Publisher: CastleTypeMinotaur ™ is an original monoline style based on an Oscan (Wikipedia.org) votive inscription from the second century B.C.E. The letterforms immediately caught my eye in the wondferful book, ‘‘ Lettering' by Hermann Degering, and I chose to develop a typeface based upon them with only sufficient compromises to make it functional as a modern alphabet. Not rather as straightforward as I had hoped. For instance, the Oscan language (the primary language in the Italian peninsula prior to the ascendance of Italian), has no letter "O", so the distinctive curve of the "D" was utilized as the model for the rounded letters "C" and "G" and more subtly for "O" and "Q"; this shape is likewise echoed in the initial design of "B", "P" and "R". Likewise, the Oscan letterforms for A, K, L, M, N, S, and U are rather quaint, so I have actually included modern kinds as alternates.
Minotaur offers the best of both worlds: Just as the mythical Minotaur is half guy and half bull, the font Minotaur is half modern and half ancient. Thanks to OpenType features (stylistic sets), you can easily change from ancient letterforms to modern-day (if you have an OpenType-savvy application such as Adobe InDesign) for Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic alphabets. Minotaur supports all modern-day European languages, consisting of Modern (monotonic) Greek and those that utilize the Cyrillic alphabet. And, yes, it supports Oscan, both right-facing and left-facing.
Minotaur consists of 3 OpenType Stylistics Sets: 1 - converts ancient (default) letterforms (A, K, L, M, N, S, and U) to modern alternates; 2 - converts Latin letterforms to equivalent left-facing (standard) Oscan letterforms; 3 - converts Latin letterforms to comparable right-facing Oscan letterforms.
