Old Fashioned D As Found In Old Log Books

[Lunoxmos]

Interesting, I've been experimenting with putting those sorts of "d's" in my own handwriting.

(Yes, that is from a test I did at school.)

(Yes I used a dip pen for a school test)

Edited June 23, 2019 by Lunoxmos

[bobje]

The flourish is an interesting way of concluding words.

[artart]

it seems that Boris Johnson uses it too

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/foreign-affairs/brexit/news/106998/read-full-boris-johnsons-letter-setting-out-brexit

[txomsy]

Yep. You can trace it back at least to uncial wirting (in Roman times). If you look at writing books, specially those of the masters who engaged in showing and teaching several different scripts, like the Spanish masters, for instance, you would see that in many cases, along history, they'd show similar scripts with variations, such as e.g. a humanist script in both, slanted/elongated and vertical/round, with the typical d and the back-slanted-@-like d, all of them surviving and evolving through the ages.

 

I mention the Spanish masters because it seems Spain was sort of a federation of "kingdoms", and had a lot of exchange with Portugal, France and Italy. Thus, when you see their writing/copy books, you can see "the Castilian hand", "the Aragonian hand", "the French hand", "Italic Hand" and, in some of them, the "old style"(usually vertical and round, possibly because of the Visigothic Script???) and the "new style" (usually slanted). Yciar, De Lucas... typically show a lot of variations. Same happens to a similar degree in several Italian copybooks with regional and commercial hands, and, to a lesser extent in French copybooks (limited to much less variants, often financière and ronde).

 

BTW, the page on "Ronde script" on Wikipedia also shows very nice examples of this D.

 

I remember having seen PDFs of student class notes from Coimbra, UK, France... where you'd see -depending on the writer- each of the variants.

 

Incidentally, many insular scripts also had that D, specially in cursive (as "fast") writing. I also remember later medieval manuscripts where the 'a' would look like that d (well actually '@'-like with the flourish going over the previous letters.

 

I think what I want to say is that along the ages there has never been 'a script' at any time or location, but rather several coexisting variants and each choose his personal style according to preference, trade, ethnicity...

Edited October 4, 2019 by txomsy

[txomsy]

it seems that Boris Johnson uses it too

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/foreign-affairs/brexit/news/106998/read-full-boris-johnsons-letter-setting-out-brexit

I don't think it is the same, but rather a typical d, only the loops are wider. Mainly because he closes the loop.

 

This other one is more like a greek δ. Indeed, some times its ascender goes back and some times right (as in the δ).

 

Actually this leads me to ponder (but it would require a detailed study) if the origin of this D could not have been the educational background of the corresponding Latin writers, with typical Romans using the "standard" d, and those with higher education (who would typically have had a Greek master) tending to use more a δ like D. Or may be it came to be as a mannerism to "show off" you had a Greek influence and therefore a higher-class education. Ditto. One would need to look at writing samples and the educational background of their authors to do a proper comparative study).

Edited October 4, 2019 by txomsy