<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">=========================================================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 06 May 2008 - Volume 02<br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">-------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Please set the encoding mode to Unicode (UTF-8).</span><br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">If viewing this in a web browser, please click on</span><br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">the html toggle at the bottom of the archived page </span><br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">and switch your browser's character encoding to Unicode.</span><br>=========================================================================<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe"><span class="EP8xU" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">Fonken, Gael M. [<a href="mailto:foga0301@stcloudstate.edu">foga0301@stcloudstate.edu</a>]</span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe">Resources? Technical hurdles?--unicode fonts<br></span><p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span>Dear Ron
and MWM and all techno-phils,</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>
<span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">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.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span> I've
been working on a "<i>heritage language font package</i>" 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 <i><u>not</u></i> in <i>the
regular package of alphabets</i> (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. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>
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. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>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. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES-MX">Gael
Fonken, </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES-MX">Central
Minnesota, USA</span></p><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: R. F. Hahn <</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: Technica<br><br>Hi, Gael!<br><br>To help you get the ball rolling, please just let me give you a handful of hints.<br><br>The most extensive Unicode font so far seems to be <b>Arial Unicode MS</b> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial_Unicode_MS">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial_Unicode_MS</a>), 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.<br>
<br><b>Code 2000</b> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_2000">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_2000</a>) 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: <a href="http://www.code2000.net/">http://www.code2000.net/</a><br>
<br></span><b style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Titus Cyberbit Basic </b><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TITUS_Cyberbit_Basic#TITUS_Cyberbit">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TITUS_Cyberbit_Basic#TITUS_Cyberbit</a>) 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: <a href="http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/indexe.htm">http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/indexe.htm</a></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">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: <a href="http://www.wazu.jp/">http://www.wazu.jp/</a><br>
<br>(Osmanya fonts: <a href="http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Osmanya.html">http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Osmanya.html</a>)</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">I'm pretty sure others have further suggestions.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Regards,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Reinhard/Ron</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">