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The German word Schwabacher (pronounced [ˈʃvaːˌbaχɐ]) refers to a specific blackletter typeface. The term derives from the town of Schwabach.
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Characteristics
The small-letter g and the capital-letter H have particularly distinctive forms.
History
The Schwabacher was a blackletter typeface that evolved from textualis under the influence of Humanist type design in Italy. It was nearer to handwriting than the textualis style. In the 16th century, it was displaced by fraktur as the most-used German typeface from about 1530. Thereafter it was in use as a secondary typeface in a similar way to italic[1] It was still used occasionally until the mid 20th century.
Fraktur was abandoned, although widely-used before, by the Nazis with the Schrifterlass of 3 January 1941, where it is called Schwabacher Judenlettern "Jew-letters of Schwabach".[2] There is however no evidence of any actual connection between Jews and the Schwabacher typeface.
Samples
(The German sentence in the figures reads: "Beispiel Alte Schwabacher [Example of old Schwabacher]: Victor jagt zwölf Boxkämpfer quer über den Sylter Deich". This is a nonsense sentence meaning "Victor chases twelve box fighters diagonally across the dike of Sylt", but contains all 26 letters of the alphabet plus the German umlauts and is thus an example of a pangram.)
Notes and References
- ^ Steinberg, S. H. (1961) Five Hundred Years of Printing; 2nd ed. Penguin Books; p. 41
- ^ Burke, Christopher (1998), Paul Renner: the Art of Typography, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, pp. 165–167, ISBN 9781568981581, http://books.google.com/books?id=zfT0Iam0q7AC&pg=PA165&vq=the+nazi+ban+on+gothic&dq=paul+renner+the+art+of+typography+1998&source=gbs_search_r&cad=1_1&sig=ACfU3U1n-wRygIgMgqEaMyw_VJ-3wE9g5Q
Further reading
- Friedrich Beck: „Schwabacher Judenlettern“ - Schriftverruf im Dritten Reich. in: Die Kunst des Vernetzens, Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, 2006, ISBN 3-86650-344-X (pdf)
- Philipp Luidl: Die Schwabacher – Die ungewöhnlichen Wege der Schwabacher Judenletter. Maro Verlag, Augsburg 2004. ISBN 3-87512-415-4
- "Vergessen und verdrängt" Schwabach 1918-1945, Ausstellungskatalog Stadtmuseum Schwabach, p. 172
External links
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