This article is about how to design Cyrillic characters ?, ?, ?, and ? (upright caps and lowercase; italics are not covered here). They are often problematic since they are Cyrillic, but not found in the Russian alphabet, so there is no much reference and guides how they actually should look. ? and ? are used in Serbian and Macedonian, while ? and ? only in Serbian. Here is my research and opinion as a native Serbian speaker/reader.

本文介紹如何設計西里爾字母?，?，?和?(大寫和小寫；斜體不在此處)。 由于它們是西里爾字母，因此經常會出現問題，但在俄語字母中找不到，因此沒有太多參考和指南，它們實際上應該如何顯示。 ?和?用于塞爾維亞語和馬其頓語，而?和?僅用于塞爾維亞語。 這是我作為母語塞爾維亞語/讀者的研究和觀點。

Please take this as an opinion rather than a hard rule. The article tries to find out what is the default. These characters could be a subject of creative experimentation, like any other character in the typeface. The idea is to establish a solid starting point, not to limit creative freedom.

請將此視為一種意見，而不是硬性規定。 本文試圖找出默認值。 與字體中的任何其他字符一樣，這??些字符可能是創造性實驗的主題。 這個想法是建立一個堅實的起點，而不是限制創作自由。

In images I have used my font Naslof, as well as these great fonts from other type designers: Resavska, Adamant, Noto Sans, Fira Sans. Sorry in advance for possible writing and language mistakes.

在圖像中，我使用了Naslof字體，以及其他字體設計師的出色字體： Resavska ， Adamant ， Noto Sans和Fira Sans 。 抱歉，可能會引起寫作和語言錯誤。

?— Nje —(大寫U + 040A，小寫U + 045A) (? — Nje — (Capital U+040A, Lowercase U+045A))

-The first, and probably most often wrongly designed is ?. It’s the soft variant of classic N, and sounds like the N in “New”, compared to classic N in “Now”. Latin counterpart would be Spanish ?. The look of the glyph was invented by Vuk Stefanovi? Karad?i?, turning Cyrillic N (looks like Latin H) and Russian soft sign Ь into one ligature glyph. But during the time the perception of the grapheme evolved, so it is considered as a separate glyph, not as a ligature. Writing movement using three strokes also suggests it’s a glyph per se. This fact influences the design of ?.

-第一個，可能是最經常錯誤設計的是?。 這是經典N的柔和變體，與“現在”中的經典N相比，聽起來像“新”中的N。 拉丁文對應為西班牙?。 字形的外觀由VukStefanovi?Karad?i?發明，將西里爾字母N(看起來像拉丁字母H)和俄語軟符號Ь變成了一個連字形字形。 但是在此期間，對字素的感知在發展，因此它被視為獨立的字形，而不是連字。 用三個筆畫書寫動作也暗示它本身就是一個字形。 這個事實影響design的設計。

The first step is to make H and Ь part a bit narrower, to avoid ? look too wide. Second — and the most important thing here — is to ensure that the horizontal bar of the H part and upper part of Ь bowl look like a continuous line. Often — even in high-quality professional typefaces — this is not the case. A simple morph of H and Ь, in the vast majority of cases, will not do the job, since the bowl of Ь is usually significantly higher than H bar.

第一步是使H和Ь部分變窄，以避免to看起來太寬。 第二點，也是這里最重要的一點，是確保H部分和bar碗上部的水平條看起來像一條連續線。 通常-即使是高質量的專業字體-并非如此。 在大多數情況下，H和simple的簡單變體將無法勝任，因為bowl的碗通常顯著高于H bar。

To remedy this, H bar goes a little bit up, and the upper part of Ь bowl goes a little bit down. The goal here is to make them “appear” as a continuous line, but in fact, they will probably still be slightly misaligned in order to soften the change and keep them look as similar as possible to the original H and Ь. Also, the H bar is usually a bit thicker than the top horizontal of Ь bowl, and you can keep this small difference.

為了解決這個問題，H桿略微升高，Ь碗的上部略微降低。 此處的目標是使它們“連續顯示”為一條連續的線，但實際上，它們可能仍會略有偏離，以使更改更柔和并使它們看起來與原始H和similar盡可能相似。 另外，H形通常比Ь碗的頂部水平線稍厚，您可以保持這種小的差異。

Speaking of bar/bowl stroke thickness, maybe it is a good idea to make ? bar slightly thinner than H bar, and top bowl horizontal of ? slightly thinner than in Ь, especially in heavier font weights, to avoid the congestion of black at this “4-ray” crossing.

說到條形/碗形的筆劃厚度，最好使?形比H形稍薄，使top形的上碗水平比bar形稍薄，尤其是在較粗的字體上，以避免在此出現黑色的擁塞。 “四線”穿越。

A good thing while designing Cyrillic is that lowercase (for upright) is basically a small caps most of the time, so the lowercase ? follows the logic.

在設計西里爾字母時，一件好事是，小寫字母(對于直立式)在大多數情況下基本上是一個小寫字母，因此小寫字母?遵循邏輯。

?— Lje —(大寫字母U + 0409，小寫字母U + 0459) (? — Lje — (Capital U+0409, Lowercase U+0459))

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? is softened L. It’s a bit hard to find the example of the sound in English, but there is a lot of it in Spanish in form of double L (for example the word “caballero”). Following the logic of ?, the origin of the grapheme is composite, adding soft sign Ь to the Cyrillic letter Л (L), but again it’s rather considered as a character by itself than a ligature.

?是柔化的L。很難找到英語的聲音示例，但是西班牙語中有很多雙L形式的聲音(例如單詞“ caballero”)。 遵循the的邏輯，字素的原點是復合的，在西里爾字母Л(L)上加上了柔和的符號but，但它本身還是一個字符，而不是連字。

Both L and Ь parts are a bit narrower. As for the bowl, here we don’t have the constraint of the horizontal bar as for ?, but still want to keep these two consistent. That said, it’s usually the same as on ?, but it’s ok to go a bit higher (sometimes also a bit wider) than that. Anyway, it’s most often closer to the ? than Ь bowl.

L和Ь部分都較窄。 至于碗，這里我們沒有?的水平條約束，但仍然想使這兩個保持一致。 也就是說，它通常與?上的相同，但是可以比它高一點(有時也寬一點)。 無論如何，它通常比碗更靠近碗。

The lowercase is small-cap again.

小寫字母再次變為小寫。

?— Tshe —(大寫U + 040B，小寫U + 045B) (? — Tshe — (Capital U+040B, Lowercase U+045B))

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The last letter of many Serbian last names, like “Djokovi?”, i.e. Sounds like “ch” in the Spanish word “muchacho”.

許多塞爾維亞姓氏的最后一個字母，如“Djokovi?”，即西班牙語單詞“ muchacho”中的聽起來像“ ch”。

The glyph is based on Cyrillic Ч rotated for 180 degrees. Because we have a horizontal bar (at the top), the arch tends to go a bit lower — especially in heavier font weights. Often, the counter is also a bit narrower, but the change in this direction is smaller than that in a vertical direction.

該字形基于旋轉180度的CyrillicЧ。 因為我們有一個單杠(在頂部)，所以拱形趨向于降低一點-特別是在較粗的字體中。 通常，計數器也變窄一些，但此方向的變化小于垂直方向的變化。

The top bar is most often a bit narrower than that on T, and it’s moved to the right. As a starting point in regular font weight, you can place the right bar terminal at about 90% of the counter width (it can go a bit left and right from that). In heavier weights — as the counter shrinks — right bar terminal falls more toward the right stem, but not beyond the middle line of the stem width (approximately). The placement of the bar left terminal also varies, but it’s placed so the bar is narrower than T bar, and not too much to the left to avoid spacing problems. The bar could be a bit thinner if needed, to keep enough amount of white space between the bar and arch.

最上面的欄通常比T上的欄窄一些，并且向右移動。 作為常規字體粗細的起點，您可以將右側條形端子放置在計數器寬度的大約90％處(它可以左右移動一點)。 在較重的重量中(隨著計數器的收縮)，右桿端子向右莖的下降幅度更大，但不超過莖寬度的中線(大約)。 鋼筋左端子的位置也有所不同，但是放置的位置是使鋼筋比T鋼筋窄，并且不要向左傾斜太多以避免間距問題。 如果需要，該桿可能會更細一些，以在桿和拱之間保留足夠的空白空間。

There is a variant of the ? without part of the bar on the left side. It can be often seen in informal handwriting, but it’s rare in type design. The advantage of this variant is a better spacing on the left side, while the disadvantage is more problematic bar-arch relation (because bar now has to go further to the right to balance the absence of the left part portion, which closes this tight space additionally). But if there is enough space, I would personally like to see it more often. I would say it’s more convenient for modern/geometry/eclectic typefaces.

?的一種變體，左側不帶部分條形。 它通常可以在非正式手寫中看到，但在字體設計中很少見。 此變體的優點是在左側具有更好的間距，而缺點是桿-拱關系更成問題(因為桿現在必須進一步向右移動以平衡左側部分的缺失，從而封閉了狹窄的空間)另外)。 但是如果有足夠的空間，我個人想更經常地看到它。 我想說這對于現代/幾何/折衷字體來說更方便。

Lowercase ? is actually h with the crossing bar. Most often in the regular weight, it has the arch identical to the h, but I think that slight lowering is ok if needed, because usually we have even less space between the bar and arch than for caps. However, the amount of lowering should be inside the range of optical correction, and should not compromise x-height alignment too much. This lowering is usually needed as the font weight increases, anyway.

小寫字母actually實際上是帶有橫杠的h。 通常，在常規重量下，它的拱形與h相同，但我認為，如果需要，可以略微降低，因為通常我們在拱形和拱形之間的空間比帽蓋還要小。 但是，降低量應在光學校正范圍之內，并且不應過多影響x高度對齊。 無論如何，通常都需要隨著字體粗細的增加而降低。

The bar is very similar to that found on crossed d (?, U+0111), which means it’s probably a bit thinner than t bar (more obvious at low contrast typefaces). On the right side, it’s aligned somewhere near the top node of the arch. On the left side, it extends similar to t. Its vertical position is centered slightly below the middle of the “ascender-top of the arch” distance (again having enough bar-arch distance is very important, and it’s often too tight in the existing typefaces).

豎線與交叉的d(?，U + 0111)上的豎線非常相似，這意味著它可能比t豎線更細(在低對比度字體中更明顯)。 在右側，它對準拱頂節點附近的某個位置。 在左側，它的延伸類似于t。 它的垂直位置稍微居中于“拱頂”的中間位置(再次具有足夠的直拱距離非常重要，并且在現有字體中通常太緊)。

?— Dje —(大寫字母U + 0402，小寫字母U + 0452) (? — Dje — (Capital U+0402, Lowercase U+0452))

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The first sound of the surname “Djokovi?” i.e. Sounds somewhat like the first sound in the word “Jaw”.

姓“Djokovi?”的第一個聲音，即聽起來有點像單詞“ Jaw”中的第一個聲音。

You can start from ? editing the right stem. There are two main variants of capital ?: “descending” and “not descending”. Both are accepted and used, but I am really not the fan of the “not descending” since it curls into the bowl at the baseline, being too close to capital Б and not different enough from ?. Especially in the case where we already have a wide accepted descending variant.

您可以從?編輯右莖開始。 大寫?有兩種主要變體：“降序”和“不降序”。 兩者都被接受和使用，但是我真的不是“不下降”的粉絲，因為它在基線處縮進碗中，太靠近大寫字母Б，與and相差不大。 特別是在我們已經擁有廣泛接受的降序變體的情況下。

This second form I prefer has a descending tail growing from the arch. Depending on the font style it can hit descender line or can be a bit above it. Sometimes it is in the form of simply added the “j” part to the right stem. This gives the glyph “DIN-ish” look which works well for rational/geometry fonts, but not so well for humanists or typefaces which tend to have a warmer voice.

我更喜歡第二種形式，弓的尾巴向下延伸。 根據字體樣式的不同，它可能會降到下一行，也可能會高一點。 有時，它只是簡單地將“ j”部分添加到右詞干的形式。 這使字形“ DIN-ish”的外觀對于有理/幾何字體而言效果很好，但對傾向于發聲的人文主義者或字體而言效果不佳。

The more “organic” variant requires the right stem to morph into the bowl (probably removing straight vertical part at all), building a single curved stroke with the top arch. The angle of the curve usually stops somewhere at 5 o’clock (this relates to the stroke curvature only, not the shape of the terminal which can be cut as in the rest of the typeface). This change sometimes keeps the shoulder of the top arch the same, but sometimes it is “softened” to relax the tension of the curved stroke. Also, if needed this bowl can be a bit wider than ? counter, to accommodate the curve (if the tail descends fully). The top of this bowl could go a bit lower than the top of the ? arch if needed.

更具“有機性”的變體需要右莖變形為碗狀(可能完全去除了筆直的垂直部分)，并用頂部拱形構建了一個彎曲的筆觸。 曲線的角度通常在5點鐘處停止(這僅與筆劃曲率有關，而不是與其余字體一樣可以切割的端子形狀)。 這種變化有時會使上弓的肩部保持不變，但有時會“變軟”以減輕彎曲筆觸的張力。 另外，如果需要，此碗可以比than計數器的寬度寬一點，以適應曲線(如果尾巴完全下降)。 如果需要，此碗的頂部可以比拱的頂部低一些。

If ? is designed without the left portion of the horizontal bar on the top, ? should follow the same principle. Just in that case — when there is no “left ear” — you would like to make sure that the aperture (which descending part forms with the left stem) is open enough to avoid looking too close to Б (Latin B) which also has no “left ear”.

如果designed的設計沒有在頂部放置水平杠的左側，則?應該遵循相同的原理。 只是在這種情況下-當沒有“左耳”時-您要確保光圈(由左莖形成的下降部分)的開口足夠大，避免看起來過于靠近也有Б(拉丁B)的位置沒有“左耳”。

Lowercase ? follows the same logic, starting from lowercase ?.

小寫字母?從小寫字母?開始遵循相同的邏輯。

Thanks for reading!

謝謝閱讀！