No script is beautiful.
Which script do you think looks the best? This is my answer.
A month ago, I picked up a large, old Sinhalese book from a quaint-smelling bookstore in Bangalore. I picked the book not because I liked the author’s writing – I neither understand nor read Sinhalese – but for its letters. More specifically, I was drawn to the font that the script was set in. The letters reminded me of a Telugu typeface, with their generously curvaceous forms and rounded bottoms that accumulated a thick blackness of printing ink.
Since I can neither read nor understand Sinhalese, I was taken in by the letterforms. Another aspect that appealed to me fleetingly was the print quality of the book. I found myself admiring the firm distinctions between black and white that the letters created—I thought the print to be clean and well-executed. I bought it.
When I got home, I kept the book aside and only opened it again the next day, eager to enjoy it the same way as before. I did not. I noticed that the print in the book was somewhat patchy and not brilliantly crisp in some areas. The letters still seemed beautiful, but I found myself questioning my opinion of their beauty. Was it an objective beauty that I simply acknowledged, or an illusion caused by letterforms I had never seen before?
I asked this of my colleague at the type foundry where I work, who had worked in some capacity with the Sinhalese script. She confirmed my suspicions; these are perfectly standard, normal text typeface letters in the Sinhalese script. I could believe it, and it made me think. I probably found these letters beautiful because I could not understand them; a native reader of the Sinhalese script may have glazed past the letters themselves and gleaned meaning from the words and sentences that they constructed.
The letters stand as a wall between me and the knowledge they preserve. Since I do not possess the knowledge to see through to their meanings on the other side, I can merely admire the wall. A non-Devanagari reader, similarly, might find the Devanagari script interesting or beautiful, which to me, and millions of others, is but a means to an end—the writing in a book or a newspaper. This is why I state in the blog title that no script is beautiful; only, to some it may extend an exotic appeal, based solely on previous sensibilities of aesthetics and beauty.
One may argue that they admire passionately a book jacket lettering. However, such a piece is more of an art that is purposefully flamboyant, and is meant to pique and still our attention. I speak of that which is transparent like glass to a native reader—the text typeface; that, which solely exists for the purpose of conveying instantly the words that it carries. That, which the reader has no trouble deciphering, and wholeheartedly ignoring.
Of course, this article begs the extent to which one can appreciate unfamiliar beauty, and the legitimacy of that appreciation. It is a question I will further probe in future blogs, piecing together fragmented thoughts and ideas.
