Schriftformen

Schriftformen describes the various forms in which a language can be represented in written form. The term encompasses scripts as well as the visible shapes of letters and the typographic styles used to set them. A script is a system of characters and rules for their use, for example Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic, Devanagari, Han characters. Within a script, Schriftformen include the particular letter shapes (glyphs) and stylistic variants, such as uppercase and lowercase forms, ligatures, diacritics, and typographic styles like Antiqua, Fraktur, or Sans-Serif. The concept also covers handwriting versus printed forms and calligraphy as differently executed representations of the same underlying script.

Historically, Schriftformen evolved from early pictographic and ideographic writing to syllabaries and alphabets and later to more complex scripts. The Latin alphabet spread with literacy and printing, while other scripts were adapted or reformed. The rise of digital typography introduced scalable vector fonts and encoding standards like Unicode, enabling standardized representation across devices and languages. In many languages, multiple Schriftformen coexist, including formal typesetting and everyday handwriting, or regional typographic conventions.

In practice, understanding Schriftformen requires considering orthography (spelling conventions), script choice, and typographic design. The study informs fields from linguistics and philology to typography and information technology.