R rotunda
The r rotunda ⟨ ꝛ ⟩, "rounded r", is a historical calligraphic variant of the minuscule (lowercase) letter Latin r used in full script-like typefaces, especially blackletters.
Unlike other letter variants such as "
Form
This symbol came in several different shapes, all of which were of x-height. The shape of the letter used in
Like minuscules in general, this shape for r originated in the style of cursive writing that was common during the medieval period, which ultimately derived from scribal practice during Late Antiquity.
The r rotunda shape of cursive ⟨r⟩ resembling the numeral ⟨2⟩ is also found in a number of medieval scribal abbreviations containing ⟨r⟩, for example in the signs for the Latin word-final syllables ram, -orum and -arum.
There are several variant forms for the r rotunda glyph.
A very narrow second variant is found in some
Use for Tironian et
The abbreviation
. Later, when typesets no longer contained a sort for the Tironian et, it became common practice to use the r rotunda glyph instead, setting ⟨ꝛc.⟩ for etc.[1][failed verification]Demise
Use of this form of r was never widespread except in blackletter scripts, so it fell out of use in English in the 16th century as roman scripts became predominant. Some modern cursive scripts use a letter ⟨r⟩ that has a resemblance to the r rotunda.
Encoding
In Unicode, the character is encoded as U+A75A Ꝛ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R ROTUNDA and U+A75B ꝛ LATIN SMALL LETTER R ROTUNDA
The letter was added to Unicode in 2005, in the Latin Extended-D block.[2] It is included in Unicode 5.1 in both lower case and upper case forms,[3] although there seems to be no real evidence for the historical existence of a capital version and a normal capital R seems to have been used instead.[4]
Before that, the
Some fonts treat the glyph as a mere stylistic variant of ⟨r⟩ and may make it available by smart font features, e.g. Open Type 'hist', 'hlig', 'calt', 'salt' or 'ss**'.
Gallery
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Comparison of the r rotunda and the normal r in the Leeds Uni typeface
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The letter pair latin capital/small letter r rotunda rendered in different typefaces.
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Calibri, included withWindowsVista and newer, also has an r rotunda.
See also
- Long s
- Indian rupee sign ₹ is based in part on the R rotunda.
References
- ^ Updike, Daniel Berkeley (1922). Printing types, their history, forms and use, a study in survivals by Daniel Berkeley Updike. Vol. I. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. 109.
- ^ Everson, Michael; Haugen, Odd Einar; Emiliano, António; Pedro, Susana; Grammel, Florian; Baker, Peter; Stötzner, Andreas; Dohnicht, Marcus; Luft, Diana (2005). "Preliminary proposal to add medievalist characters to the UCS" (PDF).
- ^ "Latin Extended-D" (PDF). unicode.org.
- ^ West, Andrew (2006-07-24). "R Rotunda Part 2". BabelStone Blog. Retrieved 2020-02-09.
- ISBN 978-82-8088-403-9. Retrieved 24 March 2019.
External links
- Media related to R rotunda at Wikimedia Commons