LL-L "Technica" 2008.05.06 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 06 May 2008 - Volume 02
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From: Fonken, Gael M. [foga0301 at stcloudstate.edu]
Subject: Resources? Technical hurdles?--unicode fonts

Dear Ron and MWM and all techno-phils,

   You and Mike were recently discussing problems with Unicode fonts: E.g.,
Ron's statement that "Tibetan script still needs work in Unicode fonts. I
have Tibetan-specific fonts that stack just beautifully and automatically…"
etc.

  I've been working on a "*heritage language font package*" for my
university's computer network.  My role as a writing teacher has been to
generate student interest in using less common fonts that are *not* in *the
regular package of alphabets* (which houses common languages like Chinese,
Japanese and Hindi).  But mere students are barred from downloading such
precise resources to the common system.  So, we got a professor to sponsor a
request to actually get the university to provide these rarer
(non-commercial) fonts for student use.  We made a list of ten or so fonts
that correspond with the 'new' immigrant groups that populate our part of
the US.  I currently have a group of Somalis interested in learning to read
their alternate alphabet (Osmania). The Tibetan community may be the next to
get up a similar request. The rest of what I do involves linking various
community players together on our system to 'make hay' with these resources.
  But the downloads need to happen first.

   Okay, so the system programmers did say that they would get these fonts
into the system for us, but they've never done this kind of work before, not
being linguists.  Mark, the main person in charge of helping us, is
interested in making contact with someone who could help him move beyond the
glitches that will probably be a part of this process. Luckily, we have all
summer to do this… and maybe I'm pessimistic, but I'm thinking this won't be
that easy. I'm just doing this for fun (not for a job).  So, if there
someone out there who knows about such things who I could get him in touch
with, that would be really appreciated.  If the fonts aren't free, we will
not be able to provide them for student use. But it sounds like free fonts
are also harder to maneuver into position.  I'd like to learn how to do this
too, of course, so I imagine that I will be close at hand as things come
up—or don't come up quite right.

The whole point of this is to get diverse students engaged in writing
diversely…. Maybe they would like to translate the Wren story too.  But
first we need to engage the bear.

Gael Fonken,

Central Minnesota, USA
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Technica

Hi, Gael!

To help you get the ball rolling, please just let me give you a handful of
hints.

The most extensive Unicode font so far seems to be *Arial Unicode MS* (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial_Unicode_MS), which is a part of the
packages of the last few issues of Microsoft Windows. It's a non-serif
whopper but does lack a few scripts, such as the Ethiopic and Canadian
Aboriginal Syllabic.

*Code 2000* (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_2000) is a freely available
serif font that contains some scripts other collective ones do not have,
such as Syriac, Thaana, Khmer, Lao, Burmese, Ethiopic, Cherokee, Canadian
Aboriginal Syllabics, Ogham, Runic, Tifinagh, Yi, and Mongolian Vertical.
There are two problems with it: (1) The screen font is fuzzy, and (2) many
scripts (such as the East Asian ones) are not well formed, a touch
non-native. The font is freely available, for instance here:
http://www.code2000.net/

*Titus Cyberbit Basic *(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TITUS_Cyberbit_Basic#TITUS_Cyberbit) is a serif
font that contains fewer scripts but does contain some lesser offered ones,
such as Thaana, Ethiopic, Ogham and Runic. It can be downloaded here:
http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/indexe.htm

These are just among the important general ones. There are many others that
specialize in certain languages, scripts or script groups. An excellent site
for those is this one: http://www.wazu.jp/

(Osmanya fonts: http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Osmanya.html)

I'm pretty sure others have further suggestions.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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