When printing with movable type was invented around 1450, typefaces included many ligatures and additional letters, as they were based on handwriting. For example, in some cases the fi ligature prints the letters f and i with a greater separation than when they are typeset as separate letters. 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). Doubles ( Geminated consonants) during the Roman Republic era were written as a sicilicus.
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