In printing, a ligature is a group of characters that is typeset as a unit, so the characters do not have to be joined. In handwriting, a ligature is made by joining two or more characters in an atypical fashion by merging their parts, or by writing one above or inside the other. Manuscripts in the fourteenth century employed hundreds of such abbreviations.Ī widely used Th ligature in a handwriting-style typeface Scribes also used notational abbreviations to avoid having to write a whole character in one stroke. In many script forms, characters such as h, m, and n had their vertical strokes superimposed.

For example, in blackletter, letters with right-facing bowls ( b, o, and p) and those with left-facing bowls ( c, e, o, d, g and q) were written with the facing edges of the bowls superimposed. Others conjoined letters for aesthetic purposes. Medieval scribes who wrote in Latin increased their writing speed by combining characters and by introducing notational abbreviations. Īround the 9th and 10th centuries, monasteries became a fountainhead for these type of script modifications. However, in Nordic texts a particular type of ligature appeared for ll and tt, referred to as 'broken l' and 'broken t'. During the medieval era several conventions existed (mostly diacritic marks). Merchants especially needed a way to speed up the process of written communication and found that conjoining letters and abbreviating words for lay use was more convenient for record keeping and transaction than the bulky long forms.ĭoubles ( Geminated consonants) during the Roman Republic era were written as a sicilicus. These new glyphs emerge alongside the proliferation of writing with a stylus, whether on paper or clay, and often for a practical reason: faster handwriting. Other notable ligatures, such as the Brahmic abugidas and the Germanic bind rune, figure prominently throughout ancient manuscripts. The earliest known script Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieratic both include many cases of character combinations that gradually evolve from ligatures into separately recognizable characters.

See also: Bind rune and scribal abbreviation

Old english font letter h