In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more letterforms are written or printed as a unit. Generally, ligatures replace characters that occur next to each other when they share common components. A letter with an accent mark is not usually called a ligature, though it would require a separate block of type just as a ligature does. Ligatures are a subset of a more general class of figures called "contextual forms", where the particular shape of a letter depends upon its context, such as surrounding letters or whether or not it appears at the end of a line. Writing may refer to two activities: the inscribing of characters on a medium, with the intention of forming words and other constructs that represent language or record information, and the creation of material to be conveyed through written language. ... Typographic work Typography (from the Greek words typos = form and graphein = to write) is the art and technique of setting written subject matter in type using a combination of typeface styles, point sizes, line lengths, line leading, character spacing, and word spacing to produce typeset artwork in physical or digital...

Obvious examples

The family of ligatures for the letter f

One of the most common ligatures recognizable as such is "fi." Since the dot above a lowercase i interferes with the loop on the lowercase f, when "f" and "i" are printed next to each other, they are combined into a single figure with the dot absorbed into the "f", which appears as "fi" (note that the default font used on this Wiki page does not render this ligature as expected; it seems to be identical to "fi", the two characters presented separately). This is just one of a series, which comprises ligatures for "fi", "fj" (represented in English only in fjord, but encountered in Esperanto, Norwegian, and other languages where "j" represents a vocalic or semi-vocalic sound), "fl", "ff", "ffi", and "ffl". Formerly there were the additional members for "fa", "fe", "fo", "fr", "fs", "ft", "fu", "fy", and for the set of "f" followed by a period (full stop), comma, or hyphen, as well as the equivalent set for the doubled "ff", though "fft" was omitted. fi and fl ligatures File links The following pages link to this file: F Ligature (typography) Categories: GFDL images ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Look up Esperanto in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

The double "vee"

As the letter W is a relatively new addition to the Latin alphabet, the sound was originally written in various ways. In Old English the Runic letter Wynn (Ƿ) was used, but Norman influence forced this character out. Later, two Vs or Us were written together. As seen in old typefaces, originally the two "V's" crossed in the middle. While VV developed into W, the modern Latin letter W is not a true ligature as it represents a different sound from VV/UU. Because it is relatively new, only four major European languages (English, Dutch, German, and Polish) use the letter in native words. W is the twenty-third letter of the modern Latin alphabet. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) is an early form of the English language that was spoken in parts of what is now England and southern Scotland between the mid-fifth century and the mid-twelfth century. ... A rune can mean a single character in the Runic alphabet as well as an inscription of several runic charcters or symbols. ... Wynn () (also spelled Wen) is a letter of the old English alphabet. ... The Normans (adapted from the name Northmen or Norsemen) were a mixture of the indigenous people of France and the Viking invaders under the leadership of Hrolf Ganger, who adopted the French name Rollo and swore allegiance to the king of France (Charles the Simple). ... V is the twenty-second letter in the modern Latin alphabet. ... U is the twenty-first letter of the modern Latin alphabet. ...

The ampersand

Et ligature in Insular Minuscule script.

Perhaps the most common ligature is the ampersand: "&". This was originally a ligature of 'Et', Latin for 'and'. It has exactly the same use, except for pronunciation, in French, and is used in the English language just as in French. This character comes in many different forms. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... The roman ampersand on the left is stylised, but the italic one on the right is clearly similar to et. An ampersand (&) is a logogram representing the conjunction and. The symbol is a ligature of the letters in et, which is Latin for and. Its origin is apparent in the... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Ligature or independent letter?

It is important to note that the character Æ (æ) when used in the Danish, Norwegian languages, Icelandic or Old English is not a typographical ligature and must never be treated as such. It is a distinct letter and vowel, and keeps its place in the different alphabetic sequence of those languages, rather than coming between "ad" and "af". Ash (Æ, æ; pronounced ) is a letter of the Latin alphabet for English. ... Norwegian is a Germanic language spoken in Norway. ... Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) is an early form of the English language that was spoken in parts of what is now England and southern Scotland between the mid-fifth century and the mid-twelfth century. ... Look up Letter on Wiktionary, the free dictionary A letter is a written message from one party to another. ... In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by an open configuration of the vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure above the glottis. ...

This character derives from its use in Latin. But it is not required in that language; works appear either with it or, as is currently popular, with the two component letters separated. Hence in Latin, and when Latin names are written with it in French and Modern English text, it is considered a ligature. Similarly, the character Œ (œ) can be used in French, or can be replaced by its component letters by technical restrictions, so it is a ligature for that language as well. Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Å’ Å“ This article is about the ligature, not the simple combination of the letters O and E. For initialisms and the word Oe, see Oe. ...

Characters that do not appear in English or French include the letter ß, which was derived from the ligature "long s over round s". It has become a distinct letter in German, although it never begins a word. The letter ij is derived from "II" (double-I), and has similarly a distinct letter in Dutch. There is also a digraph which in Welsh would be a letter, but which is not in most lists of accessible characters, the "Ll". The glyph ß is a ligature of Å¿ (long s) and s or z that has become a distinct letter in the German alphabet; its German name is Eszett (IPA ) or scharfes S (sharp S). ... IJ is a letter from the Dutch alphabet used to represent the diphthong or . ... Welsh redirects here, and this article describes the Welsh language. ...

Stylistic ligatures

More ligatures were developed for italic fonts rather than Roman ones. Fonts in italics used the "Long s" in ligatures for "sh", "sch", "sp", "st" and "sz" (the probable origin of the German esszet - ß) , among others mentioned on this page. There are also examples for the forms "as", "ch", "ck", "nd", "ng", and "ll". And there is one to make the tail for "Q" reach under a "u", though this was also done by kerning or a character for "u" that included a tail sweep beneath it. In typography, italic type refers to cursive typefaces based on a stylized form of calligraphic handwriting. ... Roman type has two separate meanings in typography, both of which refer to the fact that the capital letters of a Roman font have an appearance similar to those used for lettering stone in Ancient Rome. ... The title of this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ... In typography, kerning is the process of adjusting letter spacing in a proportional font. ...

One Roman font by the French typefounder Garamond has a small capital ligature "Rx" for use in prescriptions, short for the Latin word "recipe", meaning "take". The same font has a minuscule "l" linked to a following apostrophe, for use in such French phrases as "l'amour". Various examples of Garamond There are several typefaces called Garamond. ... In typography, small capitals, or small caps, are uppercase (capital) characters that are printed in a smaller size than normal uppercase characters of the same font. ...

The cursive Snell Roundhand has a ligature "o'c" for the single use in the English phrase "o'clock", as its letter "o" has an extended flourish. For use in ordinal numerals in English, the font has raised small minuscules for "nd", "rd", "st", and "th". Ordinal numbers, or ordinals for short, are numbers used to denote the position in an ordered sequence: first, second, third, fourth, etc. ...

A Roman typeface by William Elder had a distinct "ll". He decorated the second "l" with a nib at mean line height to both the left and right, and put it in a ligature so as to not get it confused with an ordinary "l", to which he gave just the nib to the left.

Zuzana Licko's typeface of 1996 called Mrs Eaves comes with very many ligatures, which go beyond the "cky", "gi", "gy" and "tty" found in the italic to playful ones such as a linked "OG". Some unusual combinations are found in Jack Yan's JY Integrity from 1995, including "gr", "gy", "tr", "tu" and "ty" in roman and italic versions. Stylistic ligatures may become more common with the development of the OpenType technology, which allows automatic substitution of two separately typed letters in certain programs such as Adobe InDesign CS. Zuzana Licko (born 1961) is a typeface designer from Bratislava, Slovak Republic. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) is a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... Jack Yan (甄爵恩, Pinyin: Zhēn Juéēn) is a publisher, designer and businessman, born 1972 in Kowloon, Hong Kong. ... 1995 (MCMXCV in Roman) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Adobe Systems (NASDAQ: ADBE) (LSE: ABS) (pronounced adow-bee) is a computer software company headquartered in San Jose, California that was founded in December 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke. ... Adobe InDesign CS splash screen Adobe InDesign is a desktop publishing (DTP) application produced by Adobe Systems. ...

Some typefaces primarily intended for signage include ligatures for the minor words in phrasal names of various languages. Examples include "and," "und," "of," "de," "for," and "het," in some presentations of FF Golden Gate Gothic. These ligatures are underlined, tilted, and float above the typographical baseline; they serve to offset major words for this otherwise all-capital typeface.

Kerning as an alternative

A ligature is not the only way of changing the appearance on the page. Besides allocating a particular arrangement as a ligature, the relative location of the characters can be altered by kerning, something which has become easier with phototypesetting, and above all, with computer typography. The fonts for both the Macintosh and Microsoft Windows-based computers include a "dotless 'i'", which (aside from its necessity in printing Turkish) facilitates kerning "fi" and "Ti" instead of using a ligature. In typography, kerning is the process of adjusting letter spacing in a proportional font. ... Phototypesetting is a method of setting type with light (photo). ... The first Macintosh computer, introduced in 1984. ... In typography, kerning is the process of adjusting letter spacing in a proportional font. ...

History in Western languages

Medieval scribes, writing in Latin, conserved space and increased writing speed by combining characters. For example, in blackletter, letters with right-facing bowls ("b", "o", and "p") and those with left-facing bowls ("c", "e", "o", and "q") would be written with the facing edges of the bowls superimposed. And in many forms of script, characters such as "h," "m", and "n" would have their vertical strokes superimposed. Scribes also added special marks called "scribal abbreviations" to get rid of having to write a whole character "at a stroke". Manuscripts in the fourteenth century, for example, would employ hundreds of such abbreviatons. Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Blackletter in a Latin Bible of AD 1407, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. ... Scribal abbreviations were used by medieval scribes writing in Latin. ... (13th century - 14th century - 15th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was that century which lasted from 1301 to 1400. ...

When printing was invented, typefaces included many of these, now physical, blocks of type called ligatures. This was done not only because cheap paper had not yet been invented, but also in order to emulate the appearance of hand-lettered manuscripts. To do otherwise would have seemed to the readers as being talked down to, as a modern adult would feel when reading: "Ro·ver falls in·to the emp·ty per·am·bu·la·tor." In addition, ligatures were devised to enable typesetters to assemble Latin words quickly: the endings "us" and "is", and "ij" as a stylish medieval form of "ii" were made ligatures, too. There had been no need for special flourishes of the pen for these.

After printing was extended to modern languages, which didn't use scribal abbreviations, and as typesetting became more perfunctory, most of the earlier ligatures fell out of use, even for texts in Latin. One of the very last of these to remain resembled "q3". It had been used for the Latin ending "-quia", as shown here: [1]

However, new ones were added by typefounders for the English language. The standard ones which remain are the "f" series listed above. Another series, quite resembling these, which used the "long s" in place of the "f", disappeared in the nineteenth century. In the 1920s, some Roman fonts were still being designed with special ligatures for "ct" and "st", ligatures which remain in many italic typefaces, some of which even have one for "sp". (The last two do not use the "long s".) And in the twentieth century, for the single word "fjord", which has entered the English language from Norwegian, the ligature "fj" has come into existence. The title of this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... In typography, italic type refers to cursive typefaces based on a stylized form of calligraphic handwriting. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar (often from (1900 to 1999 in common usage). ... Sognefjorden, Norway A fjord (sometimes written fiord, notably in New Zealand English) is a glacially overdeepened valley, usually narrow and steep-sided, extending below sea level and filled with salt water. ...

It is only recently that computer-based typesetting has encouraged people to start using ligatures again (although "fine art" printers have used them all along). Generally, ligatures work best in typefaces which are derived from calligraphic letterforms. Also useful are contextual forms, such as swash capitals, terminal characters, and so on.

Ligatures in other alphabets

Ligatures are not limited to Latin script. Some forms of the Glagolitic script, used from Middle Ages to the 19th century to write some Slavic languages, have a "boxy" shape that leads to a more frequent use of ligatures. And in the Arabic alphabet, which has a very "fluid" shape, there is usually ligature between every single letter. Tablet inscribed with the Glagolitic alphabet The Glagolitic alphabet or Glagolitsa is the oldest known Slavonic alphabet. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing in the Arabic language. ...

A number of ligatures have been employed with the Greek alphabet, in particular a ligature of omicron (Ο) and upsilon (Υ) which later gave rise to one of the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet — see Ou (letter). Note: This article contains special characters. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (or azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is an alphabet used to write six natural Slavic languages (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, and Ukrainian) and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe. ... The letter Ou () is a letter in the extended Latin alphabet. ...

Two letters of the Macedonian and Serbian Cyrillic alphabets, lje and nje (љ, њ), were developed in the nineteenth century as ligatures of Cyrillic El and En (л, н) with the soft sign (ь). The Cyrillic alphabet (or azbuka, from the old name of the first letters) is an alphabet used to write six natural Slavic languages (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, and Ukrainian) and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe. ... The Cyrillic letter lje (Љ, љ) was originally a ligature of Л and Ь. It is used in the Serbian language. ... The Cyrillic letter Nje (Њ, њ) was originally a ligature of Н and Ь. It is used in the Serbian language, where it represents a voiced palatal nasal. ... El (Л, л) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. ... En (Н, н) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the consonant /n/. It looks exactly like the Latin capital letter H. Categories: Cyrillic letters | Writing system stubs ... Soft Sign (Ь, ÑŒ) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet (Russian: мягкий знак (mÄ­ahkiy znak) [], Ukrainian: м’який знак (miakyy znak) [], Belarusian: мяккі знак (miakki znak) []). It is named so because it usually indicates softening, or palatalization, of the preceding consonant or of the group of them. ...

An example of a more general contextual form is the Greek lowercase sigma. When typesetting Greek, the selection of which sigma to use is determined by whether or not the letter occurs at the end of the word. From these particulars derived the rules for the "long s" in Western languages formerly. Sigma (upper case Σ, lower case σ, alternative ς) is the 18th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... The title of this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ...

Specialized computer typesetting programs

Typical ligatures in Latin script

TeX is an example of a computer typesetting system that makes use of ligatures automatically. The Computer Modern Roman typeface, which is provided with TeX, includes the five common ligatures ff, fi, fl, ffi, and ffl. When TeX finds these letters juxtaposed in the text, it substitutes the appropriate ligature (unless overridden by the typesetter). Some believe that the writer should be able to decide whether to use a ligature or not; others that it is the job of a typesetter. Table with typical Roman ligatures File links The following pages link to this file: Ligature (typography) Categories: Images with unknown source ... Table with typical Roman ligatures File links The following pages link to this file: Ligature (typography) Categories: Images with unknown source ... The TeX logo The TeX mascot, by Duane Bibby TEX, written as TeX in plain text, is a typesetting system created by Donald Knuth. ...

The OpenType font format includes optional features for associating multiple glyphs with a single glyph, used for ligature substitution. Typesetting software may or may not implement this feature, even if it is explicitly present in the font information. This type of substitution is used mainly for Arabic texts. OpenType is a scalable computer font format initially developed by Microsoft, later joined by Adobe Systems. ... These are the astrological glyphs as most commonly used in Western Astrology A glyph is a carved figure or character, incised or in relief; a carved pictograph; hence, a pictograph representing a form originally adopted for sculpture, whether carved or painted. ...

This table shows unligatured sets of letters on the left, the corresponding Unicode ligature in the middle column, and the Unicode code points on the right. Provided you are using an operating system and user agent that can handle Unicode, and have the correct Unicode fonts installed, some or all of these will display correctly. See also the provided graphic. Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... Early computers lacked operating systems. ... A user agent is the client application used with a particular network protocol; the phrase is most commonly used in reference to those which access the World Wide Web. ... In typography, a typeface consists of a co-ordinated set of grapheme (i. ...

List

This is a list of articles about ligatures, or letters developed from ligatures:

Latin: Æ, DŽ, ij, Lj, Nj, Ñ, Œ, ß, W, &. For the article on , the Irish writer, see: George William Russell , or , is a vowel and a grapheme used in the Icelandic, Danish, Faroese and Norwegian alphabets. ... DŽ (minuscule dž, titlecase Dž) is the seventh letter of the Croatian alphabet, after D and before Đ. It is pronounced as . ... IJ is a letter from the Dutch alphabet used to represent the diphthong or . ... Lj: Lje, a letter used in Serbian LiveJournal This is a disambiguation page — a list of articles associated with the same title. ... Nj can stand for: nj (letter), the 20th letter of the Albanian alphabet Nj, Њ or Nje letter, the 17th letter of the Cyrillic alphabet in Serbian language The two-letter abbreviation for the state of New Jersey, United States Napierville Junction Railway (AAR reporting mark NJ) The pen name of... Ñ or enye, (Spanish eñe) represents a palatal nasal (IPA: ). This is reminiscent of as in onion IPA: . It is the fifteenth letter of the Spanish alphabet, alphabetized between N and O. Though English keyboard schemes classify it as an N with a tilde, it is a separate letter in... Œ œ This page is about the ligature, not the simple combination of the letters O and E. For initialisms and the word Oe, see Oe. ... The glyph ß is a ligature of Å¿ (long s) and s or z that has become a distinct letter in the German alphabet; its German name is Eszett (IPA ) or scharfes S (sharp S). ... W is the twenty-third letter of the modern Latin alphabet. ... The roman ampersand on the left is stylised, but the italic one on the right is clearly similar to et. An ampersand (&) is a logogram representing the conjunction and. The symbol is a ligature of the letters in et, which is Latin for and. Its origin is apparent in the...

Cyrillic: Љ, Њ, Ы, Ѿ. Iotified Cyrillic letters are ligatures of the early Cyrillic decimal I and another vowel: ІА (not in Unicode, ancestor of Я), Ѥ, Ѩ, Ѭ, Ю (descended from another ligature, Оу or Ѹ, an early version of У). The Cyrillic letter lje (Љ, љ) was originally a ligature of Л and Ь. It is used in the Serbian language. ... The Cyrillic letter Nje (Њ, њ) was originally a ligature of Н and Ь. It is used in the Serbian language, where it represents a voiced palatal nasal. ... Yery (Ы, Ñ‹) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet. ... Ot (Ѿ, Ñ¿) is a letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, a ligature of the letters Omega and Te. ... Iotation is a form of palatalisation which occurs in Slavic languages. ... I (І, Ñ–) (also called decimal I, or dotted I) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, used in the Belarusian and Ukrainian languages. ... Ya (Я, я) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the iotated vowel /ja/ (SAMPA). ... Ya (Я, я) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the iotated vowel (IPA). ... E iotified (Ѥ, ѥ) is a letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet. ... Little Yus (, ) and Big Yus (, ), or Jus, are the letters representing two Common Slavonic nasal vowels, in the early Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets. ... Little Yus (, ) and Big Yus (, ), or Jus, are the letters representing two Common Slavonic nasal vowels, in the early Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets. ... Yu (Ю, ю) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the iotated vowel /ju/. In common with many Cyrillic letters, it was derived from a digraph, being a ligature of Izhe (then І) or Izhei (then Н, both now И) and Uk (Ѹ, no longer in the alphabet). ... Uk (, ) is a letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet. ... U (У, у) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the vowel /u/. Categories: Cyrillic letters | Language stubs ...

See also

• Danish alphabet
• Norwegian alphabet
• Icelandic alphabet
• German alphabet

The Danish and Norwegian alphabet consists of 29 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, Æ, Ø, Å The letter Å was introduced in Norwegian in 1917, replacing Aa. Similarly... The Danish and Norwegian alphabet consists of 29 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, Æ, Ø, Å The letter Å was introduced in Norwegian in 1917, replacing Aa. Similarly... The Icelandic alphabet consists of the following letters: A Á B (C) D Ð E É F G H I Í J K L M N O Ó P (Q) R S T U Ú V (W) X Y Ý (Z) Þ Æ Ö The modern Icelandic alphabet has developed from a standard established in the 19th century, by the... The German alphabet consists of the same 26 letters as the modern Latin alphabet: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J...

External links

• Blogdorf on ligatures
• Hoefler & Frere-Jones Requiem font
• Emigre: Mrs Eaves