A typographic study on the visual features

of written Spanish.
Laura Catalina Ramírez Torres
Granada: A typographic study on
the visual features of written Spanish

Faculty of Arts, School of Graphic Design

National University of Colombia

Tutored by César Arturo Puertas Céspedes

Associate Professor · School of Graphic Design

Bogotá, 2016
“Type designers like to build stories around the typefaces they
design because it helps them create a world which reflects their
own dreams”

Jean François Porchez

A-Z of Type Designers
 Abstract  5

Part I: One Script, Different Languages  6 Part II: Granada  37

Contents Introduction7 Introduction  38

Precedents10 Precedents  40

Framework  13 Design process 43

The Latin script’s visual elements  16 Concluding remarks  53

Graphic profiles for the Latin script’s subsystems  24 References  54

Spanish  26
Italian  27
English  28
German  29
Icelandic  30
Finnish  31
Czech  32
Polish  33
Turkish  34
Hungarian  35

Concluding remarks  36
Abstract
Language and writing are two of mankind’s most important cultural manifestations, is
it possible to establish a connection between them from a typographic perspective and
assert that languages themselves —among those written with the Latin script— have
a particular look? This research project intends to answer this question through the
comparative description of ten European languages from a visual point of view which
includes a characterization of their texture and rhythm. Subsequently, and regarding
the project’s creative component, the features of written Spanish —the author’s native
language— will be used as a type design criteria.

Keywords: comparative study, European languages, language, latin alphabet, legibility, letter frequency,
print, serif, texture, typography, rhythm, writing

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Parte I:
One script,
many languages
 Language is an instrument that stands in the middle of our interactions with nature
Introduction and other people. The human capacity to link signification (on our minds) and signal
(on our senses) is the reason we as a species reached some degree of control and power
over our environment. As Ferdinand de Saussure explained in his Course in General
Linguistics (1945): “Thought is like a nebula where nothing is necessarily demarcated.
There are no pre-established ideas, and nothing is distinct before the inception of
language.”
Spoken language is the most elemental way to communicate complex ideas and
thoughts, it goes beyond the possibilities of corporal or chemical languages. Spoken
messages acquire meaning when, within a linguistic community, agreements are made
on the distinguishable segments of a spoken chain and their meanings; these segments
only become distinct from one another because of the oppositions between them. Only
as these conditions are effectively met language exists.
The notion of language is a fundamental part of humanity’s cultural dimension,
it is a pillar of identity and evidence for different visions and social structures in
groups and peoples from all around the world. Even though the topic of the influence
of language in perception and cognition is controversial —and the invalidity of many

part i : one script , many languages

theories related to linguistic determinism has been demonstrated—, the reflexion of
knowing many languages as a path to understanding the world from many perspec-
tives is recurrent: “To have another language is to posses a second soul.” (Attributed to
Charlemagne)
As time went by, spoken language could not maintain the pace of the growing need
to record property or transactions. Writing was the perfect solution for some civiliza-
tions, while others developed different means for recording or based their society and

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culture on oral tradition. However, none of those alternative systems had the same
impact on the development of civilization as writing did.
From the point of view of classic Linguistics, writing is a simple tool at the service
of language, a mere representation whose study is far removed from any linguistic
consideration. Nevertheless, writing can be understood from other semiotic perspec-
tives as a communicative action with intrinsic value. In his book Signs of Writing (1999),
Roy Harris proposes an approximation to the study of writing with integrational semi-
otics, which evaluates the communicational scope of writing and its function as a sign.
According to Harris’ point of view, human communication should not be under-
stood as a closed circuit, isolated from its contextual conditions. Communication then
consists of “the contextualized integration of human activities through signs” (Harris,
1999). Writing is then a phenomenon that occurs depending on biomechanical, macro-
social and circumstantial restrictions (Harris, 1999). Said restrictions allow for a com-
prehension of writing that takes on account its individual signs and the systems they
form.
These postulates affirm that even though writing signs can be interpreted with
the help of traditional semiotic theories —as representations that mean one thing or

part i : one script , many languages

the other in accordance with the oppositions that exists between them—, they cannot
be grasped if they are separated from the context of their production, and they do not
exist outside of the communicational situation that originates them (Harris, 1999). Like-
wise, writing systems use writing signs within their own communicational context.
Signs are never isolated and their function or manifestation depends on the situation
in which they are placed.
Such perspectives are not surprising when interpreted as a graphic designer or
visual communicator. Through our education we become thoroughly aware of the

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importance of content, environment, use and users of any artifact for its development
process. Regarding writing and typography, Sue Walker analyzes how context and
prescription have an influence on people’s written communication practices, pointing
out how production varies in accordance with genres or the sort of document being
written.
In her text Typography and Language in Everyday Life, Walker quotes Baron: “…
the characteristics of written language are always shaped by social, economic, educa-
tional, legal, religious or technological variables at work in a given society, on a giv-
en language, at a given time.” (Walker, 2014). This position makes it possible to think
about writing and typography in the terms mentioned by Barin, beyond technique and
history.
The objective of the following study will be to establish relations between lan-
guage and typography —taken as the design of letterforms and characters—, recogniz-
ing that both topics are initially linked as one is the visual representation of the other;
in Robert Bringhurst’s words: “writing is the solid form of language, the precipitate
[...] writing is language displaced from the mode of immediate gesture or speech to the
mode of the memento.” (Bringhurst, 2004). Such connections will be made in accor-

part i : one script , many languages

dance with the conditions the Latin script offers and do not pretend to be extrapolated
to the analysis of other writing systems.

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 Since language is one of the most important influences in the production of written
Precedents language and typography can be interpreted as an extension of writing —which helps
it become easily reproducible—, it is possible to question the role of language in
typographic production. The influence of language in type design has been approached
from both theoretical and practical efforts, yet the visual characterization of different
languages and its application are still relatively unexplored fields.
This matter has been referred to from its more superficial layer, meaning the
analysis and classification of multiple writing systems depending on whether they are
ideographic, syllabic or alphabetic, which of course evidences a noticeable difference
between visual features. Said interpretations is useful because in our current global-
ized context typography should integrate quite dissimilar writing systems like Latin
and Chinese or Cyrillic and Greek; in such cases designers must be aware of the writing
system’s cultural and linguistic conditions. (Balius, 2013; Březina, 2012)
Starting from the graphic differentiation of very dissimilar writing systems is a
great first step to connect typography and language. However, what happens when
a single alphabet is used in different contexts that involve different languages? Is it
possible to analyze languages from the perspective of their writing? The Latin script

part i : one script , many languages

fosters the conditions to look for these answers, as it is used to represent a wide vari-
ety of languages all around the world.
Robert Bringhurst’s pledge in favor of the acknowledgment of each culture’s ty-
pographic nuances and against “typographic racism and ethnocentrism” (Bringhurst,
2004) is fairly well known. Amid his recommendations for typeface picking, he sug-
gests that designers take on account historical, cultural and national criteria to obtain
better results. He also points out the influence of social and political matters in the

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 appearance of different people’s writings, even if they use the same alphabet. (Bring-
hurst, 2004)
The idea that some typefaces work better than others to write in different lan-
guages has been entertained before; Sue Walker mentions the observations made by
Szanto and Crawford, which sustain that depending on variables such as letter pairs
and frequent characters, appropriate uses can be determined. Likewise, when a design
artifact is briefed for two or more languages, the use of typography can determine har-
monic visual structures and equality in hierarchy for both languages. (Walker, 2014)
Ladislas Mandel, quoted by LoCelso (2005) and Berning (2012), spoke on Écritures,
miroir des hommes et des sociétés (1998) about the alphabets that effectively mirrored
readers’ cultural identity —which includes their language— would be alphabets that
positively influenced the readability of texts; this means that the shape of letters
should be specifically picked or created appealing to said cultural identity in order to
connect with users and design more effective typefaces. Reinforcing this idea, Richard
Southall confirms on A survey of type design techniques before 1978 (1997) that lan-
guage definitively affects written composition. (Berning, 2012)
Methodologically, the most pertinent approximation to the verification of each

part i : one script , many languages

language’s visual characteristics is comparison. A notable use of this strategy was
made in 1997 by George Sadek and Maxim Zhukov in the book Typographia Polyglotta:
[1] One of the most noteworthy obsta- A comparative study in multilingual typesetting, which tried to expose the contrasts in
cles to obtain clear descriptions of the longitude and space of the same text —taken from the Declaration of Human Rights—
appearance of the languages written
in 22 languages. Each text was evaluated and judged by the authors, who curiously
with the Latin script is the use of mostly
subjective terms, which complicates the came to the conclusion of Italian being the language with the most pleasant looks. [1]
making of design decisions. . (Berning, 2012)

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 In her study Language-specific Type Design, Bianca Berning obtained a primary
description of the graphic appearance of several European languages in the form of
profiles. Her study was based on data obtained through comparison and scrutiny of
a corpus conformed by journalistic texts and the Declaration of Human Rights in 27
languages; the information obtained by this dissertation provides valuable input about
letter frequency, word length, capital and diacritic frequency, etcetera. Berning was
able to reach judgments about the looks of each language, which are nevertheless not
conclusive in her opinion.
The last years of typographic theory have certainly seen an interest in the rela-
tionship between writing and language, going in hand with the search for a greater
comprehension of what makes texts legible and the understanding of typography as
a discipline that is tied to culture and its diverse expressions. However, the field still
has not been explored in depth and is thus susceptible to be researched and applied in
several areas of design such as the shape of letters or text composition.

part i : one script , many languages

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 Twenty-six different letters comprise the base of the Latin script, they are used
Framework along with their corresponding variations by close to the 70% of the world’s literate
population in areas such as the Americas, West Europe, Oceania, Sub-Saharan Africa
One script, and a part of Asia. This wide distribution implies that even if the same set of signs is

different languages being used to write, the linguistic conditions vary from nation to nation.
Emilia Ferreiro, educator and researcher, believes that in order to understand the
fundamental workings of written language, the acquiring of writing capabilities by
children must be studied first. In her many experiments she has found that, for exam-
ple, when children are shown texts in different languages such as Spanish, Italian and
Arabic, they are able to perceive graphic differences among them. Ferreira has been
able to point out that “a writing system is more than a group of graphemes [...] the same
letters, combined in different ways, define different kinds of writing” (Ferreiro, 2013) .
According to such reasonings, the Latin writing systems diverts into hundreds of
subsystems that display varied ways of composing the same base character set —along
with some additions or modifications in each case—. As we’ve seen before, this particu-
larity has been considered many times in the past, however, which graphic criteria can
be used to describe the features of every language?

part i : one script , many languages

For her master’s degree dissertation, Bianca Berning intended to find compro-
mises between the visual differences found in the writing of 27 European languages,
only to come to the opposite conclusion: the peculiarities of each language deserve
to be defended and preserved (Berning, 2012). The features of each writing subsystem
happen, according to Berning, in terms of letter pairs and interaction, the total length
of paragraphs and words, and the effect of diacritic marks in the general appearance of
every text.

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The Latin script’s flexibility
A key reason for the possibility to represent so many languages with the Latin
script is the relative ease it has to integrate the use of all kinds of diacritic signs, which
modify a single letter or glyph to denote a wide array of sounds. Even when he ana-
lyzed written language, Ferdinand de Saussure warned that “a single alphabet applied
to every language would be in danger of being obstructed with diacritic marks” (Sau-
ssure, 1995); diacritics are thought today to complicate and break with the harmony of
written texts, nothing that cannot be solved from the discipline of typographic design.
To think of a writing system without diacritics —a system with phonetic corre-
spondence between a sign for every humanly possible sound— is quite hard because
of technological reasons. This situation is made evident for example in the challenges
that the creation of writing systems for indigenous languages pose; with the objective
of achieving a better comprehension of this design problem, Rafael Dietzsch inquired
into the limitations for creating new letterforms and found that the proposal of new
signs of writing is subordinated to the Unicode system.
Victor Gaultney compiled an overview (2002) of the diacritic marks included on the
Unicode catalog and an analysis of the variables that make up for good diacritic de-

part i : one script , many languages

sign. Said field of typographic design is affected by technical, economical and cultural
factors such as the position of the marks and their appropriate combination with each
glyph, the actual market demand for this kind of typefaces, and the time investment
needed to take all the factors into consideration.

Typographic rhythm
The particular graphic features of different languages can be described based on
the concept of rhythm, since writing produces textures spontaneously because of its

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 visual creation process; these textures are the result of inking letterforms after let-
terforms and words after words to compose a written message. Rhythm also permits
the description of the relationships between blacks and whites, elements which are of
great importance for typeface design.
It has also been proposed that rhythm is a point of connection for spoken languag-
es and their written counterparts: just as language influences the rhythms of spoken
words, it also affects written words. Alejandro LoCelso affirms:

“The concept of rhythm in typography does not only touch on visual shapes (as it could be
primarily understood) but also on the features of language.

[...]

Distinctive characters, certain concatenations of letters, frequency of vowels in relation to

consonants, different use of diacritic and prosodic marks, frequent word features such as
suffixes, prefixes and endings, are all orthographic elements that visually express distinc-
tiveness of each language’s pattern.” (LoCelso, 2005)

[2] Additionally, Bringhurst recognizes

the influence of language in sayd fea- According to Robert Bringhurst, the typographer’s objective when working with
tures: “Language has some effect on the

part i : one script , many languages

texts and paragraphs —right after legibility— is to obtain an “uniformity of color”,
word space as well. In highly inflected
languages, such as Latin, most word which depends on the “design of the letterform, the spacing between letters, the
boundaries are marked by grammatical spacing between words and the spacing between lines” (Bringhurst, 2004) [2] ; said uni-
tags, and a smaller space is therefore
formity of color might as well be understood as rhythm uniformity. Reflecting on the
sufficient. In English and other uninflect-
ed languages, good word spacing makes typographic texture variations when they depend on language is important to define
the difference between a line that has the linguistic criteria that can be used to design typography.
to be deciphered and a line that can be
efficiently read.” (Bringhurst, 2004)

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 With the objective of going in depth into Berning’s findings, a systematic charac-
The Latin script’s terization of the rhythm and visual elements of every subsystem of the Latin script

visual elements is proposed; it is based on the conclusions reached in Language-specific type design
along with new categories. An objective and verifiable description of every language’s
rhythm can be made in terms of the following parameters: character strokes, con-
struction axes, and the amount of paragraph whites.

Strokes define text patterns

A modular analysis of the Latin script’s glyphs shows that they are constructed based
on a group of strokes that are repeated, reflected and rotated in different combina-
tions, giving shape to each letter [fig. 1] . From the smallest level, these strokes influ-
ence the text’s general appearance and rhythm through the repetition and pattern
interactions that appear between them.
The starting point to reach an effective stroke classification that allows a descrip-
tion of written languages was a comparison between the glyphs of seven typographic
families, chosen because they are representative from a type classification perspec-
tive because of their calligraphic influence or the historical circumstances in which

part i : one script , many languages

they were designed [fig. 2] . The used typefaces are, respectively, Garamond (oldstyle),
Baskerville (transitional), Bodoni (modern), Rockwell (slab serif), Helvetica (grotesque),
Futura (geometric), and Gill Sans (humanistic).
From this comparison, it can be said that the strokes are generally consistent
through all of the typefaces, no matter their historical period or their kind of contrast.
fig. 1:Some of the Latin alphabet’s building modules It is naturally necessary to highlight anomalies since the shapes that lie outside of the
as seen in broad pen calligraphy. norm represent obstacles to achieve a general and descriptive model for stroke shapes.

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 Alternate versions of a single letter found across different typefaces are related to
stylistic decisions about which shape fits the typographic model better. This is why in
sans serif fonts, particularly Futura and because of its geometric personality, particular
constructions can be seen in glyphs such as “a”, “g” and “j” [fig. 3] .
However, within the corpus produced by this comparative process, the alternate
figure for “j” does not justify an alternative description because its overall shape does
not change as significantly as the others. The alternate figures for “a” and “g” must be
pointed and differentiated as they already are in many typeface’s extended character
fig. 2: Comparison of lowercase letters in several typefaces. sets.

Icelandic & German

To write in the Icelandic language, two extra special characters are required, «ð»
(dyet) y «Þ» (thorn); their use certainly adds a special look to texts composed in said
language because their frequency is high enough. In German, beside the usual 26 char-
acters —although not very frequently and only in lowercase— the letter “ß” (eszett)
is used. To analyze the Latin alphabet’s strokes it is necessary to include them in the
fig. 3: Alternate figures for “a”, “g” y “j”. glyph inventory.

part i : one script , many languages

fig. 4: Icelandic’s additional glyphs.

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 Stroke Classification
In order to settle the stroke systematization, the following table connects every lowercase and upper-
case character with the categories of round stroke, curve stroke, arched stroke, inverted arch stroke,
horizontal stroke, vertical stroke and diagonal stroke:

Inv. Arch

Inv. Arch

Inv. Arch
Diagonal

Diagonal

Diagonal
Vertical

Vertical

Vertical
Round

Round

Round
Horiz.

Horiz.

Horiz.
Curve

Curve

Curve
Arch

Arch

Arch
a 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 u 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 K 0 0 0 0 0 1 2

b 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 v 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 L 0 0 0 0 1 1 0

c 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 w 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 M 0 0 0 0 0 2 2

d 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 x 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 N 0 0 0 0 0 2 1

e 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 y 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 O 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

f 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 z 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 P 1 0 0 0 0 1 0

g* 1 0 2 0 1 0 0 ð 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 Q 1 0 0 0 0 0 1

h 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 Þ 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 R 0 0 1 0 2 1 1

i 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 ß 2 0 1 0 0 1 0 S 1 0 0 0 0 0 1

j 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 T 0 0 0 0 1 1 0
A 0 0 0 0 1 0 2
k 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 U 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
B 2 0 0 0 0 1 0
l 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 V 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
C 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
m 0 2 0 0 0 1 0 W 0 0 0 0 0 0 4
D 1 0 0 0 0 1 0
n 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 X 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
E 0 0 0 0 3 1 0 Y 0 0 0 0 0 1 2

part i : one script , many languages

o 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
F 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 Z 0 0 0 0 2 0 1
p 1 0 0 0 0 1 0

q 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 G 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 Ð 1 0 0 0 1 1 0

r 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 H 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 Þ 1 0 0 0 0 1 0

s 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 I 0 0 0 0 0 1 0

t 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 J 0 0 1 0 0 1 0

* particularly, «g» owns an ending stroke so variable that it can be curved, round or absent altogether.

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 The matrix makes evident that there are some letters which contain a single or ho-
mogeneous type of strokes. However this raises the question of how to analyze those
letters with a mixed nature comprised of two (or more) types of stroke; the most com-
mon combination is a vertical stroke combined with another different one. A possible
answer is that a single letter affects rhythm in various ways, however for this study, a
more simplified approach will be sought after.
A second possibility is understanding some strokes as secondary to others under
the criteria of the area occupied by each of them and their counter shapes. An import-
ant consideration for this process is to take the effective reading area as everything
that fits between the baseline and the x-height, whichever strokes are in this area will
fig. 5:  Particularities of “s” be the most representative. Thus, the following analysis can be made for some mixed
stroke glyphs.
From this exercise can be concluded that arched and diagonal strokes will always
be dominant by reason of the area they occupy with their big counter shapes. Likewise
straight strokes, both horizontal and vertical, tend to be subordinated as they occu-
Curved Strokes Straight Strokes py a smaller space that demarcates the counter shapes generated by less orthogonal
Round:
c, e, g, o, b, d, p, q, s, ð, B, C, D, G, O,
Vertical: strokes. The letter “s” is a very special case, its round and diagonal strokes share equal
i, j, l, f, I, J

part i : one script , many languages

P, Q, R, S, Ð, Þ
Diagonal:
notoriety in the construction of the whole letter. It is then a completely mixed glyph,
Arch:
k, v, s, w, x, y, z, A, K, M, N, V, S,
a, h, m, n, r
W, X, Y which definitely impacts written textures both ways simultaneously.
Inverted Arch: Horizontal:
t, u, U E, F, H, L, T
With the help of the data obtained on this study, in conjunction with letter fre-
quency and direct observation of texts, it is possible to determine morphological pat-
fig. 6: Letter classification according to their most notorious terns that help describe a language’s rhythm. This patterns can point to the predom-
strokes and their influence in text rhythm. inance of a single kind of stroke over the rest when certain letters are more frequent
than others, contributing particular qualities to the typographic texture of each case.

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 part i : one script , many languages
fig. 4: Stroke proportion in some mixed nature letters.

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 Construction axes and deviations from the x-height
For rhythm to exist there must be difference. An uniform rhythm does not impli-
cate similar or equal shapes but shapes that work both in harmony and opposition with
fig. 7: Vertical axes. each other. Luckily for us readers, the Latin script is constructed on three main axes
—x-height, ascenders, and descenders—, which generate enough contrasts to differen-
tiate shapes more easily, making the reading process efficient enough.
In addition to those three axes, exclusive to lowercase letters, the reading process
is impacted both by the height axis of uppercase letters —recognized as uppercase
fig. 8: Diacritical axes. (Gaultney, 2002) letter frequency in Berning’s (2011) study— and three diacritical mark axes —recognized
by Victor Gaultney (2002) as one of the main problems of extended Latin character set
design—. Another path to the description of each language’s rhythm is understanding
in which measure its characters deviate from the constant x-height.
Lowercase letters in the standard Latin script mostly possess either an ascender or
a descender, never both at the same time [3] . This feature permits a simple classifica-
fig. 9: Anomalous behavior of “t”. tion that is only restrained by scarce anomalies; for example, “t”’s stem usually over-
passes the x-height but does not reach the ascender axis in a very noticeable manner.
Ascenders Descenders All characters in the Latin alphabet occupy the space between the baseline and the

part i : one script , many languages

b, d, *f, h, k, l *f, g, j, p, q, y x-height, so the only relevant letters —as seen in the following table— in this part of
fig. 10: Letter groups according to their construction axes. the analysis are those that overpass these axes and reach the others. Diacritical marks
are mostly outside of said space as well —excluding a few transversal signs— and affect
reading rhythms in ways so diverse (Gaultney, 2002), that must be taken on account to
[3] The exception to the rule is “f”. analyze the texture of each language.
Depending on creative choices and the
typeface’s construction (cursive or
roman), its stem can reach the descender
axis.

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 Whitespace: in between shapes, letters and lines
Letterforms’ solid ink shapes are inseparable from the substrate that holds them.
Contrast and tensions between ink and whites —and the rhythm of texture that inevi-
tably originates from them— are some of typography’s most important elements. From
the design of a single glyph, to the interaction between empty spaces and paragraphs
in a page, negative space guides the reader, gives them time to breathe and shapes the
fig. 10: Effect of the glyph “ ‘ “ on a Wounaan language text. general reading rhythm.
In accordance with Berning (2011) and her language profiles, average word length
differentiates significantly some European languages from the others. The most per-
ceptible effect of shorter word length is the apparition of more spaces between words,
which creates the illusion of a ‘looser’ text and a lighter paragraph gray; the opposite is
also true, when words are longer, the texture compacts and acquires a more solid look.
Along with the average word length, the text white amount can be understood
thanks to the frequency of characters such as “ ‘ “ (apostrophe) and “-” (hyphen). Those
characters work as orthographic markers and diacritical marks, even; they are partic-
ular because of the interruptions they generate in the middle of the text line due to
fig. 11: Czech text. This language is characterized for a high their morphology and placement, which makes them occupy space horizontally rather

part i : one script , many languages

frequency of upper diacritical marks.
than vertically.
When talking about the space between lines, the amount of superior or inferior di-
acritical marks has a great impact in the perception of the paragraphs’ tone. In a similar
way to the effect of long words, a higher amount of diacritics in said axes will suggest
a thicker and darker texture caused by a saturation in the leading. This phenomenon is
specifically important regarding the improvement of legibility since whites between
lines affect readers’ performance.

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 The definition of three fundamental parameters to describe typographic rhythm
(character strokes, construction axes, whitespace) paves the way to studying the spe-
cific case of each Latin script subsystem. However, such a study would be quite ambi-
tious taking on account the huge variety of languages in the world, the wide distribu-
tion of the Latin alphabet, and phenomena such as the romanization of languages that
would be otherwise written with other systems.
For that reason, and with the goal of digging deeper into typographic design deci-
sions rather than the description of each language, a reduced language corpus will be
analyzed. This is necessary to establish comparison points that sustain said design deci-
sions that lead to the creation of a high quality typeface in terms of aesthetics, concept,
and use.

part i : one script , many languages

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Graphic profiles for To create a comparable profile group, ten European languages that use the Latin alpha-

the Latin script’s bet were chosen. The analyzed data was extracted from Bianca Berning’s dissertation

subsystems
Language-specific type design; the categories used from her corpus were letter fre-
quency and average word length. The languages were chosen because of the subjective
cultural relevance they have to the author, their geographical distribution, and the
linguistic families to which they belong.

Intuition and expectation management

At the start of this study, it was inevitable to make judgments from the first visual
impressions the texts gave, even more as they became more foreign; the contrasts
between languages that seemed to have straighter or curvier strokes than others was
basically undeniable on first sight, without asserting that it was completely evident in
each case. As a tool to visualize this first impressions in a more straightforward way, a
color was assigned to each stroke shape; punctuation marks, numerals, etc, were sub-
tracted from the corpus to complete this task.

Comparative analysis

part i : one script , many languages

Based on the obtained data from all languages, each of the formerly discussed graphic
criteria was analyzed. Afterwards and though the use of statistic tools, the following
conclusions and descriptions were reached. Data and its treatment can be found at goo.
gl/nM6EyJ
In order to establish a trusty reference for this comparison, the frequency of
strokes, frequency of axes and word length was contrasted between all languages.
It is very important to highlight that the characterization of every language is given
relative to its standing in every scale among the others, it doesn’t depend on absolute
minimum or maximum values.
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Spanish
The Spanish language belongs to the romance family. It is the first on the list be-
cause, being the author’s native language, it is possible to talk about it with a certain
authority given by the intuitive knowledge of its internal workings. Moreover, with
the objective of designing a typeface based on Spanish’s visual features, it must be es-
tablished as a reference point for the rest of the study.
Even though on first sight Spanish can look ordinary graphically speaking, it stands
out because of its frequency of round strokes, highest than the rest of analyzed lan-
guages. This trend is reinforced by its internal composition: in the studied Spanish
texts, round strokes are more prevalent than any other, 17% more than the following
kind of stroke.
Spanish also stands out for being the language with the least variation in two
senses: as it was said before, its strokes are mostly distributed towards round and
arched strokes; and regarding its construction, 70% of the characters in the corpus do
not reach upper or lower axes. These particularities, along with the fact that it is the

part i : one script , many languages

language with the second shortest average word length, make Spanish a language with
a monotonous, light and round rhythm.

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Italian
Among the romance language family, Italian can also be found. In consequence of this
linguistic condition Italian could be expected to be similar looking to languages such
as Spanish, and in fact such similarities are evident from a superficial perspective:
data confirms that both languages share the high frequency of round strokes and
low variability in construction axes. Nevertheless a deeper examination suggests
substantial differences.
Inter-language comparison puts Italian in a important place regarding vertical
stroke frequency, and even when internally that frequency is not enough to overcome
round strokes, it is enough to give a differential character to the rhythm of written
Italian, which would then consist of a series of interactions between vertical and round
strokes. An additional difference with Spanish is the notably lower frequency of diago-
nal strokes.
Italian makes a particular pair with English since they are the only languages —
from the analyzed group— that use the special character “ ‘ “ in their orthographies. In

part i : one script , many languages

spite of being unique in this aspect, the frequency of that special character is not high
enough as to impact notoriously the written texture, while the low axis variability and
short word length are the aspects that make Italian look overall lighter.

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English
The English language’s most noteworthy feature is the total absence of diacritical
marks (not counting “i”’s dot). Additionally its frequency of uppercase letters is higher
than any other language excepting German (which has actually an abnormally range
frequency, as will be seen shortly); aside from these small quirks, English is a language
with a rather plain appearance.
English does not have a wide variety of strokes either; in a similar way to Spanish,
most of them are round or arched. Additionally it’s relatively high frequency of invert-
ed arch strokes when compared to other languages could be highlighted even if it’s not
so representative of English’s internal composition.
Regarding whitespace amount, the English language tends to be rather clean as it
has the shortest average word length, on top of its already mentioned lack of diacritic
marks.

part i : one script , many languages

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German
Regarding its strokes, German fits in the group of languages with least variety of
strokes: a high quantity of round and arched shapes with the influence here and there
of some diagonal and vertical strokes. German’s first difference with the aforemen-
tioned languages comes in the form of word length: it has a mostly average word
length —in opposition to the stereotype— which is still longer than those of Spanish,
Italian and English; this allows for longer texts and less spaces between words.
Uppercase characters are this language’s most distinctive feature. Because of the
German orthography, almost 6% of its characters are capitals, something unprece-
dented in regard with the rest of the texts found in the corpus; the high frequency of
uppercase letters in turn increases the frequency of horizontal strokes. Many German
typographers from the XX century recognized already the effect of legibility in their
texts and even advocated for orthographic reform with the objective of prioritizing
lowercase use once and for all (Berning, 2011). Said reforms would have been successful
as German, in its current state, is a language with few characters reaching ascender or

part i : one script , many languages

descender axes.
Generally speaking, German possesses a monotonous rhythm caused by its high
frequency of curves and arches, balanced regarding whites but quite variable on its
height construction axes because of uppercase frequency.

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Icelandic
Icelandic is a particular language whose high frequency of arched strokes stands out
both in its internal composition and in comparison with other languages. It is also the
language with the highest amount of characters outside of the reading zone (between
the baseline and the x-height), this is caused by the high frequency of ascenders and a
considerable amount of upper diacritics.
As “i” is the character that increases the frequency of upper diacritics, the “parallel
reading line” is not so prominent in this language; thus, with a medium-low average
word length, Icelandic demonstrates a balanced white space amount in relation with
the rest of the studied languages.

part i : one script , many languages

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Finnish
If it wasn’t for its very long word length, Finnish would be a language with a very
balanced appearance since it reaches the middle point in many of its features. It oc-
cupies a very high place in scales for “uncommon” strokes and low places in scales
for “common” strokes with regard to other languages. In fact, Finnish is the language
with the lowest dispersion of strokes, which evidences that it is the language with the
most varied internal stroke composition in the study; a particularity is that the Finnish
language’s inverted arch stroke frequency is very well higher than the average of the
remaining languages.
Proportion wise, the frequencies for ascenders, descenders and x-height characters
are situated in the middle points of their respective inter-language scales; the only
abnormality is a high frequency of upper diacritics that almost equals that of ascender
characters.
The already mentioned long average word length affects texts visibly, making
them seem longer than in other languages. This raises the consideration of perfor-

part i : one script , many languages

mance and efficiency for the typefaces used to compose texts in the Finnish language.

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Czech
Among Slavic languages, the first one to appear in this study is Czech. Its appearance is
intuitively —for a native Spanish speaker— a bit dense, and that makes it an appealing
language for analysis. Certainly its most remarkable feature is the high frequency and
variety of upper diacritic marks used to write in Czech; it has been affirmed by Berning
(2011) that said particularity gives the impression of another reading line, parallel to
the x height.
Behind Polish, Czech is the language with the highest frequency of diagonal
strokes, which generates notable oppositions and tensions with round and arched
strokes, creating a very particular texture. Despite a medium average word length
that should cause a lower amount of white space in lines, the Czech language’s high
variability in respect to the x-height makes it a language with a denser, less uniform
rhythm than the other studied languages.
.

part i : one script , many languages

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Polish
Probably one of the most peculiar languages in this study is the second member of
the Slavic family, Polish. Incomparably to any other language, its internal frequency
of diagonal characters reaches the second place; and even when they don’t reach the
first place they become quite dominant because of the area we have already seen they
occupy.
The angle opposition in between diagonal strokes make Polish a language with
a crooked as well as thick rhythm; this thickness is caused by its long average word
length and the use of lower and transversal diacritics in its writing, which tinge no-
toriously polish texts; besides, only Turkish shares the use of lower diacritics, while
no other language uses lower marks. Another particularity is the high frequency of
descenders, which is almost twice the inter-language average.

part i : one script , many languages

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Turkish
Even though they don’t belong to the same linguistic family —Uralic vs. Turkic—,
Finnish and Turkish behave in similar ways: a wide internal variety of strokes with a
higher frequency of diagonal and vertical strokes than other languages, a long average
word length, and balance regarding construction axes. The most outstanding differ-
ence comes in the form of arched strokes, which are not as prominent in Turkish as in
Finnish.
Along with Polish, Turkish is one of the two languages that use lower diacritic
marks. Regarding Turkish, their influence in the text’s white space is not so noticeable,
feature that makes the language balanced in this aspect.

part i : one script , many languages

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Hungarian
Hungarian is special among the languages written with the Latin script as it does not
belong in the same family as any of them. Similarly to Finnish and Turkish, one of its
features is its internal balance between stroke shakes, with the particularity of round
strokes becoming one again relevant in Hungarian.
Regarding inter-language scales, the Hungarian language occupies a high place in
ascender and descender frequency, as well as in the upper diacritical mark scale; this
shows that it is one of languages with most variations regarding construction axes. De-
scenders are however much less frequent than ascenders and diacritics in Hungarian’s
internal scales. These features, along with long words, give the impression of a dense
text.

part i : one script , many languages

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 From a graphic standpoint, this comparative study was able to confirm the textural
Concluding differences between each language of Latin script subsystem. These differences are

Remarks significant enough to be used as typographic design criteria. However, there weren’t
any semiological particularities to any writing subsystem beyond the initial consider-
ations, which stated that every linguistic context produces its own specific communi-
cational conditions.
Regarding the possibilities brought by this study, it is my opinion that the corpus
used —and taken from an external source— should be complemented or revised, so its
validity as research material is confirmed. I believe that other sources, such as hand-
written documents or spoken word transcriptions could be used to conform a new
corpus.
Finally, the resources and information acquired with this study favor the making
of typographic design decisions taking on account the visual characteristics of writ-
ten Spanish —high frequency of round strokes, light typographic texture, letterforms
inscribed within the x-height—, with the help of legibility and use criteria.

part i : one script , many languages

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Part II:
Granada
 Spanish is an international language, in fact it is the second most spoken language
Introduction in the world. It was brought into America in the times of Christopher Columbus, im-
posed and mixed with hundreds of indigenous languages by force, as it had happened
before with moors in Andalusia. Through the centuries, Spanish spelling has changed
much more that the signs used to write it.
A lot has been said about the most emblematic Spanish letters, being “n” the most
popular and “ch” a Latin American favorite; the so-called silent “h” and letter pairs
such as “gu” and “ll” are highlighted too in literature such as Fernández, 2004. However,
as discovered in Part I, the graphic features of Spanish go beyond a group of represen-
tative letters; if those features were to be used in the design of a typeface, then the
decisions could influence more the shape of its letterforms.
In my opinion, a suitable field to test hypothesis about language and typography
is —arguably— print literature. Books’ reading and production conditions offer specif-
ic design criteria, which go hand in hand with the visual features of written Spanish.
The challenge appears to be then, how to capitalize on common points and how to find
typographical compromises on discrepancies?
To sum Part I up: Spanish has in general a flat and monotonous appearance, both
because of its excess of round strokes and its low frequency of ascenders and descend-
ers. According to the findings about legibility reached by Ann Bessemans (2013), a very
legible typeface must be based on the principles of rhythm homogeneity and shape
heterogeneity; the first principle matches the low ascender and descender frequency

part ii : gr anada
in Spanish.
On the other side, Spanish has a considerably high frequency of round strokes,
which negatively affects its shape heterogeneity and by extension its legibility. Said
conditions bring me to the proposal of a typeface that, in addition to a higher x-height

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on account of the lack of ascenders and descenders, shows a wider range of strokes
“counteracting” the excess of round patterns through angular shapes. This is the basis
to start describing Granada’s design process.

part ii : gr anada
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 Besides the findings made in the conceptual and theoretical fields of typography about
Precedents its relationship with language, there have been many past instances in the practical
field of typeface design where designers created letterforms related to the conditions
of a specific language or its cultural identity. The following cases are historical high-
lights in which said reasoning took place.

Fraktur vs. objectivity

Germany is one of the territories where the discussion about the role of type and
writing in national identity and culture has been more prominent; this comes as no
surprise as Germany was the birthplace of western printing and its political and his-
torical conditions are considered. Fraktur writing makes this phenomenon evident as
it marked religious differences between the protestant bible of the traditional German
regions, and the catholic bible of the rest of Europe. (Bain & Shaw, 1998)
At the start of the XX century, German typographers such as Paul Renner and Jan
Tschichold started looking for typographical neutrality and objectivity; they found
ways to reach this ideal through the design of alphabets that directly represented the
sounds of speaking, the elimination of uppercase letters —along with an orthographic
reform for the German language— and the design of grotesque letterforms as opposed
fig. 12: Fraktur -set text to the nationalist fraktur style (Bain & Shaw, 1998). However, as Nazism ascended to
power, the fraktur style reasserted itself as the ‘official’ German writing as seen on its
uses in schoolbooks, political texts and newspapers.

Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj

part ii : gr anada
Despite fraktur still occupying a place in collective imagination as the archetype of

Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss German letters, it was removed in 1941 from its predominant role in German graphic

Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz design since “the future world power [Germany] had to adapt to ‘world typography’
fig. 13: Futura, by Paul Renner (roman) in order to exert its power” (Bain & Shaw, 1998). The variability of the German

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 political positions regarding type exemplify clearly the importance of writing in mat-
ters of national and cultural identity.

Rafael, Juan, Adam & Oldřich

As shown in Part I, diacritical marks decisively influence the rhythm and appear-
ance of languages written with the Latin script. Many type design projects have taken
on the challenge of representing diacritic heavy languages for which existing typefac-
es are insufficient; curiously, this has been the case for both south American indige-
fig. 14: Diacritical mark design by Oldřich Menhart nous languages —as seen in Brasílica by Rafael Dietszch and Jeroky by Juan Heilborn—
and eastern European languages —exemplified by Oldřich Menhart’s calligraphic and
typographic works and Adam Półtawski’s Półtawski-Antiqua—.
In America and as he designed Brasílica, Dietszch recognized the origin of the
diacritical marks used to represent indigenous languages on mechanography while
noticing the difficulties that the Unicode system poses in the design of new glyphs (Di-
etzsch). Separately, Heilborn intended Jeroky to be a typeface that suited the commu-
nication needs of the bilingual (Spanish-Guarani) Paraguayan society, he even thought
of ligatures that could be replicated on handwritten media such as white boards in
classrooms and textbooks (Heilborn, 2004).
fig. 15: Brasílica, by Rafael Dietszch In Europe, Półtawski became one of the greatest polish graphic designers (Sural,
2015); his legacy can be found on his typeface Półtawski-Antiqua, which has a very
particular shape language that could even be related to the ‘angular’ rhythm of written
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj

part ii : gr anada
polish. Menhart —a singles designer representing a whole Czech typography tradition
Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss (Burian, 2013)— devised an alphabet which integrated diacritic marks heavily with the
Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz rest of the glyph.
fig. 16: Półtawski-Antiqua digital revival

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 A special writing system for the Spanish language
One of Ruben Fontana’s most distinctive intentions when creating the Fontana
ND typeface was to design an alphabet thinking of signs that “originated from the
knowledge of the Spanish language used in Argentina” and “interpreted our sounds,
customs and cultural habits” (Fontana, 2001) through the identification of particular
orthographic situations such as accentuation, letter pairs such as “ch” and “qu”, and the
higher frequency of lowercase characters. Fontana also reflected on the typographic
families used to compose texts in Spanish: “The fonts we use in Spanish speaking coun-
tries were, in general, designed by German, Swiss, French, British, American, Dutch or
Italian people.” (Fontana, 2001)

The final product was a typeface in which there is special attention to details such
as ligatures that reflect some of Spanish’s features, even when it is arguable that
its shapes are clearly related to the language. Probably the most interesting legacy
are Fontana’s thought on the matter and their application on the design of an actual
typeface.

part ii : gr anada
fig. 17: Fontana ND by Rubén Fontana

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Oct. 7

Enough chit-chat.
Let’s design!

Nov. 8
 The first phase in Granada’s design consisted in the refining of the drawn shapes with
Challenge i : the objective of bringing them closer to the desired print texture. At this moment, the
clearest expectation was to find a texture that dynamized shapes through the tension
Devising a between round and angular strokes. This idea was reinforced by the designs and devel-

shape system opments of William Addisson Dwiggins:

part ii : gr anada
“I note that straight-line forms and shapes of geometric curves properly put together
achieve more effect of grace and curve and motion than do combinations of free flowing
curves and shapes”

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 Afterwards, when the typeface’s fundamental structure was more or less defined
Challenge ii : —if I learned anything about typography it was that everything is subject to constant
changes, but one must know when to settle—, many inconsistencies were found on
Obtaining details such as serifs, stroke endings, and contrasts, which affected negatively the

coherence performance of the letterforms on print media. Coming to conclusions in this matter

in detail
paved the way for the expansion of the character set, Granada’s ‘DNA’ was ready to be

part ii : gr anada
extrapolated into more unique, less modular glyphs such as “f” or “r”.

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 There comes a time when shapes start to demand sophistication. Straight serifs
Challenge iii : stop being appropriate for the little details that bring a typeface to life, and one must
start thinking about an actual functioning alphabet for Spanish, which comprises
Finding the necessary diacritic marks and punctuation signs, this job is not about only letter

compromises anymore.

between
Uppercase letters, with their alien-like structure to lowercase letters, need to be

part ii : gr anada
related to them, a task that involves a lot of thought and reflection. This instance is

shapes and the least developed for Granada, and for that reason the final product presented in this

details document does not involve such high levels of refinement. There is still a lot of work
to do.

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Granada Regular · 122pt
Granada is a typeface designed for use in long printed texts such
as the ones found in literature books. It is constructed with a tall
x-height at the expense of ascender and descender length. This
feature is related to the construction axes that give texture and
rhythm to the Spanish language and are equally beneficial to reading
typefaces.

This typeface stands out thanks to its system of angular —not

pointy— shapes, which strive to diversify strokes in order to pro-
duce less monotonous textures when many rounded strokes come
together. The natural consequence of such shapes are ending strokes

part ii : gr anada
with a lot of personality. The low and translational contrast evokes
the organic shapes produced by broad nib pens with the objective of
favouring legibility.

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 en un lugar de la mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los
de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor. una olla de algo más vaca que carnero, salpicón
Granada Regular las más noches, duelos y quebrantos los sábados, lentejas los viernes, algún palomino de añadidura los domingos,
9/13 consumían las tres partes de su hacienda. el resto della concluían sayo de velarte, calzas de velludo para las fiestas
con sus pantuflos de lo mismo, los días de entre semana se honraba con su vellori de lo más fino. tenía en su casa
una ama que pasaba de los cuarenta, y una sobrina que no llegaba a los veinte, y un mozo de campo y plaza, que
así ensillaba el rocín como tomaba la podadera. frisaba la edad de nuestro hidalgo con los cincuenta años, era de
complexión recia, seco de carnes, enjuto de rostro gran madrugador y amigo de la caza. quieren decir que tenía el
sobrenombre de quijada o quesada que en esto hay alguna diferencia en los autores que deste caso escriben, aunque
por conjeturas verosímiles se deja entender que se llama quijana pero esto importa poco a nuestro cuento basta que

en un lugar de la mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un
Granada Regular hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor. una olla de algo más
10/15 vaca que carnero, salpicón las más noches, duelos y quebrantos los sábados, lentejas los viernes, algún
palomino de añadidura los domingos, consumían las tres partes de su hacienda. el resto della concluían
sayo de velarte, calzas de velludo para las fiestas con sus pantuflos de lo mismo, los días de entre
semana se honraba con su vellori de lo más fino. tenía en su casa una ama que pasaba de los cuarenta,
y una sobrina que no llegaba a los veinte, y un mozo de campo y plaza, que así ensillaba el rocín como
tomaba la podadera. frisaba la edad de nuestro hidalgo con los cincuenta años, era de complexión recia,
seco de carnes, enjuto de rostro gran madrugador y amigo de la caza. quieren decir que tenía el

en un lugar de la mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo

Granada Regular que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo
12/18 corredor. una olla de algo más vaca que carnero, salpicón las más noches, duelos
y quebrantos los sábados, lentejas los viernes, algún palomino de añadidura los

part ii : gr anada
domingos, consumían las tres partes de su hacienda. el resto della concluían sayo de
velarte, calzas de velludo para las fiestas con sus pantuflos de lo mismo, los días de
entre semana se honraba con su vellori de lo más fino. tenía en su casa una ama que
pasaba de los cuarenta, y una sobrina que no llegaba a los veinte, y un mozo de campo

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 josé Arcadio buendía, sin entender, extendió la mano hacia
el témpano, pero el gigante se la apartó. cinco reales más para
tocarlo, dijo. josé arcadio buendía. Los pagó, y entonces puso la
mano sobre el hielo, y la mantuvo puesta por varios minutos,
mientras el corazón se le hinchaba de temor y de júbilo al
contacto del misterio. sin saber qué decir, pagó otros diez
reales para que sus hijos vivieran la prodigiosa experiencia. el
pequeño josé arcadio se negó a tocarlo. aureliano, en cambio,
dio un paso hacia adelante, puso la mano y la retiró en el
acto. está hirviendo, exclamó asustado. pero su padre no le
prestó atención. embriagado por la evidencia del prodigio, en
segundo capítulo
aquel momento se olvidó de la frustración de sus empresas
Cuando el pirata Francis drake asaltó a riohacha, en el siglo xvi,
delirantes y del cuerpo de melquíades abandonado al apetito
la bisabuela de úrsula Iguarán se asustó tanto con el toque de
de los calamares. pagó otros cinco reales, y con la mano puesta
rebato y el estampido de los cañones, que perdió el control de
en el témpano, como expresando un testimonio sobre el texto
los nervios y se sentó en un fogón encendido. Las quemaduras
sagrado, exclamó:
la dejaron convertida en una esposa inútil para toda la vida.
—Este es el gran invento de nuestro tiempo.
No podía sentarse sino de medio lado, acomodada en cojines,
y algo extraño debió quedarle en el modo de andar, porque
nunca volvió a caminar en público. renunció a toda clase de
hábitos sociales obsesionada por la idea de que su cuerpo
despedía un olor a chamusquina. El alba la sorprendía en el
patio sin atreverse a dormir, porque soñaba que los ingleses
con sus feroces perros de asalto se metían por la ventana
del dormitorio y la sometían a vergonzosos tormentos con
hierros al rojo vivo. su marido, un comerciante aragonés con
quien tenía dos hijos, se gastó media tienda en medicinas y
entretenimientos buscando la manera de aliviar sus terrores.
por último liquidó el negocio y llevó la familia a vivir lejos del
mar, en una ranchería de indios pacíficos situada en las

VI VII
 The first reflection that remains from Granada’s design process is that typographic
Conclusiones design is an extremely complex discipline, in which image creation can be sustained
by indagation, research and argumentation. A process like this not only guarantees a
minimum quality standard for the fonts created —when they are finished— but is also
in my view necessary to compete in a field which asks itself constantly whether new
designs are necessary. More concretely, it is quite satisfying to assert that the initial
objective of designing type using language as criteria was reached.
Language became an inspiration and a pretext to dive into many different facets of
the typographic shape such as stroke contrast or glyph proportions, not to mention the
shape itself. According to this experience, including linguistic criteria to my future de-
sign processes —as well as to the continuation of Granada’s design— is very well worth
the effort, since they encourage reflection and creativity.
Finally, besides extending Granada to be a typographic family which satisfies the
needs of long texts with more weights and different constructions such as small caps
and italics, I consider that it is necessary to corroborate if the shape system is actually
optimal for reading in Spanish. Also, I think that a discussion can be opened regarding
not only the “cultural suitability” of Granada, but of typefaces in general: Are there let-
ters that suit certain kinds of texts better than others? Maybe in further opportunities,
these questionings can be answered.

part ii : gr anada
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