On Thu, 8 Feb 2001, Tomohiro KUBOTA wrote:
> Karlsson Kent - keka <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > Is the difference important enough for average Serbian and
> > > Russian people not to buy products which confuse them?
> > > Is it impossible to design a glyph which both Serbian and
> > > Russian can read?
> >
> > The glyphs look quite different. For one of them the difference
> > is like between small-cap T and m (glyphwise!).
>
> I checked it. All of them look Cyrillic characters, where
> "Russian-like" is like handwriting cursive script and "Serbian-
> like" is slanted Cyrillics. (Since I studied Russian two years,
> I know "Russian-like" is handwriting cursive typeface for Cyrillic
> letters. Of course I don't insist I know Russian than native Russian
> speakers.)
But you are correct nevertheless.
> I think both Serbian and Russian can use common non-slanted
> typeface for plain text.
The images in the gif are somewhat mislabeled. As Tomohiro said, the one
labeled "russian" is a cursive font, the one labeled "serbian" is
a non-cursive slanted font (i.e. are the normal glyphs, only slanted).
In russian typography both forms are used. The cursive style is used just
like in latin typography is used the italic style. I have seen the slanted
style used as a special effect in magazine headlines and similar cases.
Of serbian I don't have a direct knowledge, but from discussions on the
unicode list emerged that in Serbian typography the cursive style is
avoided, because many cursive glyphs are similar to (different) latin
glyphs. In a Serbian environments is common to have one near to the other
text in cyrillic and in latin letters, so using the cursive style, would
cause confusion.
In summary: Russians use both forms, Serbs only one (because of possible
confusion with the latin letters), but I'm sure Serbs can read the cursive
style, as it is close to the handwritten form of cyrillic. The case is not
identical to CJK, but is identical the solution: Serbs should use Serbian
fonts, Russian should use Russian fonts (or put some smart in the
fonts) (and, for high quality typography, probably, Italians should use
Italian fonts, French, French fonts...).
BTW, this topic is rehashed every now and then on the Unicode list (where
certainly it is more on topic).
P.
-
Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels
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