Fraktur types for printing were established by the Augsburg publisher Johann Schönsperger at the issuance of a series of Maximilian's works such as his Prayer Book ( Gebetbuch, 1513) or the illustrated Theuerdank poem (1517).įraktur 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). 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. Stroked variants of ⟨s⟩ are also used in pre-1950 Sorbian orthography. In the Latvian variant of Fraktur, used mainly until the 1920s, there are additional characters used to denote Latvian letters with diacritical marks. In Danish texts composed in Fraktur, the letter ⟨ ø⟩ was already preferred to the German and Swedish ⟨ ö⟩ in the 16th century. 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. (The term "Gothic" is also sometimes used this way, although in typography the term "Gothic" means sans-serif.) In non-professional contexts, the term "Fraktur" is sometimes (mis)applied to all of the blackletter typefaces. In Germany, transition to more modern typefaces was controversial until 1941 when use of Fraktur typefaces was ended by (Nazi) government order. The word "Fraktur" derives from Latin frāctūra ("a break"), built from frāctus, passive participle of frangere ("to break"), the same root as the English word "fracture".įraktur was often characterised as "the German typeface" because it remained popular in Germany and Eastern Europe for rather longer than elsewhere. Letters are designed such that the individual strokes are broken apart 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. ![]() A modern sans-serif and four blackletter typefaces (left to right): Textur(a), Rotunda, Schwabacher and Fraktur.įraktur ( German: ) is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand.
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