Why Cyrillic N looks like a H

 #palaeography #cyrillic #ukrainian #scripts 

So you probably been seeing teh slogan Victory to Ukraine a lot lately and in Cyrillic or Romanized.

You may know Slava Ukraini looks like this is in Cyrillic 

both the Russian or Ukrainian versions of Cyrillic 

ϹЛАВА УКРАЇНІ

The C comes from the Byzantine lunate sigma the next letter is an L derived from Greek Lambda in upper case and Beta is a V / W and so forth

So why does N look like a H 

The simplest explanation without going into the full history of Cyrillic and how Greek letters were adapted from Slavic languages ( and I will go into that in a future post ) is that the modern H form has been edited and "reformed" and an N that had a slanting cross bar connecting nearer to the top had the cross bar lowered and why ?

Because Cyril and his brother developed the letters using forms not just from the upper case uncials we see in inscriptions but also hand written Greek Cursive forms. 

So thats the shortest explanation I could come up with.

I promise to do a full comparision for those curious about the relationship of Greek and Cyrillic including why Cyril had to add extra letters.

BUGINESE SCRIPT

 #buginese #sulawesi #script 

BUGINESE SCRIPTS

one of the worlds lesser known scripts is this one from Sulawesi in Indonesia.

Note how it has included syllabic clusters used in the local Austronesian language though the script can be traced back to a system introduced to traders from Southern India modified for local usage.

Pen and brush

PEN AND BRUSH
More samples to consider.

I created this image in Inkscape and then changed it to a png for uploading to the blog.

Ugh I left an I  out of handwriting.

Now consider this though the scribes who created the uncial forms that American Uncial is based on cut and used their pens or quills at a different angle to those who developed the Italic scripts elegant derives from.

An ACTUAL handwritten version of the Bradley hand example could vary in shape depending on whether it was written with a reed pen or quill or metal nib and whether the nib was square cut or round or cut at an angle.

Brushed font well a "DRY" brush effect not a fully loaded really wet brush

Segoe that looks rather similar to modern felt tip liner pens?

Try an experiment type the same word in several font types and then write the word on a variety of pens or brushes, reed, metal nib, felt tip pen, lettering brush.

The letter shapes will vary.

Try it!?

Pictographs to Cuneiform

It appears to be an "universal" truth that any script that starts life as a pictographic system eventually evolves into an abstract form. Mesopotamian cuneiform influenced script development from Asia Minor (Hittite cuneiform) to Persia  and developed from primitive or perhaps primal is a better word forms used by the Sumerians to the wedges hence "cunei" of later scripts.

and finally

If anyone's thinking after seeing this last one ... ah ha proof of an ancient universal script! ... not necessarily ... there's only so many ways you can represent a mountain with as few strokes as possible.

It does seem however to be a general principle that 

Symbols come before sound in the development of  scripts.

A first post for this blog!

The Letter A is the first letter in most alphabets  and alphabets are one of the many topics that will feature in this blog. Not just the standard Roman alphabet. I'll also be discussing other scripts, signs, symbols, and glyphs, along with typography and calligraphy, and techniques for editing and creatng them by traditional media or computer. If you take pleasure in letters join me?!

The Big A image is a modified letter from a Cursive Font with blur and drop shadow added several times and blended to create a wider heavier yet soft letter.

Perhaps considering the letter derives from an ancient ox's head symbol I should have given the image more points?

Now the image is uploaded I can see a few spots where I should have perhaps used the Smudge tool before I added the shadow and blur? What would you have done readers?

The initial schedule for this blog will be weekly posts. Join me!