Peter Kirk wrote:
If Fraktur and ordinary Latin are the same script, then it couldn't be said that the Germans abandoned the Fraktur script after WWII. Yet, that is what available references say did happen. Well, I haven't checked, but I remember reading this kind of thing.
Fraktur was dropped during the *middle* of the war . On 3 January 1941 Martin Bormann declared Fraktur to be /"Judenlettern"/ (Jewish letters) and prohibited it's further use. The fact that this style of script was abandoned overnight and other styles of Latin script used is a pretty clear indication that they are the same script (unless you subscribe to Bormann's theory).
Blackletter fonts were originally designed to look like the elaborate calligraphy of mediaeval monks. Elaborate calligraphic forms of many scripts can be difficult to read unless you are familiar with them - but that doesn't make them a different script in the sense of that word as used in iso10646 & Unicode.
Fraktur is one kind of Blackletter. The first Fraktur typeface was designed for books published by Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1519). The name Fraktur comes from the Latin /frangere/ ("to break"), /fractus/ ("broken") - It is not surprising that a type style with a name originally meaning broken or fractured is a little difficult to read if you are not familiar with it.
- Chris
