How "Roman" is Times New Roman? [9:40]

YouTube ^ | May 24, 2025 | Garrett Ryan, Ph.D (as toldinstone)

[SunkenCiv]

How "Roman" is Times New Roman? | 9:40 
toldinstone | 579K subscribers | 9,567 views | May 24, 2025

 Chapters 

0:00 Introduction 
0:42 The Latin Alphabet 
1:53 Rustic capitals 
2:21 Uncial 
2:50 Carolingian miniscule 
3:32 Gothic 
4:24 The Book 
5:26 The first fonts 
6:05 Littera Antiqua 
6:46 Aldus Manutius and his successors 
7:40 Times New Roman 
8:07 How Roman?

[SunkenCiv]

--> YouTube-Generated Transcript <--
	·	Introduction
0:10	·	With the exception of a brief but torrid affair with Arial, I have been faithful to
0:16	·	the Times New Roman font my entire adult life. I used it to write my college research papers,
0:22	·	my PhD thesis, and all my books to date. At first, I did so from force of habit.
0:29	·	But with time, I came to appreciate that the lineage of my default font could be traced,
0:35	·	via the Italian Renaissance and medieval monasteries, back to Ancient Rome.
0:41	·	The Latin alphabet, the modern world’s dominant writing system, evolved from the alphabet brought
	·	The Latin Alphabet
0:47	·	by Greek colonists to southern Italy and adapted by the Etruscans. When the Romans began using it
0:54	·	in the 7th century BC, it had only 21 letters. Y and Z were added later to express the sounds
1:03	·	of Greek words. The scholarly emperor Claudius contributed three more letters – a replacement
1:10	·	of Y, an equivalent of U, and a counterpart of the Greek letter Psi – that disappeared
1:17	·	after his reign. Our U and W are medieval; J was distinguished from I in the early modern period.
1:27	·	At first, the letters of the Latin alphabet closely resembled their Greek models. They
1:33	·	became more distinctive over the course of the Republican era, evolving by the reign
1:37	·	of Augustus into the majestic square capitals that still grace so many Roman monuments. The
1:45	·	letters of late antique inscriptions tended to be taller, narrower, and less regular.
1:52	·	The angular letter forms of inscriptions were imitated on paper in the script known as
	·	Rustic capitals
1:58	·	rustic capitals. Since they were written rather than carved, rustic capitals were more fluid,
2:05	·	with curves and serifs absent on stone. Though impressive on the page,
2:10	·	they were time-consuming to produce, and so tended to be used only for
2:14	·	luxury texts. Less formal documents were written in flowing cursive.
	·	Uncial
2:21	·	After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the production of secular manuscripts virtually
2:27	·	ceased. Religious texts, however, continued to be copied, most often in a new rounded script called
2:35	·	uncial. Versions of uncial were used widely for nearly half a millennium. The script persisted
2:42	·	longest in Ireland, where Gaelic was written in a typeset version until the mid-20th century.
2:49	·	Elsewhere, uncial was displaced by Carolingian miniscule. “Miniscule”
	·	Carolingian miniscule
2:54	·	letters – simplified and compressed versions of capitals – had been around for centuries.
3:01	·	But the miniscule that evolved from uncial in the late eighth century was clearer,
3:06	·	more elegant, and ultimately more popular than any of its predecessors.
3:12	·	It came to be closely associated with the brief but brilliant renaissance
3:16	·	centered on the court of Charlemagne, during which secular texts were copied
3:21	·	again in large numbers for the first time since the fall of Rome. This was the era,
3:27	·	and the script, that saved Classical Latin literature from oblivion.
	·	Gothic
3:32	·	From the 12th century onward, however, Carolingian miniscule began to be replaced by the
3:38	·	compressed and angular script known as Gothic or blackletter. Though now associated with Germany,
3:45	·	where the Gothic Fraktur was common until the Second World War, it was used throughout Europe.
3:52	·	During the late Middle Ages, thanks to the rise of the universities and a growing literate class,
3:58	·	more books were being produced than at any time since the fall of Rome.
4:02	·	Gothic was adapted to different genres: a cramped variant for scholastic treatises,
4:08	·	a large and rounded form for ecclesiastical books, and the intricate “bastarda” for vernacular texts.
4:16	·	We’ll discuss how all of these were affected by
4:19	·	[ad text redacted]
5:24	·	Returning to our topic. The invention of printing
	·	The first fonts
5:28	·	changed the appearance of books surprisingly little. The first printed books, in fact,
5:33	·	were designed to resemble contemporary manuscripts.
5:37	·	The font of Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible, for example, imitated a local Gothic script.
5:44	·	Religious texts were typically printed in typeset versions of the familiar scholastic blackletter.
5:51	·	Printed editions of the classics, however, used the script that was destined to replace
5:56	·	all the others. It was known as littera antiqua – the ancient, or Roman, script.
	·	Littera Antiqua
6:05	·	Littera antiqua was born early in the 15th century, when a group of Italian humanists
6:10	·	developed a tidy, elegant hand modeled on Carolingian miniscule. They thought
6:16	·	they were imitating the handwriting of the ancient Romans; and this assumption,
6:21	·	combined with easy legibility, made the humanist script popular in manuscripts of
6:26	·	classical texts. When printers adopted it, they maintained the convention of pairing humanist
6:33	·	miniscule lowercase letters with capitals inspired by ancient inscriptions. This is
6:40	·	essentially the system still used by all “Roman” fonts today.
6:45	·	At the turn of the 16th century, when Venice was the center of European printing,
	·	Aldus Manutius and his successors
6:50	·	the premier printer of classical texts was Aldus Manutius, otherwise famous for his
6:56	·	role in standardizing the use of the comma and semicolon. Aldus produced both expensive folio
7:03	·	editions of Greek and Latin authors for scholars and more modestly priced octavo “handbooks” for
7:10	·	the educated public. All were printed in a beautifully-designed humanist typeface.
7:17	·	Thanks in part to Aldus’ influence, Roman fonts steadily displaced their
7:23	·	Gothic predecessors everywhere outside the Germanic countries. The Aldine designs were
7:29	·	imitated and refined, most famously by Claude Garamond and Robert Granjon,
7:35	·	whose fonts were the most popular in Europe for nearly two hundred years.
	·	Times New Roman
7:40	·	Times New Roman, designed by Stanley Morison in 1931,
7:45	·	was modeled on the Roman fonts of Robert Granjon. It was meant to be compact but clear,
7:52	·	distinctive without being jarring. It was intended, in short, to feel familiar, and
7:59	·	subtly recall the grand tradition of Renaissance Roman fonts. On both counts, it succeeded.
	·	How Roman?
8:07	·	In a sense, Times New Roman is not quite half Roman, since none of its lowercase letters and
8:14	·	only 23 of its capitals are directly modeled on ancient forms. But more broadly, it’s all
8:21	·	Roman – a direct descendant, through countless generations, of the original Latin alphabet.
8:30	·	You can support my work – all written, of course, in Times New Roman – on Patreon,
8:36	·	linked in the description. Another link in the description leads to a page with
8:41	·	all the details of my October trip to Greece, which will visit Athens, Sparta,
8:47	·	and fascinating sites between. Finally, you’ll also find links to my other YouTube channels,
8:53	·	Toldinstone Footnotes and Scenic Routes to the Past. Thanks for watching.

[SunkenCiv]

And now, a word from our sponsor, the most over-hated typeface ever devised:

Comic Sans MS

[SunkenCiv]

It's been a very busy month for GGG topics, in particular those pertaining at least in part to the Roman Empire. The Digest will be tomorrow, no idea what that topic will be, I've still got a giant pile on deck in the "On Deck" folder. :^)

• toldinstone
• Toldinstone Footnotes
• Scenic Routes to the Past

[sauropod]

Agree.

[left that other site]

that’s one HEL oVeTIC An article.

[Robert A Cook PE]

What the judge sentenced me to life without parole reading the New York Times in comic sans relief?

[Billthedrill]

Yup, postgraduate dissertations printed in Comic Sans get no respect. Hight time that was addressed.

[kosciusko51]

At least it’s not Zaph Dingbats.

[SaveFerris]

😃🤣😜

[Pikachu_Dad]

So why does the Supreme Court prefer: Century?

“(b) The text of every booklet-format document, including any appendix thereto, shall be typeset in Century family ( e.g., Century Expanded, New Century Schoolbook, or Century Schoolbook) 12-point type with 2-point or more leading between lines. Quotations in excess of 50 words shall be indented. The typeface of footnotes shall be 10-point or larger with 2-point or more leading between lines. The text of the document must appear on both sides of the page.”

[Pikachu_Dad]

“The book “Typography for Lawyers,” for example, ranks Century Schoolbook on a short “A list” of fonts. Times New Roman and Courier, by contrast, made the “C list” of “questionable” fonts for lawyers.

While you may not immediately recognize the name Century Schoolbook, you’ve been reading legal opinions in this font since your first year of law school. The U.S. Supreme Court publishes its opinions in Century Schoolbook. Likewise, Rule 33(1)(B) of the Supreme Court’s Rules states that the text of all major documents, including briefs, “shall be typeset in a Century family (e.g., Century Expanded, New Century Schoolbook, or Century Schoolbook) 12-point type.””

[Pikachu_Dad]

https://www.ncbarblog.com/on-fonts-why-lawyers-should-switch-to-century-schoolbook/

[bankwalker]

Why would font matter in a legal document?

[Scrambler Bob]

So ‘Romin’ is not script, meandering all over the page?

[SunkenCiv]

[SunkenCiv]

Hey, it could be. :^)

[SunkenCiv]

Life is so unfair.

Dissertation? Helvetica.

[SunkenCiv]

I used to enjoy making little streets lined with trees and houses as the footers on letters. Ah well. Dingbat fonts have become superfluous thanks to smileys being built into everything. :^)

[SunkenCiv]

I wonder if there’s a “Busted” font...

Oh wow, there is...

https://search.brave.com/search?q=busted+font

[Billthedrill]

Mine was in cuneiform. My advisor’s admin assistant complained, “But I can’t read cursive!” Kids these days.