Schwabacher

The German word Schwabacher (pronounced in IPA) refers to a specific blackletter typeface. The term derives from the village Schwabach.

Characteristics

The difference between the Schwabacher and other blackletter scripts is that in the small-letter o, both sides of the bow are broken, but the right part is not. Additionally, the small-letter g and the capital-letter H have very typical forms in the Schwabacher.

History

The Schwabacher was one of the first typefaces. It was nearer to the handwriting than the textualis typeface. In the 16th century, it was replaced by the fraktur as the most used German typeface. It was still used occasionally until the mid 20th century.

Samples

Schwabacher

(The German sentence in the figures reads: "Victor jagt zwölf Boxkämpfer quer über den Sylter Deich". This is a nonsense sentence meaning "Victor chases twelve box fighters across the dike of Sylt", but contains all 26 letters of the alphabet plus the German umlauts and is thus an example of a pangram.)

external links

• Information about Schwabacher (in German)