Animated Writing: A Little History on Letter G

Unlike many letters in our alphabet, the letter g has a known date of birth. In 312 B.C., freedman Spurius Carvilius Ruga created the letter. Before this, the Phonetician letter gimel had represented both the 'g' and 'k' sounds. This was much too confusing, which made the case for this new letter to be created. Adding letters to our alphabet was a touchy subject around this time. The powers that be (Roman censor Appius Claoudius, and others) were so set in the number of letters in the alphabet that the letter 'z' was tossed after 'g' came along. Our friend Claoudius found the 'z' to be just too tasteful and foreign. Thus, 'g' becomes the seventh letter in our alphabet.

Today we the lowercase 'g' in two different forms: the single story or opentail, and the double story or looptail. The single story form is derived from the uppercase letter G. The scribe starts with making the form c, then continuing by inclosing the circle, and finally adding a tail curved to the left. The double story was formed similarly, yet more ornately. The form became popular with the introduction of printing the Roman Alphabet, as the looptail allowed for more words to be printed on a page.

I'm very interested in exploring the differences between the two forms of the lowercase letter 'g'. In an animation, I could portray the many variations of this letter as time passes. Seeing the differences in a letter as time progresses would offer viewers a greater understanding of the letter 'g'. It may also offer some general knowledge about other letters and how our alphabet has changed over time. By animating this letter with some type of personification in mind, viewers will be more intrigued and interested in what knowledge I'm offering. A very important aspect of this and all letters is asking the question: why this form? What makes this letter so recognizable and easily read. I intend to explore and answer these questions in my animation.