Looking Into Different Languages' Diacritics
With many of the European characters, I do not know of certain diacritics' usage. For this reason, I wanted to look into the characters used in different Western Languages to know who I would be designing these characters for.
French
- Acute accent (é, eg. écouter
- Grave accent (à, è, ù):
- Circumflex (â, ê, î, ô, û) eg. château, fête, sûr, dîner
- Diaeresis or tréma (ë, ï, ü, ÿ) eg. guë
- Cedilla (ç) eg. ça
- The tilde diacritical mark ( ˜ ) above n is occasionally used in French for words and names of Spanish origin that have been incorporated into the language (e.g., cañon, El Niño). Like the other diacritics, the tilde has no impact on the primary alphabetical order.
Diacritics are often omitted on capital letters, mainly for technical reasons. It is widely believed that they are not required; however both the Académie française and the Office québécois de la langue française reject this usage and confirm that "in French, the accent has full orthographic value", except for acronyms but not for abbreviations (e.g., CEE, ALENA, but É.-U.).
Ligatures
The two ligatures in French are œ and æ. in both upper and lower case. eg. bœuf, œil, æthyse.
Italian
The base alphabet consists of 21 letters: five vowels (A, E, I, O U) and 16 consonants. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not part of the proper alphabet. In addition, acute, grave and circumflex accents may be used to modify vowel letters.
Letter - Diacritics
A, a - à
B, b - b
C, c - c or tʃ
D, d - d
E, e - e, ɛ, è, é
F, f - f
G, g - ɡ or dʒ
H, h - ∅ , silent
I, i - j ì, í, î
L, l - l
M, m - m
N, n - n
O, o - ɔ, ò, ó
P, p - p
Q, q - k
R, r - r
S, s - s, z
T, t - t
U, u - u,w, ù, ú
V, v - v
Z, z -ts, dz
The Spanish language is written using the Spanish alphabet, which is the Latin alphabet with one additional letter: eñe"ñ", for a total of 27 letters. Although the letters "k" and "w" are part of the alphabet, they appear only in loanwords such as karate, kilo, waterpolo and wolframio (tungsten).
Dutch is a Germanic language spoken in the Netherlands; Flemish is the related language spoken in Belgium; and Afrikaans is the form of Dutch which evolved in South Africa (includes African loan words). All three can be understood by each other with minimal difficulty.
U, u - u,w, ù, ú
V, v - v
Z, z -ts, dz
Spanish / Portugese
German
Below are the symbols and codes used for German symbols. I have also found out that there are European quatotation marks, but in general, the American style is used more.
Obviously these characters are also used in German speaking countries, such as Austria and Switzerland.
Dutch / Flemish / Afrikaans
Romanian
There are five special letters in the Romanian alphabet referred to as diacritics.
Romanian language has 5 special letters—they are not diacritics per se, but are generally referred to as such.
Ăă — A/a with breve,
Ââ — A/a with circumflex.
Îî — I/i with circumflex.
Șș — S/s with comma below.
Țț — T/t with comma below.
Czech / Slovakian
The Czech alphabet consists of 42 letters (including the digraph Ch, which is considered a single letter in Czech).
Letter - Diacritics
A, a - Á, á
B, b - b
C, c - Č, č, c
D, d - Ď ď, d
E, e - Ě, ě, é, e
F, f - f
G, g - g
H, h - h
Ch, ch - ch
I, i - Í, i, í
F, f - f
G, g - g
H, h - h
Ch, ch - ch
I, i - Í, i, í
J, j - j
K, k - k
L, l - l
M, m - m
N, n - Ň, ň, n
K, k - k
L, l - l
M, m - m
N, n - Ň, ň, n
O, o - Ó, ó, o
P, p - p
Q, q - q
R, r - Ř, ř, r
Q, q - q
R, r - Ř, ř, r
S, s - Š, š, s
T, t - Ť, ť, t
U, u - Ú,Ů ů ú, u
T, t - Ť, ť, t
U, u - Ú,Ů ů ú, u
V, v - v
W, w - w
X, x - x
Y, y - Ý, ý, y
W, w - w
X, x - x
Y, y - Ý, ý, y
Z, z - z
Slovenian
The only characters that are added to the British 26 are - Č, č, Š, š, Ž, ž
Polish
Below - The full Polish alphabet, with the letters in grey not used.
Extra characters: Ą ą ą, Ę ę ę, Ł ł eł, Ń ń, Ó ó, Ś ś, Ź ź, Ż ż
Swedish
In addition to the basic twenty-six letters, 'a'-'z', the Swedish alphabet includes three additional letters in the final positions: 'å', 'ä' and 'ö'. Interestingly, the national population register has traditionally only used the letters 'a'~'z', 'å', 'ä', 'ö', 'ü', 'é', so immigrants with other Latin letters in their names have had their diacritic marks stripped (and æ/ø converted to ä/ö)
Danish / Norwegian
The Danish and Norwegian alphabet is based upon the Latin alphabet and has consisted of the following 29 letters since 1917 (Norwegian) and 1948 (Danish).
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Æ Ø Å
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z æ ø å
Finnish
Finnish used the same general 26 letters, as well as: Å, å, ä ää Ö, ö.
Finnish used the same general 26 letters, as well as: Å, å, ä ää Ö, ö.
Croatian, Serbian & Bosnian
Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian Latin alphabet have the symbols č, ć, đ, š and ž, which are considered separate letters and are listed as such in dictionaries and other contexts in which words are listed according to alphabetical order.
Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian Latin alphabet have the symbols č, ć, đ, š and ž, which are considered separate letters and are listed as such in dictionaries and other contexts in which words are listed according to alphabetical order.
Conclusion
After looking into all the major languages spoken in Europe (excluding Russian, Greek and smaller dialectal languages), it seems clear that I could produce a typeface that works across almost the whole of Europe. Many of the characters used are the same across different languages, and all seem relatively simple to design, or to adapt existing letters.
