Fraktur (German:[fʁakˈtuːɐ̯]ⓘ) is a
calligraphic hand of the
Latin alphabet and any of several
blacklettertypefaces 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 the
Antiqua (common) typefaces where the letters are designed to flow and strokes connect together in a continuous fashion. The word "Fraktur" derives from Latin frāctūra ("a break"), built from frāctus, passive participle of frangere ("to break"), which is also the root for the English word "fracture". In non-professional contexts, the term "Fraktur" is sometimes misused to refer to all blackletter typefaces – while Fraktur typefaces do fall under that category, not all blackletter typefaces exhibit the Fraktur characteristics described above.[a]
Fraktur was often characterized as "the German typeface", as it remained popular in Germany and much of Eastern Europe far longer than elsewhere. In Germany, utilizing more modern typefaces would prove controversial until 1941, when the
Nazi government rendered any transition involuntary by banning the use of Fraktur typefaces.
Characteristics
Besides the 26 letters of the
ISO basic Latin alphabet,[b] Fraktur usually includes the Eszett ⟨
ß⟩ in the ⟨ſʒ⟩ form, vowels with
umlauts, and the
long s⟨ſ⟩. Some Fraktur typefaces also include a variant form of the letter r known as the
r rotunda, and many include a variety of
ligatures which are left over from cursive handwriting and have rules for their use. Most older Fraktur typefaces make no distinction between the
majuscules⟨I⟩ and ⟨J⟩ (where the common shape is more suggestive of a ⟨J⟩), even though the
minuscules⟨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 with
diacritical 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] / ⟨tẜsch⟩ [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]
Origin
The first Fraktur typeface arose in the early 16th century, when Emperor
Maximilian I commissioned the design of the Triumphal Arch woodcut by
Albrecht Dürer and had a new typeface created specifically for this purpose, designed by
Hieronymus Andreae. Fraktur types for
printing were established by the
Augsburg publisher
Johann Schönsperger [
de] at the issuance of a series of Maximilian's works such as his Prayer Book (Gebetbuch, 1513) or the illustrated Theuerdank poem (1517).[3]
Fraktur quickly overtook the earlier
Schwabacher and
Textualis 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 German
Theuerdank Fraktur was further developed by the
Leipzig typographer
Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf to create the typeset
Breitkopf Fraktur. While over the succeeding centuries, most Central Europeans switched to
Antiqua, German speakers remained a notable holdout.
Typesetting in Fraktur was still very common in the early 20th century in all
German-speaking countries and areas, as well as in
Norway,
Estonia, and
Latvia, and was still used to a very small extent in
Sweden,
Finland and
Denmark,[d] even though other countries typeset in
Antiqua. Some books at that time used related blackletter fonts such as
Schwabacher; 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 by
Antiqua 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, where it was known as the
Antiqua–Fraktur dispute. The shift affected mostly scientific writing in Germany, whereas most
belletristic literature and newspapers continued to be printed in Fraktur.
The Fraktur typefaces remained in use in
Nazi Germany, when they were initially represented as true German script; official Nazi documents and letterheads employed the font, and the cover of
Hitler's Mein Kampf used a hand-drawn version of it.[7] However, more modernized fonts of the
Gebrochene Grotesk [
de] type such as
Tannenberg 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, as
grotesque 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, the Sütterlin-based handwriting) to be Judenlettern (Jewish letters) and prohibited their further use.[10] German historian Albert Kapr has speculated that the regime viewed Fraktur as inhibiting communication in the
occupied territories during
World War II.[11]
Even with the abolition of Fraktur, some publications included elements of it in headlines.[citation needed] More often, some ligatures ch, ck from Fraktur were used in Antiqua-typed editions up to the offset type period. Fraktur saw a brief resurgence after the war, 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 the Frankfurter Allgemeine, as well as the Norwegian Aftenpoſten, still print their name in Fraktur on the
masthead (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 of
long s and short ⟨s⟩ and of
ligatures are often disregarded.
Individual Fraktur letters are sometimes used in
mathematics, which often denotes associated or parallel concepts by the same letter in different fonts. For example, a
Lie group is often denoted by G, while its associated
Lie algebra is . A
ring ideal might be denoted by (or if a prime ideal) while an element is . The Fraktur is also sometimes used to denote the
cardinality of the continuum, that is, the cardinality of the real line. In
model theory, is used to denote an arbitrary model, with A as its universe.[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 the
Sylt dike" and contains all 26 letters of the alphabet plus the
umlauted glyphs used in German, making it an example of a
pangram.
Unicode
Unicode does not encode Fraktur as a separate script. Instead, Fraktur is considered a "presentation form" of the Latin alphabet.[12][e] 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.[13]
Sütterlin – Historical form of German handwriting, used 1915–1970s
Notes
^Similarly, the term "Gothic" is sometimes also incorrectly used to refer to Fraktur typefaces. However, in
typography, the term "Gothic" simply means
sans-serif.
^"die letzte salve". Westliche Post. St. Louis, Missouri. 21 July 1906. p. 7. Retrieved 1 November 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
^
abPaulli, Richard J. (1940). Den sejrende antikva (special edition anniversary book "Det trykte ord") (in Danish). Copenhagen: Grafisk Cirkel.
^Rem, Tore (2009). "Materielle variasjoner. Overgang fra fraktur til antikva i Norge". In Malm, Mats; Sjönell, Barbro Ståhle; Söderlund, Petra (eds.). Bokens materialitet: Bokhistoria och bibliografi (in Swedish). Stockholm: Svenska Vitterhetssamfundet.
ISBN978-91-7230-149-8.
Bain, Peter; Shaw, Paul (1998). Blackletter: Type and National Identity. Princeton Architectural Press.
ISBN1-56898-125-2.
Fiedl, Frederich; Ott, Nicholas; Stein, Bernard (1998). Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal.
ISBN1-57912-023-7.
Hartmann, Silvia (1998). Fraktur oder Antiqua. Der Schriftstreit von 1881 bis 1941 (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
ISBN3-631-35090-2.
Fraktur (German:[fʁakˈtuːɐ̯]ⓘ) is a
calligraphic hand of the
Latin alphabet and any of several
blacklettertypefaces 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 the
Antiqua (common) typefaces where the letters are designed to flow and strokes connect together in a continuous fashion. The word "Fraktur" derives from Latin frāctūra ("a break"), built from frāctus, passive participle of frangere ("to break"), which is also the root for the English word "fracture". In non-professional contexts, the term "Fraktur" is sometimes misused to refer to all blackletter typefaces – while Fraktur typefaces do fall under that category, not all blackletter typefaces exhibit the Fraktur characteristics described above.[a]
Fraktur was often characterized as "the German typeface", as it remained popular in Germany and much of Eastern Europe far longer than elsewhere. In Germany, utilizing more modern typefaces would prove controversial until 1941, when the
Nazi government rendered any transition involuntary by banning the use of Fraktur typefaces.
Characteristics
Besides the 26 letters of the
ISO basic Latin alphabet,[b] Fraktur usually includes the Eszett ⟨
ß⟩ in the ⟨ſʒ⟩ form, vowels with
umlauts, and the
long s⟨ſ⟩. Some Fraktur typefaces also include a variant form of the letter r known as the
r rotunda, and many include a variety of
ligatures which are left over from cursive handwriting and have rules for their use. Most older Fraktur typefaces make no distinction between the
majuscules⟨I⟩ and ⟨J⟩ (where the common shape is more suggestive of a ⟨J⟩), even though the
minuscules⟨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 with
diacritical 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] / ⟨tẜsch⟩ [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]
Origin
The first Fraktur typeface arose in the early 16th century, when Emperor
Maximilian I commissioned the design of the Triumphal Arch woodcut by
Albrecht Dürer and had a new typeface created specifically for this purpose, designed by
Hieronymus Andreae. Fraktur types for
printing were established by the
Augsburg publisher
Johann Schönsperger [
de] at the issuance of a series of Maximilian's works such as his Prayer Book (Gebetbuch, 1513) or the illustrated Theuerdank poem (1517).[3]
Fraktur quickly overtook the earlier
Schwabacher and
Textualis 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 German
Theuerdank Fraktur was further developed by the
Leipzig typographer
Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf to create the typeset
Breitkopf Fraktur. While over the succeeding centuries, most Central Europeans switched to
Antiqua, German speakers remained a notable holdout.
Typesetting in Fraktur was still very common in the early 20th century in all
German-speaking countries and areas, as well as in
Norway,
Estonia, and
Latvia, and was still used to a very small extent in
Sweden,
Finland and
Denmark,[d] even though other countries typeset in
Antiqua. Some books at that time used related blackletter fonts such as
Schwabacher; 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 by
Antiqua 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, where it was known as the
Antiqua–Fraktur dispute. The shift affected mostly scientific writing in Germany, whereas most
belletristic literature and newspapers continued to be printed in Fraktur.
The Fraktur typefaces remained in use in
Nazi Germany, when they were initially represented as true German script; official Nazi documents and letterheads employed the font, and the cover of
Hitler's Mein Kampf used a hand-drawn version of it.[7] However, more modernized fonts of the
Gebrochene Grotesk [
de] type such as
Tannenberg 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, as
grotesque 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, the Sütterlin-based handwriting) to be Judenlettern (Jewish letters) and prohibited their further use.[10] German historian Albert Kapr has speculated that the regime viewed Fraktur as inhibiting communication in the
occupied territories during
World War II.[11]
Even with the abolition of Fraktur, some publications included elements of it in headlines.[citation needed] More often, some ligatures ch, ck from Fraktur were used in Antiqua-typed editions up to the offset type period. Fraktur saw a brief resurgence after the war, 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 the Frankfurter Allgemeine, as well as the Norwegian Aftenpoſten, still print their name in Fraktur on the
masthead (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 of
long s and short ⟨s⟩ and of
ligatures are often disregarded.
Individual Fraktur letters are sometimes used in
mathematics, which often denotes associated or parallel concepts by the same letter in different fonts. For example, a
Lie group is often denoted by G, while its associated
Lie algebra is . A
ring ideal might be denoted by (or if a prime ideal) while an element is . The Fraktur is also sometimes used to denote the
cardinality of the continuum, that is, the cardinality of the real line. In
model theory, is used to denote an arbitrary model, with A as its universe.[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 the
Sylt dike" and contains all 26 letters of the alphabet plus the
umlauted glyphs used in German, making it an example of a
pangram.
Unicode
Unicode does not encode Fraktur as a separate script. Instead, Fraktur is considered a "presentation form" of the Latin alphabet.[12][e] 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.[13]
Sütterlin – Historical form of German handwriting, used 1915–1970s
Notes
^Similarly, the term "Gothic" is sometimes also incorrectly used to refer to Fraktur typefaces. However, in
typography, the term "Gothic" simply means
sans-serif.
^"die letzte salve". Westliche Post. St. Louis, Missouri. 21 July 1906. p. 7. Retrieved 1 November 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
^
abPaulli, Richard J. (1940). Den sejrende antikva (special edition anniversary book "Det trykte ord") (in Danish). Copenhagen: Grafisk Cirkel.
^Rem, Tore (2009). "Materielle variasjoner. Overgang fra fraktur til antikva i Norge". In Malm, Mats; Sjönell, Barbro Ståhle; Söderlund, Petra (eds.). Bokens materialitet: Bokhistoria och bibliografi (in Swedish). Stockholm: Svenska Vitterhetssamfundet.
ISBN978-91-7230-149-8.
Bain, Peter; Shaw, Paul (1998). Blackletter: Type and National Identity. Princeton Architectural Press.
ISBN1-56898-125-2.
Fiedl, Frederich; Ott, Nicholas; Stein, Bernard (1998). Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal.
ISBN1-57912-023-7.
Hartmann, Silvia (1998). Fraktur oder Antiqua. Der Schriftstreit von 1881 bis 1941 (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
ISBN3-631-35090-2.