Diacritics/accents in Ornamental Penmanship?

[David C]

Hello all

I recently starting learning Ornamental Penmanship. I typically write in Spanish and occasionally French, and since all of the samples I have found of both OP and Spencerian are in English (which makes perfect sense), I find myself struggling when it comes to diacritics.

Since you guys have more experience and a better eye, I wanted to ask if you have any thoughts or references regarding diacritics in OP.

Shade or no shade? How high?
Acute accents (á é í ó ú) could probably follow the main slant, but how high and long to make them?
Grave accents (à è ì ò ù) go in the opposite direction and do not match the angles of this hand, so they always seem a bit awkward to me.
With the ü for example, if I place dot exactly over each peak of the u, it looks more like 2 i's (ii).
How about circumflexes (â ê î ô û) or the tilde to make the ñ?

Thank you very much, any thoughts would be greatly appreciated
David

[himasf]

I don't know if I've seen instruction on this matter. How do you write these in your regular handwriting? Maybe you could use that to inform your choices in Ornamental Penmanship.

[AnasaziWrites]

Hello all

I recently starting learning Ornamental Penmanship. I typically write in Spanish and occasionally French, and since all of the samples I have found of both OP and Spencerian are in English (which makes perfect sense), I find myself struggling when it comes to diacritics.

Since you guys have more experience and a better eye, I wanted to ask if you have any thoughts or references regarding diacritics in OP.

Shade or no shade? How high?
Acute accents (á é í ó ú) could probably follow the main slant, but how high and long to make them?
Grave accents (à è ì ò ù) go in the opposite direction and do not match the angles of this hand, so they always seem a bit awkward to me.
With the ü for example, if I place dot exactly over each peak of the u, it looks more like 2 i's (ii).
How about circumflexes (â ê î ô û) or the tilde to make the ñ?

Thank you very much, any thoughts would be greatly appreciated
David

Well, a never before asked question on this forum (as far as I know). Interesting.
As for the diaeresis or umlaut, the two dots would be placed a little closer together than the full width of a letter (like u) so as to not create that confusion you mention (resembling a double i). I would guess the macron and tilda could be shifted slightly to the right, consistent with the slant of the letter, the cedilla also slightly slanted as well a la the c. Same with the colon and semicolon--slant at 52 degrees (or whatever slant you are using). I'll take a look at original examples and post what I find.

[AndyT]

I certainly haven't seen anything on this subject.  It seems to me that the acute accent could follow the connective slant, but as for the others it's perhaps a case of "if it looks right it is right".  The tilde could be a shortened version of the floating t crossbar, say.  From a historical perspective it could be argued that the easiest way around the umlaut (which would be in tune with contemporary American practice, I suspect) would be to add an e instead: Muenchen for München; schoen for schön.  This is not unprecedented in German calligraphy, incidentally - Werner Schneider for instance was fond of a superimposed e to replace the umlaut.  Of course this is no help with other diaereses as in naïve, Laocoön or Brontë.  I'd bring the dots in from the stems of the u ever so lightly, and probably elongate them somewhat.

I did spend some time trying to devise a decent esszett (ß) with mixed results: it wound up as a Frankenstein mashup of a long s, a short s and the stem from a p.  Oddly enough, copperplate oriented advice on thorn (Þ) and edh (ð) is readily available thanks to Benedikt Gröndal, from which something ornamental could easily be lashed together.  You'll find the relevant link here, in the unlikely event that it might be useful to you.

I'm thinking that @Estefa @tintenfuchs  and @sybillevz will have valuable wit and wisdom to contribute on this subject.

[Starlee]

This is such a thought-provoking question! I like the suggestions made already. I think legibility is the essential aspect. Write it in any way such that the letter is recognized with certainty by the reader. However you have to write to achieve this, is the correct way to do it. Any other way, no matter how eye-pleasing, defeats the purpose of writing....unless you're going for artsy-expressive, where the rules are more relaxed

[Inked botanicals]

Well, that is indeed a very interesting question. I am from Spain so I write quite a lot in Spanish. I share with you some Spanish exemplars of different styles. Acute accents are commonly written as semicolons, at the same high than the i dot. I like to make them a bit shaded for them to be noticed but not too much. I write the ñ tilde a little nearer the letterform and like a shortened t crossbar. You can make it curved when you do big flourished t crossbars or straight when you do straight crossbars to make it consistent. I would go for the ü with dots near each other to avoid confusion with two i too.

The exemplars show even different accents and ñ in the same text, hope those can help. By the way those exemplars are from some old Spanish books a fellow member sent too me. I have yet to scan them all to share with all of you! If anyone is interested in any in special I can start scanning with it. I'm still thinking about the best way to scan them without damaging the books.

[sybillevz]

Thanks for thinking about me @AndyT !
When I was a beginner, someone posted links to an icelandic or nordic calligraphy exemplar where there were many diacritics. Unfortunately I can't find it right now, maybe I'll remember more about this later...
Alba's example is great (thank you for sharing!)
Another nice way to go is by looking at fonts on Myfonts : you find a good calligraphic font like Medusa for example, and study the glyphs (https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/re-type/medusa/regular/glyphs.html).
Eventually you will come up with your own way to deal with these !