Detail in Multilingual Typography
There are 7,111 languages worldwide, and to understand a language, it takes one to learn how to read, write, and speak. A significant component of a language is phonetics. We read, write, and speak in our daily lives to communicate our opinions, ideas, and thoughts. It is composed of two sides of human speech — that is, the production of human making sounds and perception of how the speech is understood. As a half Korean and Japanese designer, it questioned me: how is writing the central language aspect? How can language work as a system? To what extent does typography become generalized in ways to accommodate more writing systems?
I want to relate this on a deep level on which we respond to language in our everyday lives as literate adults walking through the world. More specifically, I will explore the phonetics of languages between English, Korean, and Japanese. I will first discuss the history of languages in writing, speaking, and reading. Then, I will go into the context of what the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is and the purpose of creating the phonetics guide internationally. I will then examine how Korean, Japanese, and English languages have originated from and how it was formed and designed. From the exploration of phonetics in these languages, I want to examine how languages work as systems and the visual experience of language from a designer’s perspective.
The Basics of Linguistics
The origins of the human language touch upon various aspects of psychology, physiology, linguistics, and culture. More specifically, the history of languages through reading, writing, and speaking takes us back to our ancestors millions of years ago with limited vocabulary and grammar. Languages are related to one another through sounds, grammatical structures, and words. Names are a significant part of our society that allows us to communicate and refer to a living creature, human being, or an object. Without language, human life would be unimaginable.
Phonetics is part of linguistics that studies how we speak and comprehend sounds. When we learn a language, the language requires us to know how a language is spoken. A running flow of speech is separated into different parts and can be recognized in other terms. The sentences are broken down into smaller parts in words and words into sounds. Additionally, we can disregard nonlinguistic differences in speeches, such as pitch levels and rate of speed, and we can make sounds in languages other than English. In the phonetic alphabet, spelling, also known as orthography, does not align with how the language sounds. For example, a letter in a word may sound the same: she, peace, see, believe, key. However, sometimes the same letter may contain more than a sound: ocean, you, good, wolf, portfolio.
Although language barriers exist, the international phonetic association created a phonetic notation system that bridges the gap between languages. The system is categorized into consonants and vowels to signify a sound’s structural alignment in every language and phonetic symbol. Following the IPA system, he or she can pronounce any word or phrase in any language. Although this language system helps break the language barrier, it does not mean that it sets a universal language, and we can understand every language spoken on earth. Similarly, Japanese and Chinese characters may contain identical or similar aspects in writing, but it may define and sound different in context. So, to what extent is the IPA system effective in languages?
Deconstructing Language Systems through Typography
Although the IPA phonetic system understands the various types of phonetics, the history of languages is still obscure to linguists and researchers. Words and phrases are a part of the language as systems within systems because they are systems that interconnect and combine to make it more significant. There is no other way to communicate or socialize with other people without the sounds of words; however, it would also be aimless to speak without knowing the context or meaning in words. While a language may be considered as casual and effortless if you are fluent, it requires us to consider how we pronounce words, the meaning or context of the word, and what it can mean in a sentence or paragraph. However, if we look at the bigger picture, words and letters are simply parts of codes or glyphs that translate our ideas and thoughts into a universal code for others to understand.
An Algerian-French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, deconstructs how writing is the central aspect of language. Derrida famously quotes, “there is nothing outside of the text” indicating that any word’s context will never be consistent because language is always in the process of development. The performance of writing serves to provide various possibilities of interpretations depending on how we are learned to use the correct grammar, punctuation, and tone. Through this exploration in Derrida’s Of Grammatology book, Derrida introduces the three aspects of deconstruction, which are logocentrism, nothing beyond the text, and différance. Furthermore, words on a text can equally manifest the author’s intentions and the way you interpret the text. However, in a text, an idea may dominate the other idea, leading the reader to disregard it. This naturally suggests the existing hierarchy between words that are processed within the interpretation of the meaning.
Going more in-depth into deconstructing a language, the act of writing in English, Korean, and Japanese, differs in translation. In Korean, the words are made up of different components of the Korean alphabet, and if you mix and match too much with the organization of the components, you would end up changing the connotation phonetically and visually. Additionally, the Japanese provide three types of writing systems, Katakana, Hiragana, and Kanji. Kanji contains similar typographic aspects as Chinese characters, and a single Kanji character can define a word. However, Katakana and Hiragana serve to deconstruct the Kanji character into phonetic vowels of A, E, I, O, U. For example, ‘Wednesday’ in Katakana to Kanji is ‘すいようび — 水曜日’ This contradicts how English is written because it evolved from the roman alphabet that conjoins together to form a word.
Additionally, reading and writing in English is from left to right and organized horizontally with spaces. However, in Japanese, words are read and written from right to left vertically. These differences apply to psychology and cultural implications. Although writing may be indecipherable, it cannot change the word’s connotation because only the sound may vary between languages. However, in Chinese, the characters may change in meaning and, in Korean, if the organization of components is changed or mixed too much, it can change the meaning even though the phonetic may stay the same.
From a typographic perspective, different parts of style affect meaning in different ways in languages. It questions how typefaces can influence the writing system in languages, specifically Korean, Japanese, and English. The takeoff of Asian languages in roman alphabet typefaces are emerging in Asian languages. For instance, when designing a typeface in a particular language by digital typographic rules, it is easier to use more archaic forms of chains where the elements are distributed and open for more space. It is also critical to consider typography’s anatomy that identifies letters’ components, categorizing typefaces into serifs, sans-serif, old-style, black lettering, transitional and modern. Additionally, it can go far in depth to adjust the typographical elements in the x-height, stroke, letter-spacing, bowl, and counter to change how the words are interpreted culturally.
As the various typefaces are being designed and applied to different languages, typefaces are being generalized to accommodate more writing systems, such as Kanji in a Helvetica typeface or Korean ‘Hangul’ in a Black Hans Sans typeface. Helvetica is one of the most common typefaces used by designers, and it has emerged to be used in all Japanese language systems, including Katakana, Hiragana, and Kanji. Although the sans serif typeface, Helvetica, is applied to the different Japanese language systems, it does not run the Roman alphabet’s risk of changing the connotation.
Multilingualism can be seen in public spaces, such as restaurants, stores, street signs, and graffiti art on buildings. The letters, words, or slogans we see every day in public spaces make up cultural identity. So, how do multiple languages form to create a cultural identity and a social belonging? There are various typography shapes and letterforms on billboards, logos, posters, and slogans representing a specific culture. The ethnical and stereotypical letter forms play a role in how they function through typographical elements. We can source another language, such as Greek letters, into a Roman alphabet by familiar letterforms. The greek alphabet ‘β’ (Beta) can be replaced by the Latin alphabet ‘B.’ Likewise, letterforms can imitate another culture or language to a different writing technique by a particular characteristic of the typeface. Namely, Chinese calligraphy contains curvy and sharp chunky strokes related to many Asian cultures. This specific characteristic of Chinese calligraphy can be applied to another set of letters to construct a different cultural identity visually. Another aspect is regarding a specific time or place in history that can be used to write as a cultural identity. These possible ways of imitating typographic styles, cultural identity, and social belonging strongly exist that create stereotypes within language systems. Therefore, it can be said that the typographic style in a language contains stereotypes to the extent that typefaces can be racist. We categorize different typography characteristics based on the cultural implication it has on the letterform, but it also suggests the emerging typefaces between languages simultaneously.
Conclusion
Upon exploring the situation from multiple perspectives, the deconstruction between language systems may be similar within connotations; however, it may be phonetically different in sound. However, it is not to ignore that humans use words and phrases daily to socially deliver our thoughts and ideas. Moreover, looking through the lens from a design perspective, it deconstructs the languages into mimicking a specific cultural identity to the roman alphabet or another language. The glyphs or construction of characters may denote the meaning literally; however, it can visually give a different connotation due to its typographic style. From this exploration, I gained more interest in typography’s anatomy between languages and how a specific letter form can imply cultural implications from another set of letterforms, which deconstructs the language system through typographic design. Using a similar method to a golden ratio, I created my own ratio diagram to produce visual exploration of different typefaces using specific typographic characteristics from the three languages.
Detail in Multilingual Typography by Yuri Kawada
