? Especially when the same cramping happened with roman type but didn't result in all the characteristic morphological features. Anyway, if anyone can find citations or can come up with an explanation justifying these statements, feel free to add them back.
Aminomancer (talk) 06:33, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origins section makes some absurd, uncited claims