Gaelic type
Typefaces to print Classical Gaelic
Gaelic type (sometimes called Irish character, Irish type, or Gaelic script) is a family of Insular script typefaces devised for printing Early Modern Irish. It was widely used from the 16th century until the mid-18th century in Scotland and the mid-20th century in Ireland, but is now rarely used. Sometimes, all Gaelic typefaces are called Celtic or uncial although most Gaelic types are not uncials. The "Anglo-Saxon" types of the 17th century are included in this category because both the Anglo-Saxon types and the Gaelic/Irish types derive from the insular manuscript hand.
The terms Gaelic type, Gaelic script and Irish character translate the Modern Irish phrase cló Gaelach (pronounced [ˌkl̪ˠoː ˈɡeːl̪ˠəx]). In Ireland, the term cló Gaelach is used in contrast to the term cló Rómhánach, Roman type.
The Scots Gaelic term is corra-litir (pronounced [ˌkʰɔrˠə ˈliʰtʲɪɾʲ]). Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair (c. 1698, 1770) was one of the last Scottish writers with the ability to write in this script, but his main work, Ais-Eiridh na Sean Chánoin Albannaich, was published in the Roman script.
01Characteristics
Besides the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, Gaelic typefaces must include all vowels with acute accents ⟨Áá Éé Íí Óó Úú⟩ as well as a set of consonants with dot above ⟨Ḃḃ Ċċ Ḋḋ Ḟḟ Ġġ Ṁṁ Ṗṗ Ṡṡ Ṫṫ⟩, and the Tironian sign et ⟨⁊⟩, used for agus 'and' in Irish.
Gaelic typefaces also often include insular forms: ⟨ꞃ ꞅ⟩ of the letters ⟨r⟩ and ⟨s⟩, and some of the typefaces contain a number of ligatures used in earlier Gaelic typography and deriving from the manuscript tradition. Lower-case ⟨i⟩ is drawn without a dot (though it is not the Turkish dotless ⟨ı⟩), and the letters ⟨d f g t⟩ have insular shapes ⟨ꝺ ꝼ ᵹ ꞇ⟩.
Many modern Gaelic typefaces include Gaelic letterforms for the letters ⟨j k q v w x y z⟩, and typically provide support for at least the vowels of the other Celtic languages. They also distinguish between ⟨&⟩ and ⟨⁊⟩ (as did traditional typography), though some modern fonts replace the ampersand with the Tironian note ostensibly because both mean 'and'.
02History
The Irish uncial alphabet originated in medieval manuscripts as an "insular" variant of the Latin alphabet. The first Gaelic typeface was designed in 1571 for Aibidil Gaoidheilge agus Caiticiosma, a catechism commissioned by Elizabeth I to help attempt to convert the Irish Catholic population to Anglicanism.
In 1611, Franciscans from Leuven/Louvain (Belgium) created their own typeface, known as Louvain Irish Type.
03Use
Typesetting in Gaelic script remained common in Ireland until the mid-20th century. Gaelic script is today used merely for decorative typesetting; for example, a number of traditional Irish newspapers still print their name in Gaelic script on the first page, and it is also popular for pub signs, greeting cards, and display advertising. Edward Lhuyd's grammar of the Cornish language used Gaelic-script consonants to indicate sounds like [ð] and [θ].
In 1996 RTÉ created a new corporate logo. The logo consists of a modern take on the Gaelic type face. The R's counter is large with a short tail, the T is roman script while the E is curved but does not have a counter like a lower case E, and the letters also have slight serifs to them. TG4's original logo, under the brand TnaG, also used a modernization of the font, the use of the curved T and a sans-serif A in the word na. Other Irish companies that have used Gaelic script in their logos including the GAA, Telecom Éireann and An Post. The Garda Síochána uses Gaelic Script on its official seal.
04In Unicode
Unicode treats the Gaelic script as a font variant of the Latin alphabet with precomposed characters for the letters with diacritics (the glyphs shown here are representative glyphs from a Roman typeface and will not have the correct appearance unless a Gaelic typeface is used):
| U+00C1 Á LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH ACUTE | U+00E1 á LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH ACUTE |
| U+1E02 Ḃ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B WITH DOT ABOVE | U+1E03 ḃ LATIN SMALL LETTER B WITH DOT ABOVE |
| U+010A Ċ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH DOT ABOVE | U+010B ċ LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH DOT ABOVE |
| U+1E0A Ḋ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D WITH DOT ABOVE | U+1E0B ḋ LATIN SMALL LETTER D WITH DOT ABOVE |
| U+00C9 É LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH ACUTE | U+00E9 é LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE |
| U+1E1E Ḟ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F WITH DOT ABOVE | U+1E1F ḟ LATIN SMALL LETTER F WITH DOT ABOVE |
| U+0120 Ġ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G WITH DOT ABOVE | U+0121 ġ LATIN SMALL LETTER G WITH DOT ABOVE |
| U+00CD Í LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH ACUTE | U+00ED í LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH ACUTE |
| U+1E40 Ṁ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M WITH DOT ABOVE | U+1E41 ṁ LATIN SMALL LETTER M WITH DOT ABOVE |
| U+00D3 Ó LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH ACUTE | U+00F3 ó LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH ACUTE |
| U+1E56 Ṗ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P WITH DOT ABOVE | U+1E57 ṗ LATIN SMALL LETTER P WITH DOT ABOVE |
| U+1E60 Ṡ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH DOT ABOVE | U+1E61 ṡ LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH DOT ABOVE |
| U+1E6A Ṫ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T WITH DOT ABOVE | U+1E6B ṫ LATIN SMALL LETTER T WITH DOT ABOVE |
| U+00DA Ú LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH ACUTE | U+00FA ú LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH ACUTE |
Similar linguistics graphemes
The glyphs in Gaelic types typically resemble their related phonetics characters. For example, the letterforms used for ⟨G⟩ and ⟨g⟩ resemble the linguistics insular g, but (in normal text) it is correct to use U+0047 G LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G and U+0067 g LATIN SMALL LETTER G with a Gaelic type (font) specified (and incorrect to use U+1D79 ᵹ LATIN SMALL LETTER INSULAR G and U+A77D Ᵹ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER INSULAR G unless writing about linguistics).
According to Michael Everson, in the 2006 Unicode proposal for these characters:
To write text in an ordinary Gaelic font, only ASCII letters should be used, the font making all the relevant substitutions
, the insular letters [proposed herewith] are for use only by specialists who require them for particular purposes.
Unicode 5.1 (2008) added a capital G (Ᵹ) and both capital and lowercase letters D, F, R, S, T, besides "turned insular G", on the basis that Edward Lhuyd used these letters in his 1707 work Archæologia Britannica as a scientific orthography for Cornish.
- Ꝺ ꝺ Insular D (U+A779, U+A77A)
- ◌ᷘ Combining Small Insular D (U+1DD8) (Used for Old Norse)
- Ꝼ ꝼ Insular F (U+A77B, U+A77C)
- Ᵹ ᵹ Insular G (U+A77D, U+1D79)
- Ꝿ ꝿ Turned insular G (U+A77E, U+A77F)
- Ꞃ ꞃ Insular R (U+A782, U+A783)
- Ꞅ ꞅ Insular S (U+A784, U+A785)
- Ꞇ ꞇ Insular T (U+A786, U+A787)
Unicode 14.0 (2021) added characters, including Insular letters, for the Ormulum:
- Ꟑ ꟑ Closed Insular G (U+A7D0, U+A7D1)
- ◌ᫌ Combining Insular G (U+1ACC)
- ◌ᫍ Combining Insular R (U+1ACD)
- ◌ᫎ Combining Insular T (U+1ACE)
05Samples
Chuaigh bé mhórshách le dlúthspád fíorfhinn trí hata mo dhea-phorcáin bhig,
Ċuaiġ bé ṁórṡáċ le dlúṫspád fíorḟinn trí hata mo ḋea-ṗorcáin ḃig,
meaning "A maiden of great appetite with an intensely white, dense spade went through my good little porker’s hat".
The second sentence (bottom line) reads:
Duibhlinn/Ceanannas an cló a úsáidtear anseo,
meaning "Duibhlinn/Ceannanas is the typeface used here".
The second sentence uses the short forms of the letters r and s; the first uses the long forms. See: Long s and R rotunda.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Gaelic type”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Gaelic-fonts.png by Unknown author, CC BY 2.5
- Gaelic-font-Corcaigh.png by No machine-readable author provided. Evertype assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5
- A Royal "Cló Gaelach" typewriter.png by Angelwood xyz, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Gaelic-text-Duibhlinn.png by No machine-readable author provided. Evertype assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5
- Gaelic-text-Ceanannas.png by No machine-readable author provided. Evertype assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5
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