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Version history:
0.1, 22 June 2020
- 0.2, 9 August 2021
Scope of this document
The number of linguistics characters in the Unicode Standard is enormous. No attempt is made here to cover all of them. The following are observations of phenomena that have had an impact on Brill’s treatment of linguistic texts. It should be noted that the term ‘linguistics’ can cover the study of specific languages; the study of ‘language’ as such (sometimes called ‘theoretical linguistics’); comparative linguistics; and philology, which is the study of all sorts of language phenomena within the context of traditional scholarly disciplines, such as Classical Studies, theology, Semitic Studies, Arabic Studies, Sinology, and so on.
Distinguishing ‘twins’ typographically
In linguistic representations – specifically IPA, but not limited to that system – two slightly different forms of the same Latin letter represent different phonemes. The following Latin characters are affected: Latin a, f, and g.
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Because of the subtlety of differences in appearance of these characters it is important to check (or spot-check) these characters by code point.
Latin twins in the Brill typeface
The letter a can be of the ‘two-storey’ kind, almost always found in serif typefaces; and it can be ‘single-storey’, as in many sans-serif typefaces (this latter, ɑ, is also known as ‘script a’ and ‘Latin alpha’). In serif typefaces, the regular or roman style normally has a two-storey design, whereas the italic is normally of the single-storey kind. In non-technical type it does not matter that the two are sightly different depending on the style.
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Character | Code point | Name | Remarks |
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| ɑ | U+0251 | Latin alpha or ‘script a’ | There is a capital, Ɑ, U+2C6D, but this forms part of several Cameroon language orthographies, and it is not ordinarily used in strictly linguistic contexts. Note also the existence of ᵅ U+1D45, ɒ U+0252, ᶛ U+1D9B, ꭤ U+AB64, and ꬰ U+AB30. |
ƒ | U+0192 | f with hookor ‘script f’ | Dutch florin (guilder); uppercase is Ƒ, U+0191; do not confuse with lowercase abbreviation is, ꝭ, U+A76D, or with lowercase dotless j with stroke and hook, ʄ, U+0284. |
ɡ | U+0261 | ‘script g’ | IPA voiced velar plosive; uppercase is Ɡ, U+A7AC. |
Greek twins in the Brill typeface
In linguistics, the following Greek letters must take on a special ‘Latin’ shape, and in the Brill typeface these glyph shapes are accessible either via a dedicate Unicode point, or via the OpenType Stylistic Set 20:
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Note: Even when the author has correctly applied the correct OpenType stylistic set to characters listed above, editors must still mark them for the typesetters. The OpenType ss20 attribute does not, unfortunately, carry over to most page layout applications such as Adobe InDesign!
Other Latin twins of Greek letters in Unicode
The following Greek letters have Latin twins with Unicode code points of their own, which clearly distinguish them from Greek-language characters. They are used mostly in linguistics contexts, although many of them have subsequently found a place in Latin orthographies of several African languages as well.
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