Thu 06 Apr 2017 07:42:08 PM UTC, comment #2:
Kra (not “ĸra”, which is a hypercorrection) should look like a ⟨k⟩ without an ascender. In this comment, I will provide evidence, then explain what changes need to be made to FreeFont. I’ll discuss kappa in another comment.
There are four glyphs relevant to this discussion.
- small caps ⟨K⟩
- ⟨k⟩ without an ascender
- Greek small kappa
- Cyrillic small ka
Evidence
https://archive.org/stream/grammatikdergrn00kleigoog#page/n43/mode/1up
Transcription: http://fiftywordsforsnow.com/ebooks/kleinschmidt/
Samuel Kleinschmidt created an orthography for Greenlandic, described in this 1851 book, using kappa to represent /q/. This is the origin of the letter kra. The table in the middle of the page has many contrasting examples of kra and ⟨k⟩ in italics. The diagonal strokes of the kras look different from the ⟨k⟩s’, which is evidence that he simply used a kappa sort, rather than creating a new sort.
https://archive.org/stream/cihm_00217#page/61/mode/2up
Transcription: http://fiftywordsforsnow.com/ebooks/bourquin/
This book is from 1891. Item 21, at the bottom left, includes the words “seĸineĸ”, “seĸerngă”, and “seĸininga” in three fonts. Compare these kras with the three ⟨k⟩s of item 23, paying especial attention to the vertical strokes’ top serifs. In the first two fonts, kra looks like a ⟨k⟩ without an ascender. In the third font, it looks like a small caps ⟨K⟩. This is evidence that kra had diverged from the Greek kappa, much like how U+A7B5 LATIN SMALL LETTER BETA is a Latin form of a Greek letter.
http://timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?pageId=3792684&requestedFileType=High+quality+display
This is a 1973 Greenlandic/Danish bilingual newspaper. There are kras and ⟨k⟩s throughout. In the serif font used for articles, the serifs at the top of the vertical stroke of the kra show that they used a small caps ⟨K⟩. In the sans-serif font used for headlines, the kra is slightly taller than x-height, indicating that they didn’t have a kra sort and made do with a small caps ⟨K⟩.
https://aappilattoq.info/greenland/qeqertarsuup-tunua/kangilinaaq/qasigiannguit/2012/04/
Search for “kra” on this page to find three photographs of old signs containing sans-serif kras.
Analysis
A variety of glyphs have been used for kra. Most of them are glyphs for other characters repurposed for kra. The only glyph specifically designed for kra is the ⟨k⟩ without an ascender. Using kappa is very old-fashioned. Using small caps ⟨K⟩ is a fallback. Nothing uses the glyph with the Cyrillic-ka-style curly upper arm, except FreeFont.
Conclusion
In all the FreeFonts, the kra glyph should be changed to a ⟨k⟩ without an ascender, as in Hsing-yen’s attached image. The only FreeFont whose kra glyph looks right is FreeSerif Italic.
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