Sherry Muyuan He In Latin-script typography, kerning is usually horizontal. In non-Latin scripts, kerning happens in multiple directions and sometimes non-linearly. “Kerning” in digital Latin type trains us to observe the “distance,” but in a few other scripts, the “connection” and the “transformation” are essential for finishing up the character set.
In Thai and Khmer, where vowels and other marks appear above and below consonants, vertical “kerning” is as essential. In Korean Hangeul, inside a character, the distance between each jamo (a consonant block or a vowel block) is a key feature of the stylistic choice of the typeface, along with common “stretching” of the jamo depending on its containing positional (choseong, jungseong, and jongseong). In Abugida scripts (such as Malayalam), two or three letters form a new glyph that may or may not resemble the separated letterforms. Other examples will be further explored visually through the talk.
The objective is to explain the interesting non-Latin typography elements to designers who do not have the time to master reading in these scripts; to start a holistic multi-scriptual discussion that decentralizes Latin type practices; to bring awareness of the current mis-display of under-represented languages (such as Khmer and Burmese).