| Latin script (Fraktur hand) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Script type | |
Time period | 16th–20th centuries |
| Direction | Left-to-right |
| Languages | German and some otherEuropean languages |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Blackletter
|
Child systems | Kurrentschrift, includingSütterlin |
Sister systems | SeeBlackletter |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Latf(217), Latin (Fraktur variant) |
| Unicode | |
0020–00FF[a] | |
| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |
Fraktur (German:[fʁakˈtuːɐ̯]ⓘ) is acalligraphic hand of theLatin alphabet and any of severalblackletter 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 theAntiqua (common) typefaces where the letters are designed to flow and strokes connect together in a continuous fashion. The word "Fraktur" derives from Latinfrāctūra ("a break"), built fromfrāctus, passive participle offrangere ("to break"), which is also the root for the English word "fracture". In non-professional contexts, the term "Fraktur" is sometimes misused to refer toall blackletter typefaces – while Fraktur typefaces do fall under that category, not all blackletter typefaces exhibit the Fraktur characteristics described above.[a]
Fraktur is often characterized as "the German typeface", as it remained popular in Germany and much of Eastern Europe far longer than elsewhere. Beginning in the 19th century, the use of Fraktur versusAntiqua (seen as modern) was the subject of controversy in Germany. TheAntiqua–Fraktur dispute continued until 1941, when theNazi government banned Fraktur typefaces. After Nazi Germany fell in 1945, Fraktur was unbanned, but it failed to regain widespread popularity.
Besides the 26 letters of theISO basic Latin alphabet,[b] Fraktur usually includes the Eszett⟨ß⟩ in the⟨ſʒ⟩ form, vowels withumlauts, and thelong s⟨ſ⟩. Some Fraktur typefaces also include a variant form of the letter r known as ther rotunda, and many include a variety ofligatures which are left over from cursive handwriting and have rules for their use. Most older Fraktur typefaces make no distinction between themajuscules⟨I⟩ and⟨J⟩ (where the common shape is more suggestive of a⟨J⟩), even though theminuscules⟨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 withdiacritical 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] /⟨tẜch⟩ [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]
The first Fraktur typeface arose in the early 16th century, when EmperorMaximilian I commissioned the design of theTriumphal Arch woodcut byAlbrecht Dürer and had a new typeface created specifically for this purpose, designed byHieronymus Andreae. Fraktur types forprinting were established by theAugsburg publisherJohann Schönsperger [de] at the issuance of a series of Maximilian's works such as hisPrayer Book (Gebetbuch, 1513) or the illustratedTheuerdank poem (1517).[3]
Fraktur quickly overtook the earlierSchwabacher andTextualis 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 GermanTheuerdank Fraktur was further developed by theLeipzig typographerJohann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf to create the typesetBreitkopf Fraktur. While over the succeeding centuries, most Central Europeans switched toAntiqua, German speakers remained a notable holdout.
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Typesetting in Fraktur was still very common in the early 20th century in allGerman-speaking countries and areas, as well as inNorway,Estonia, andLatvia, and was still used to a very small extent inSweden,Finland andDenmark,[d] even though other countries typeset inAntiqua. Some books at that time used related blackletter fonts such asSchwabacher; however, the predominant typeface was the Normalfraktur, which came in slight variations.
From the late 18th century to the late 19th century, Fraktur was progressively replaced byAntiqua as a symbol of the classicist age and emerging cosmopolitanism in most of the countries in Europe that had previously used Fraktur. This move was hotly debated in Germany, a controversy known as theAntiqua–Fraktur dispute. The shift affected mostly scientific writing in Germany, whereas mostbelletristic literature and newspapers continued to be printed in Fraktur.
The Fraktur typefaces remained in use inNazi Germany, when they were initially represented as true German script; official Nazi documents and letterheads employed the font, and the cover ofHitler'sMein Kampf used a hand-drawn version of it.[7] However, more modernized fonts of theGebrochene Grotesk [de] type such asTannenberg were in fact the most popular typefaces in Nazi Germany, especially for running text as opposed to decorative uses such as in titles. These fonts were designed in the early 20th century, mainly the 1930s, asgrotesque versions of blackletter typefaces. The Nazis heavily used these fonts themselves, although the shift remained controversial; in fact, the press was at times scolded for its frequent use of "Roman characters" under "Jewish influence" and German émigrés were urged to use only "German script".[8][9] On 3 January 1941, the Nazi Party ended this controversy by switching to international scripts such as Antiqua.Martin Bormann issued a circular (the "normal type decree") to all public offices which declared Fraktur (and its corollary, theSütterlin-based handwriting) to beJudenlettern (Jewish letters) and prohibited their further use.[10] German historian Albert Kapr has speculated that the regime viewed Fraktur as inhibiting communication in theoccupied territories duringWorld War II.[11]
TheReichsgesetzblatt used Fraktur until the end of 1941.
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Even with the abolition of Fraktur, some publications included elements of it in headlines.[citation needed] More often, some ligatures (such asch andck) from Fraktur were used in Antiqua-typed editions up to the offset type period. Fraktur saw a brief resurgence after the war,[e] but thereafter fell out of common use.[citation needed]
Fraktur is today used mostly for decorative typesetting: for example, a number of traditional German newspapers such as theFrankfurter Allgemeine, as well as the NorwegianAftenposten, still print their name in Fraktur on themasthead (as indeed do some newspapers in other European countries and the U.S.) and it is also popular for pub signs and the like. In this modern decorative use, the traditional rules about the use oflong s and short⟨s⟩ and ofligatures are often disregarded.
Individual Fraktur letters are sometimes used inmathematics, which often denotes associated or parallel concepts by the same letter in different fonts. For example, aLie group is often denoted byG, while its associatedLie algebra is. Aring ideal might be denoted by (or if aprime ideal) while an element is. The Fraktur is also sometimes used to denote thecardinality of the continuum, that is, the cardinality of the real line. Inmodel theory, is used to denote an arbitrary model, withA as its universe.[citation needed]
Fraktur is still used among traditionalAnabaptists to print German texts, whileKurrent is used as hand writing for German texts. Groups that use both forms of traditional German script are theAmish,Old Order Mennonites,Hutterites, and traditionalPlautdietsch-speakingMennonites who live mostly inLatin America today.[citation needed]
In the figures below, the German sentence that appears after the names of the fonts (Walbaum-Fraktur in Fig. 1 and Humboldtfraktur in Fig. 2 reads,Victor jagt zwölf Boxkämpfer quer über den Sylter Deich. It means "Victor chases twelve boxers across theSylt dike" and contains all 26 letters of the alphabet plus theumlauted glyphs used in German, making it an example of apangram.
Unicode does not encode Fraktur as a separate script. Instead, Fraktur is considered a "presentation form" of the Latin alphabet.[13][f] Thus, the additional ligatures that are required for Fraktur typefaces will not be encoded in Unicode: support for these ligatures is a font engineering issue left up to font developers.[14]
There are, however, two sets of Fraktur symbols in theUnicode blocks ofMathematical Alphanumeric Symbols,Letterlike Symbols, andLatin Extended-E. Thelong s,ß, and theumlauted vowels are not encoded, as the characters are meant to be used in mathematics and phonetics, so they are not suitable for typesetting German-language texts.[15]
ModernLaTeX implementations (XeTeX, LuaTeX) can utilize a Fraktur font the usual way using thefontspec package.
For traditional implementations (pdfTeX and older), the\mathfrak{◌} command defined in theamssymb,amsfonts oreufrak package is available. This command does not use Unicode to typeset letters in fraktur: it has its own method.[16]
For example,\mathfrak{Fraktur} produces. Or, in a real example,
Given ideals of a commutative ringR, theR-annihilator of is an ideal ofR called theideal quotient of by and is denoted by; it is an instance ofidealizer in commutative algebra.
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