Ming (typeface)

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fig. 1: The word Minchōtai in Minchō typeface using Traditional Chinese characters (kyūjitai).
Typeface Ming
Category Serif
Date created Song Dynasty
Also known as Song

Ming or Minchō typeface (Traditional Chinese: 明體; Simplified Chinese: 明体; pinyin: Míngtǐ; Korean: 명조체/明朝體, Myeongjoche; Japanese: 明朝体, Minchōtai;), also known as Song typeface (Traditional Chinese: 宋體; Simplified Chinese: 宋体; pinyin: Sòngtǐ) in China, is a category of typefaces used in printing Chinese characters, which are used in the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages. It is currently the most used typeface category for Chinese and Japanese.

Contents

[edit] Name

The two names of the typeface correspond to the Song Dynasty and Ming Dynasty of China. In Mainland China, the most common name is "Song typeface" (Songti). In Hong Kong, Japan and Korea, "Ming typeface" (明體 ming4 tai2 in Cantonese, Minchōtai in Japanese, Myeongjoche in Korean) is used. In Taiwan, both Songti and Mingti are used.

[edit] Characteristics

This typeface is characterised, among other things, by the following:

  • Thick vertical strokes contrasted with thin horizontal strokes
  • Triangular ornaments at the end of single horizontal strokes called uroko (literally "fish scales") in Japanese
  • Overall geometrical regularity

These characteristics are visible in the example in fig. 1.

Possessing variable line weight and characteristic decorations at the end of lines similar to serifs, this type is comparable to Western serif typefaces, as opposed to the Gothic styles which are comparable to sans-serif.

The styling of the strokes used in the old Song and Ming fonts came from the style used in Kangxi dictionary. After the Kanji revolution in Japan, the Kangxi font was considered as old style, causing newer dictionaries to incorporate two letter styles, or to simply reject the old styles. In modern China, the government uses the new style font, which is incorporated into MingLiU version 5.03 or above. In Japan, dictionary entries offer both new and old fonts. In Korea, popular fonts such as Batang are based on Kangxi style.[1]

[edit] Variants

The imitated Song typeface (Traditional Chinese: 仿宋體; Simplified Chinese: 仿宋体; pinyin: fǎng sòng tǐ) combines the line weights of regular Song typeface with the stroke layout and decoration of regular script (for example, the horizontal strokes are tilted towards upper right). Unlike the regular Song typeface, it is not called Ming typeface.

There are some variations between the printed and handwritten forms of many Chinese characters, especially in the orientation of smaller strokes and the shape of certain radicals. Some of these differences are persistent and specific to printed type (or even the minchō style), but others may be no more significant than variations between individual typefaces. None of these variations usually hinder reading. However, special styles of Ming type (textbook type (Japanese: 教科書体, kyōkashotai) matching the recommended handwritten forms are used in school textbooks, in order to prevent confusion amongst learners.

[edit] History of Song Typeface in China

The printing press appeared in China during the Song Dynasty. At the time, each print block contained two portrait-oriented pages placed side by side. The print blocks were all cut from rectangular planks such that the wood grain ran horizontally. Because the grain ran horizontally, it was fairly easy to carve patterns with the grain, like horizontal strokes. However, carving vertical or slanted patterns was difficult because those patterns intersect with the grain and very easily break. This resulted in a typeface that has thin horizontal strokes and thick vertical strokes. To prevent wear and tear, the ending of horizontal strokes are also thickened. These design forces resulted in the current Song typeface.

The Song typeface was already in full production during the Song Dynasty; however, it was not mature. More popular typefaces at the time were those that imitated Chinese calligraphy styles (e.g. 顏體、柳體、歐體). It was not until the Ming Dynasty, as wood price increased, that the Song typeface become more popular because it can be carved into smaller sizes than the other typefaces. This font has changed so little since the Song Dynasty that people during the Ming Dynasty nicknamed it the "static typeface." Also during the Ming Dynasty, this typeface spread to Japan and Korea, and it was since known in those countries as the Ming typeface.

[edit] Japan

In Japanese text, Hiragana, Katakana, and the Latin alphabet are also used. It is the most commonly used style in print. In Japan there are several variants of the Minchō style, such as the textbook style or the newspaper style.

The name Minchō means Ming Dynasty, which was the era during which movable type printing (invented in the eleventh century) flourished in China, and during which Minchō-style type was first created. The creator of modern Japanese movable-type printing, Motoki Shōzō (or Motogi), modeled his sets of type after those prevailing in China, having learned an electrolytic method of type manufacturing from the American William Gamble in 1869. Motoki then created, based on Gamble's frequency studies of characters in the Chinese Bible, a full set of type with added Japanese characters.

[edit] Korea

In Korean, a similar category of typeface for the Korean alphabet hangul was called myeongjo (the Korean reading for the same Chinese characters "明朝") until recently, influenced by the Japanese term. A Ministry of Culture-sponsored standardization of typography terms in 1993 replaced myeongjo with batang, the Korean word for "foundation" or "ground" (as opposed to "figure"), and this is the term now current.

[edit] Ming typefaces in computing

Strictly speaking, only Chinese characters are thus printed in Song type. However, most modern type sets (that is, digital fonts) have included glyphs for kana script characters in a matching variable-line-width style, usually in a precise style imitating calligraphic handwriting with a brush. In its modern role comparable to that of western serif fonts, both kana and Roman glyphs are usually part of a complete type set. In fact, modern digital Song fonts also incorporate serif (typically Roman) glyphs for Latin characters, letterlike symbols, numbers.

Well-known modern-day Ming typefaces include the Morisawa foundry's "Ryūbundō Minchō" (Ryūmin) as well as Adobe's "Kozuka Mincho" family, designed by Kozuka Masahiko (also creator of the popular gothic font "ShinGo").

Pan-Unicode typefaces commonly seen in computing include:

Japanese typefaces commonly seen in computing include:

  • MS Mincho (MS 明朝) - distributed with Japanese version of Windows 3.1 or later, some versions of Internet Explorer 3 Japanese font pack, all regions in Windows XP, Microsoft Office v.X to 2004.
  • MS PMincho (MS P明朝) - distributed in Japanese version of Windows 95 or later, all regions in Windows XP, Microsoft Office 2004.
  • Kochi Mincho — included with a number of Linux distributions; also notable for being a fixed width font (at least for printing Korean Hangul).
  • Hiragino Minchō Pro W3 (ヒラギノ明朝Pro W3), Hiragino Minchō Pro W6 (ヒラギノ明朝Pro W6) — included in Mac OS X, it is possibly the only publishing-quality Minchō typeface to ship with a computer operating system. It covers almost all of the Adobe Japan 1-5 glyph collection.

Chinese versions include:

  • DLCMingMedium (華康中明體), DLCMingBold (華康粗明體), DLCFongSung (華康仿宋體) - Distributed with Traditional Chinese version of Windows 3.1.
  • FangSong_GB2312 (仿宋_GB2312) - distributed with Simplified Chinese version of Windows 2000 or later.
  • 'Ming Light' (細明體) - Default interface font for Windows 3.0 to Windows XP, derived from DynaLab's DLCMing font family. Originally distributed as raster font in Traditional Chinese version of Windows 3.0, then it is available in TrueType format as 'MingLi43' in Traditional Chinese version of Windows 3.1. Starting from version 2.00, the font is internally sorted in Unicode sequence with Big-5 codepage, and carries the English name 'MingLiU'. In version 2.10, the font file also contains PMingLiU (新細明體). MingLiU is distributed with Traditional Chinese version of Windows 95 to Windows 98, all regional versions of Windows 2000 or later, PMingLiU Update Pack (新細明體更新套件), Traditional Chinese font pack for Internet Explorer 3, Microsoft Global IME 5.02 (Traditional Chinese), Office XP Tool: Traditional Chinese Language Pack.
  • PMingLiU (新細明體) - distributed by Microsoft with Traditional Chinese version of Windows 98 operating system, all regional versions of Windows 2000 or later.
  • MingLiU-ExtB (細明體-ExtB), PMingLiU-ExtB (新細明體-ExtB) - distributed with PMingLiU Update Pack (新細明體更新套件), Windows Vista.
  • MingLiU_HKSCS, MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB - distributed with Windows Vista.
  • MS Song - distributed with Simplified Chinese font pack for Internet Explorer 3, Microsoft Global IME 5.02 (Simplified Chinese), Office XP Tool: Simplified Chinese Language Pack.
  • NSimSun (新宋体) - distributed with all regions of Windows XP, Microsoft Office 2000.
  • SimSun (宋体) - Default interface font for Windows 95 to Windows XP. Distributed with Chinese versions of Windows 95 to Windows 98, all regions of Windows XP, Microsoft Office 2000.
  • SimSun-18030 (宋体-18030), NSimSun-18030 (新宋体-18030) - distributed with Simplified Chinese version of Windows XP, or as GB18030 Support Package to Windows 2000 or higher.
  • SimSun (Founder Extended) (宋体–方正超大字符集) - distributed with Simplified Chinese version of Microsoft Office XP, Simplified Chinese version of Windows, or Microsoft Office Proofing Tools (XP and 2003).
  • SimSun-ExtB (宋體ExtB) - distributed with Windows Vista.
  • STSong (华文宋体), STFangsong (华文仿宋) - distributed with Microsoft Office 2000 and XP, Mac OS X 10.2-10.4.
  • LiSong Pro Light (儷宋 Pro) - distributed with Mac OS 9 or X 10.3-10.4.
  • Apple LiSung Light (蘋果儷細宋) - distributed with Mac OS 9 or X 10.2-10.4.
  • Song, Fang Song - distributed with Mac OS X 10.2-10.4.
  • STZhongsong (华文中宋) - distributed with Microsoft Office 2000 and XP.
  • AR PL ShanHeiSun Uni - included with a number of Linux distributions. It is a merged version of 2 fonts released to free software by Arphic foundry.
  • WenQuanYi Bitmap Song (文泉驿点阵宋体) - A raster font under GNU GPL.

Korean versions include:

  • Batang, BatangChe, Gungsuh, GungsuhChe - distributed by Microsoft with its Windows operating system.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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