Latin alphabet

Stylistic ligatures

Many ligatures amalgamate f with an adjoining letter. The a lot of arresting archetype is fi (or fi, rendered with two accustomed letters). The tittle aloft the i in abounding typefaces collides with the awning of the f if placed beside anniversary added in a word, and are accumulated into a alone glyph with the tittle captivated into the f. Added ligatures with the letter f cover fj,note 1 fl (fl), ff (ff), ffi (ffi), and ffl (ffl). Ligatures for fa, fe, fo, fr, fs, ft, fb, fh, fu, fy, and for f followed by a abounding stop, comma, or hyphen, as able-bodied as the agnate set for the angled ff and fft are aswell used, admitting are beneath common.

These arose because with the accepted blazon array for lowercase f, the end of its awning is on a kern, which would be damaged by blow with aloft locations of the next letter.

Sometimes, a band bridge the morpheme abuttals of a blended chat (e.g., ff in shelfful4) is advised undesirable, and for archetype official German orthography as categorical in the Duden prohibits ligatures beyond agreement boundaries.5 Some computer programs (such as TeX) accommodate a agency of suppressing ligatures.

Ligatures "Th" and "Wh" illustration

Some fonts cover an fff band (the Requiem chantry by Jonathan Hoefler even contains an fffl ligature), advised for German admixture words like Sauerstoffflasche ("oxygen tank") and Schifffahrt ("boat trip").note 2 Since the arrangement fff in German alone anytime occurs beyond agreement boundaries (Schiff-fahrt, Sauerstoff-flasche) and ligatures are clearly banned beyond boundaries, these ligatures cannot be accurately active for German.5

Turkish has a dotted and dotless "I" next to "f" in words like fД±rД±n ("oven") and fikir ("idea"). The fi band would abstruse the acumen and is accordingly not acclimated in Turkish typography, and neither are added ligatures like that for fl, which accord to attenuate letter combinations anyway.

"Гџ" in the anatomy of a "ЕїК’" band on a artery assurance in Berlin ("Petersburger StraГџe"). The assurance on the appropriate ("Bersarinplatz") ends with a "tК’"-ligature.

Remnants of ſʒ ("sz") and tʒ ("tz") ligatures from Fraktur, a ancestors of German blackletter typefaces, originally binding in Fraktur but now active alone stylistically, can be apparent to this day on artery signs for city-limits squares whose name contains Platz or ends in -platz. Instead, the "sz" band has alloyed into a alone character, the German ß – see below.

Sometimes ligatures for st (st), ſt (ſt), ch, ct, Qu and Th are acclimated (e.g. in the book Linux Libertine).

editGerman Гџ

Main article: Гџ

The German Eszett band (also alleged the scharfes s (sharp s)) ß apparently acquired from the band "long s over annular s" (ſs) or, in Fraktur, "long s and z" (ſʒ). Even admitting "long s" ſ has contrarily abolished from German orthography, ß is still advised a ligature, and is replaced by 'SS' or 'SZ' (to bottle continued vowel-short beat conventions note: acclimated in Austria) in capitalized spelling and in alphabetic ordering. ß is alone acclimated in Germany and Austria, nowadays about never in Switzerland. Since the end of 2010, the Ständiger Ausschuss für geographische Namen (StAGN) suggests the new high case actualization for 'ß' rather than replacing it with 'SS' or 'SZ' for bounded names. The new actualization has not yet entered boilerplate writing.6

editLetters and diacritics basic as ligatures

Further information: List of Latin letters

Capilla de San Jose, Sevilla. Several ligatures.

The ligatures of Adobe Caslon Pro.

As the letter W is an accession to the Latin alphabet which originated in the seventh century, the phoneme it represents was aforetime accounting in assorted ways. In Old English the Runic letter Wynn (З·) was used, but Norman access afflicted Wynn out of use. By the 14th century, the "new" letter W, originated as two Vs or Us abutting together, developed into a accepted letter with its own position in the alphabet. Because of its about adolescence compared to added belletrist of the alphabet, alone a few European languages (English, Dutch, German, Polish, Welsh, Maltese, and Walloon) use the letter in built-in words.

The actualization Æ – lower case æ (in age-old times alleged æsc) if acclimated in the Danish, Norwegian, or Icelandic languages, or Old English, is not a typographic ligature. It is a audible letter—a vowel—and if alphabetised, is accustomed a altered abode in the alphabetic order. In avant-garde English orthography Æ is not advised an absolute letter but a spelling variant, for example: "encyclopædia" against "encyclopaedia" or "encyclopedia".

Г† comes from Medieval Latin, area it was an alternative band in some words, for example, "Г†neas". It is still begin as a alternative in English and French, but the trend has afresh been arise press the A and E separately.7 Similarly, Е’ and Е“, while commonly printed as ligatures in French, can be replaced by basic belletrist if abstruse restrictions crave it.

In German orthography, the umlauted vowels ä, ö, and ü historically arose from ae, oe, ue ligatures (strictly, from superscript e, viz. aͤ, oͤ, uͤ). It is accepted convenance to alter them with ae, oe, ue digraphs if the diacritics are unavailable, for archetype in cyberbanking conversation. While in alphabetic order, they are agnate not to ae, oe, ue, but to simple a, o, u except in buzz books area they are advised as agnate to ae, oe and ue (so that a name Müller will arise at the aforementioned abode as if it were spelled Mueller - German surnames accept a acerb anchored orthography, either a name is spelled with ü or with ue). The assemblage in Scandinavian languages is different: there the umlaut vowels are advised as absolute belletrist with positions at the end of the alphabet.

The ring characteristic acclimated in vowels such as å additionally originated as an o-ligature.8 Before the backup of the earlier 'aa' with 'å' became a de facto practice, an 'a' with addition 'a' on top (aͣ) could sometimes be used, for archetype in Johannes Bureus's, Runa: ABC-Boken (1611).9 The uo band ů in accurate saw use in Aboriginal Avant-garde High German, but it alloyed in after Germanic languages with u (e.g. MHG fuosz, ENHG fuͦß, Avant-garde German Fuß "foot"). It survives in Czech, area it is alleged kroužek.

The tilde characteristic as acclimated in Spanish and Portuguese, now apery the palatal nasal complete in the letter Г± and nasalization of the afflicted vowel, respectively, originated as an nn band (Espanna = EspaГ±a, anno = aГ±o).10 Similarly, the circumflex in French spelling stems from the band of a bashful s.11 The French, Portuguese, Catalan and old Spanish letter Г§ represents a "c" over a "z".

The letter hwair (Ж•), acclimated alone in adaptation of the Gothic language, resembles a hw ligature. It was alien by philologists about 1900 to alter the digraph hv aforetime acclimated to accurate the phoneme in question, e.g. by Migne in the 1860s (Patrologia Latina vol. 18).

The Byzantines had a altered o-u band (Иў) that, while originally based on the Greek alphabet's Ої-П…, agitated over into Latin-based alphabets as well. This band is still apparent today on figure artwork in Greek Orthodox churches, and sometimes in graffiti or added forms of breezy or adorning writing.

Gha (ЖЈ), a rarely acclimated letter based on Q and G, was misconstrued by the ISO to be an O-I band due to its appearance, and is appropriately accepted (to the ISO and, in turn, Unicode) as "Oi."

The International Phonetic Alphabet aforetime acclimated ligatures to represent affricate consonants, of which six are encoded in Unicode: КЈ, К¤, КҐ, К¦, К§ and КЁ. One affricate accordant is still represented with a ligature: Й®, and the Extensions to the IPA accommodate three more: К© , КЄ and К«.

Rarer ligatures aswell exist, such as Ꜳꜳ, Ꜵꜵ, Ꜷꜷ, Ꜹꜹ, Ꜻꜻ, Ꜽꜽ, Ꝏꝏ, ᵫ, ᵺ, Ỻỻ, Ꜩꜩ ᴂ and ᴔ.

editSymbols basic as ligatures

Et band in a humanist script.

The a lot of accepted band is the ampersand &. This was originally a band of E and t, basic the Latin chat "et", acceptation "and". It has absolutely the aforementioned use (except for pronunciation) in French and is acclimated in English. The ampersand comes in abounding altered forms. Because of its ubiquity, it is about no best advised a ligature, but a logogram.

Like abounding added ligatures, it has at times been advised a letter (e.g. in aboriginal Avant-garde English); In English it is arresting "and", not "et," except in the case of &c, arresting "et cetera." In a lot of fonts, it does not anon resemble the two belletrist acclimated to anatomy it, although assertive typefaces (such as Trebuchet MS) architecture & in the anatomy of a ligature.

Similarly, the dollar sign, $, possibly originated as a band (for "pesos", although there are added theories as well) but is now a logogram.12 The Spanish peseta was sometimes adumbrated by a band ₧ (from Pts).

editDigraphs

Uppercase IJ glyph actualization as the characteristic "broken-U" band in Helvetica rendered by Omega TeX

Comparison of Ді and y in assorted forms

Digraphs, such as ll in Spanish or Welsh, are not ligatures in the accepted case as the two belletrist are displayed as abstracted glyphs: although accounting together, if they are abutting in autography or italic fonts the abject anatomy of the belletrist is not afflicted and the alone glyphs abide separate. Like some ligatures discussed above, these digraphs may or may not be advised alone belletrist in their corresponding languages. Until the 1994 spelling reform, the digraphs ch and ll were advised abstracted belletrist in Spanish for accumulating purposes.

The aberration can be illustrated with the French digraph Е“u, which is composed of the band Е“ and the canker letter u.

Dutch ij, however, is somewhat added ambiguous. Depending on the accepted used, it can be advised a digraph, a band or a letter in itself, and its uppercase and lowercase forms are generally accessible as a alone glyph with a characteristic band in several able fonts (e.g. Zapfino). Sans serif uppercase IJ glyphs, accepted in the Netherlands, about use a band akin a U with a torn left-hand stroke. Adding to the confusion, Dutch autography can cede y (which is not begin in built-in Dutch words, but occurs in words adopted from added languages) as a ij-glyph after the dots in its lowercase anatomy and the IJ in its uppercase anatomy searching around identical (only hardly bigger). If written/typed as two abstracted letters, both should be capitalized —or not— to anatomy a accurately spelled word, like IJs or ijs (ice).

editLatin-derived alphabets that use appropriate ligatures

Danish and Norwegian

Faroese

French

German

Icelandic