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Fraktur

Fraktur (German: [fʁakˈtuːɐ̯] ) is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. It is designed such that the beginnings and ends of the individual strokes that make up each letter will be clearly visible, and often emphasized; in this way it is often contrasted with the curves of the Antiqua (common) typefaces where the letters are designed to flow and strokes connect together in a continuous fashion. The word "Fraktur" derives from Latin frāctÅ«ra ("a break"), built from frāctus, passive participle of frangere ("to break"), which is also the root for the English word "fracture". In non-professional contexts, the term "Fraktur" is sometimes misused to refer to all blackletter typefaces â€“ while Fraktur typefaces do fall under that category, not all blackletter typefaces exhibit the Fraktur characteristics described above.[a]

This article is about the script. For the folk art, see Fraktur (folk art). For other uses, see Fraktur (disambiguation).

Latin script
(Fraktur hand)

16th–20th centuries

Left-to-right

German[a] and some other European languages

Blackletter
  • Latin script
    (Fraktur hand)

Latf (217), ​Latin (Fraktur variant)

0020–00FF[b]

Fraktur was often characterized as "the German typeface", as it remained popular in Germany and much of Eastern Europe far longer than elsewhere. In Germany, utilizing more modern typefaces would prove controversial until 1941, when the Nazi government rendered any transition involuntary by banning the use of Fraktur typefaces.

Characteristics[edit]

Besides the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet,[b] Fraktur usually includes the Eszett ⟨ß⟩ in the ⟨ſʒ⟩ form, vowels with umlauts, and the long s ⟨ſ⟩. Some Fraktur typefaces also include a variant form of the letter r known as the r rotunda, and many include a variety of ligatures which are left over from cursive handwriting and have rules for their use. Most older Fraktur typefaces make no distinction between the majuscules ⟨I⟩ and ⟨J⟩ (where the common shape is more suggestive of a ⟨J⟩), even though the minuscules ⟨i⟩ and ⟨j⟩ are differentiated.


One difference between the Fraktur and other blackletter scripts is that in the lower case ⟨o⟩, the left part of the bow is broken, but the right part is not. In Danish texts composed in Fraktur, the letter ⟨ø⟩ was already preferred to the German and Swedish ⟨ö⟩ in the 16th century.[c]


In the Latvian variant of Fraktur, used mainly until the 1920s, there are additional characters used to denote Latvian letters with diacritical marks.[1][2] Stroked letters ⟨Ꞡ ꞡ⟩, ⟨Ꞣ ꞣ⟩, ⟨Ł ł⟩, ⟨Ꞥ ꞥ⟩, ⟨Ꞧ ꞧ⟩ are used for palatalized consonants (⟨Ģ ģ⟩, ⟨Ķ ķ⟩, ⟨Ļ ļ⟩, ⟨Ņ ņ⟩, ⟨Ŗ ŗ⟩) stroked variants of ⟨s⟩ and ⟨ſ⟩ distinguish voiced and unvoiced sibilants or affricates (⟨S ſ⟩ for voiced [z], ⟨Ꞩ ẜ⟩ for unvoiced [s], ⟨ſch⟩ [ž] / ⟨ẜch⟩ [š], ⟨dſch⟩ [dž] / ⟨tẜsch⟩ [č]), while accents (⟨à⟩, ⟨â⟩, ⟨ê⟩, ⟨î⟩, ⟨ô⟩, ⟨û⟩) together with digraphs (⟨ah⟩, ⟨eh⟩ etc.) are used for long vowels (⟨Ā ā⟩, ⟨Ē ē⟩, ⟨Ī ī⟩, ⟨Ō ō⟩, ⟨Ū ū⟩). Stroked variants of ⟨s⟩ are also used in pre-1950 Sorbian orthography.[1]

Origin[edit]

The first Fraktur typeface arose in the early 16th century, when Emperor Maximilian I commissioned the design of the Triumphal Arch woodcut by Albrecht Dürer and had a new typeface created specifically for this purpose, designed by Hieronymus Andreae. Fraktur types for printing were established by the Augsburg publisher Johann Schönsperger at the issuance of a series of Maximilian's works such as his Prayer Book (Gebetbuch, 1513) or the illustrated Theuerdank poem (1517).[3]


Fraktur quickly overtook the earlier Schwabacher and Textualis typefaces in popularity, and a wide variety of Fraktur fonts were carved and became common in the German-speaking world and areas under German influence (Scandinavia, Estonia, Latvia, Central Europe). In the 18th century, the German Theuerdank Fraktur was further developed by the Leipzig typographer Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf to create the typeset Breitkopf Fraktur. While over the succeeding centuries, most Central Europeans switched to Antiqua, German speakers remained a notable holdout.

 â€“ Typographical dispute in the 19th- and early 20th-century in Germany

Antiqua–Fraktur dispute

 â€“ Historic European script and typeface

Blackletter

 â€“ Blackletter typeface designed 1750

Breitkopf Fraktur

 â€“ Typeface designed by Bauer in 1850

Fette Fraktur

 â€“ Illuminated folk art from Pennsylvania

Fraktur (folk art)

 â€“ Form of German-language handwriting

Kurrent

 â€“ Unicode block

Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols

 â€“ Historical form of German handwriting, used 1915–1970s

Sütterlin

Bain, Peter; Shaw, Paul (1998). Blackletter: Type and National Identity. Princeton Architectural Press.  1-56898-125-2.

ISBN

Fiedl, Frederich; Ott, Nicholas; Stein, Bernard (1998). Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal.  1-57912-023-7.

ISBN

Hartmann, Silvia (1998). Fraktur oder Antiqua. Der Schriftstreit von 1881 bis 1941 (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.  3-631-35090-2.

ISBN

Macmillan, Neil (2006). An A–Z of Type Designers. . ISBN 0-300-11151-7.

Yale University Press

(Library of Yale University)

A complete Fraktur chart

: Free Fraktur fonts and resources at SourceForge

UniFraktur

(familyhistoryfanatics)

Translating newspapers set in Fraktur