Serifs are by products of the technology used to write them (stone, ink, etc) & are merely the on and off ramps to get to the real meat of it, & they are zero more.
Might even go so far to say they’re a waste of pixels and therefore energy. Fight me 😜
I doubt that*. Serifs just add pixels to the labor of recognition. Serif fonts can’t reduce as small as the sans serifs, making them bad for things like iPhones 🤷♂️
*maybe I’d believe a decent study if you’ve got a decent source (stat sig N, clear funding source, etc)
I have absolutely zero expertise in the field, but every time you see something like that in history, I always wonder if it was primarily spurred on by a change in writing medium. E.g. paper vs tablet.
If by "ancient Latin alphabet" you mean the alphabet as depicted in charts like this you're talking about the Archaic alphabet, not the alphabet the Romans used for Classical Latin. The Romans after the Archaic Period used the same alphabet as we do (with minor additions depending on our precise European language), at least in inscriptions--Roman cursive is very different in form. The charts you're looking at are very misleading, in that Latin was written in the Archaic Period either right to left or boustrephedon, alternating direction with each line. But these are only the very earliest Latin inscriptions. By the time Latin really starts to be used regularly as a written language it is being written left to right, with the letters oriented to suit.
Yeah I wasn’t really sure how knowledgeable Matt Baker from usefulcharts is in ancient languages. Until I see actual sources I’m treating this chart as nothing more than guess work.
Personally I always thought it was easier to have the line on the left side and then the different stuff on the right side. Probably from being right handed.
Eg: B D E H K L M N P R
Those all have a line on the left and the right side differs
Not sure if true but I did hear somewhere that a big part of the Roman changes were to make carving letters into stone tablets and buildings easier.
It certainly explains using more straight lines in eg M and N. But maybe the flip also makes it easier to carve if you're chiseling right handed? I'm imagining how I'd chisel a K.