Schwabacher
Categories: Typography stubs | Blackletter | Typefaces
The German word Schwabacher (pronounced /ˈʃvaːˌbaxər/ in IPA) refers to a specific blackletter typeface. The term derives from the village Schwabach.
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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. The typeface was outlawed, although widely used before, by the Nazis with the Schrifterlass of 3 January 1941, where it is called Schwabacher Judenlettern "Jew-letters of Schwabach". There is however no evidence of any actual connection between Jews and the Schwabacher typeface.
Samples
(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.)