Irish as a 'foreign' language
“Italic is sometimes used for secondary information, as in France. I haven’t seen that anywhere else. More often it is a light [weight] beside a regular, or medium roman that is given this job. [See] Schiphol airport and several other airports, such as Reykjavik, Iceland.” Gerard Unger (Reil 2006)
Foreign language faux pas?
Unger’s comment about ‘secondary information’ is incisive, the Irish language appears devalued by setting in Italics. In general typographic use – italics are employed for very specific purposes – most commonly for a use of a foreign language expression.
“Foreign words and phrases… should be set in italics unless they are so familiar that they have become anglicised and so should be roman.” (Economist 2000)
In terms of signage where stress or differentiation is required, Bold type is preferred.
“In single or few words, style in typography is less of a discriminating factor than weight” (Spencer et al. 1973a)
Furthermore, italics are best avoided for use in signs (Barker & Fraser, 2000). And, any solution which employs different type styles for each language, is likely to cause dissatisfaction on grounds of prominence…
“Using different font styles within a given typeface – using a different font for each language – will inevitably make one version less legible than the other.” (Welsh Language Board 2001)
With road signs, furthermore, using type weight as differentiator of languages can present problems, as there are optimal weights for readability at speed, light weights can be too weak, whilst with bold weights the counters, or ‘white space’ within the letters can ‘fill in’ (Barker 2000, p43) resulting in a loss of clarity in the letter forms. Therefore it is understandable that in trying to create suitable contrast and differentiation, inexpert designers would struggle to find a successful solution.
