On Fri, Dec 19, 2003 at 12:10:29AM +0100, Philippe Verdy wrote: > > > > "HÃcek" (pronounced hatchek, with the 'h' expirated, > > and with 'a' pronounced nearly like a short schwa) also means > > "little hook" in Czech...
"a" in "hÃÄek" is not pronounced like a short schwa, it is _long_ a [aË] > > > > So the rounded "hook" glyph makes sense here, where the angular shape > > in Unicode charts is suspect and may have come from a historic bad > > interpretation of the Czech hatchek accent of by other latinists > > and typographers, who may have just borrowed the same metal shape > > used for circumflex to print Czech texts. > > > > If someone can find in a Czech library some old Handwritten scripts > > or even some source of Czech calligraphy, we could see if the > > angular modern form of hacek corresponds to its initial shape. > I am now looking at a book printed in 1932, it has exactly the same form of hÃÄek as contemporary texts (symemtrical one). Even better, I have here one Slovak book published in 1846, and it uses moder form of "hÃÄek"s (perhaps they should not be called like this when discussing other languages than Czech), even on "t" "d" and "l" letters (no apostrophe-like form). > For now I can find this interesting page, which shows some dissymetric > shapes for the hacek diacritic in printed forms (however it is still > angular and reflects only modern use). > > http://www.typo.cz/_cetba/cetba-clanky-souv.html > Beware, text at the picture displaying the dissymetric hÃÄek says that it is form designed Preissig (whoever he was) and that his notion of diacritics can look too striking and decorated (and indeed does to me). > Other references for "hÃcky" or "hÃcek" are found on the same typo.cz > website: > http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=h%E1%E8ek&sp-a=sp0112ee00&sp-p=any&sp-f > =Windows-1250 > But I can't read Czech to know what it really speaks about. result of searching for "hÃÄek" with a search machine? (that is the link) > > Other typographic sources in Czech include also dissymetric hacek, > with the left side often bolder than the right side, also demonstrating as the www page says, it was common in pre-WWII typography. -- ----------------------------------------------------------- | Radovan GarabÃk http://melkor.dnp.fmph.uniba.sk/~garabik/ | | __..--^^^--..__ garabik @ melkor.dnp.fmph.uniba.sk | ----------------------------------------------------------- Antivirus alert: file .signature infected by signature virus. Hi! I'm a signature virus! Copy me into your signature file to help me spread!
