Font-related problem for linguists

[Ken Manson]

Hi

Returning to the original question...

I am with SIL and have talked with an SIL font developer and the issue is not an Unicode one, but rather how regular glyphs and italic glyphs are linked in the CharisSIL font. If it were a Unicode issue ALL Unicode fonts would have this issue.

The NRSI (Non-Roman Script Initiative) team is willing to consider changes to the font behaviour of CharisSIL. We need to remember that this font is used not only by linguists but also by language communities worldwide. And so there maybe some conflicts in what linguists want and language communities. However, this is also an issue with how the CharisSIL renders the IPA block of Unicode. These conflicts (in the linking of regular and italic glyphs) can be resolved in a number of ways. (Don't ask me how, I'm a linguist not a techie, but have been told it is very possible.)

So... to be able to get the changes raised on this list into new versions of CharisSIL, we need to come to a consensus on what needs to change and then submit this to the SIL font developers.

I am willing to collate suggestions regarding how the CharisSIL handles regular/italic glyphs and then submit the suggestions to the font developers.

If you email me at ken.grammar at gmail.com and include CharisSIL in the subject line I will compile the list of suggestions and pass the recommendations on.

Ken Manson
Payap University/SIL International

-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion List for ALT [mailto:LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Don Killian
Sent: Thursday, 1 March 2012 6:04 PM
To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: Font-related problem for linguists

Hi all,

This is perhaps a silly question, but I was wondering if anyone would be willing to help with a problem I've been having.

As far as I'm aware, it's common practice to have single words in italics when they're inside text and from another language.  For languages with insufficient or non-existent orthographies, this is then done in IPA.

Charis SIL is the only font I personally know of with full support for italicized IPA.  Some other fonts can handle most of IPA, e.g. Deja Vu Sans and Arial Unicode, but some of the combine characters can cause problems.

However, Charis SIL has a rather annoying feature: when you italicize a it becomes ɑ, and in many ATR languages of Africa, the distinction between a and ɑ does indeed exist.  To turn this off, you're forced to use a user-selected variant of slant-italics, which not all programs support, or make your own font, which can cause other problems such as with some typesetters or journals, who aren't willing to do that.

When I emailed SIL, they weren't willing to change the basic function of the font because they said there hasn't been a demand for it.

But right now, this means that linguists are left without a single option for a font supporting both IPA and italics.

If anyone has any alternatives they've used, I'm open to listening, but I can't imagine having both italics and IPA in an article or book is very rare, and I've seen numerous books which have evidently had problems with this.

And, if anyone else would like to email SIL, their email address is:
nrsi_intl at sil.org.  Perhaps more linguists requesting this feature could encourage SIL enough to create a font with support for italicized IPA.

Best,

Don
--
Don Killian
Researcher in African Linguistics
Department of Modern Languages
PL 24 (Unioninkatu 40)
FI-00014 University of Helsinki
+358 (0)44 5016437

-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion List for ALT [mailto:LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Don Killian
Sent: Thursday, 1 March 2012 6:04 PM
To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: Font-related problem for linguists

Hi all,

This is perhaps a silly question, but I was wondering if anyone would be willing to help with a problem I've been having.

As far as I'm aware, it's common practice to have single words in italics when they're inside text and from another language.  For languages with insufficient or non-existent orthographies, this is then done in IPA.

Charis SIL is the only font I personally know of with full support for italicized IPA.  Some other fonts can handle most of IPA, e.g. Deja Vu Sans and Arial Unicode, but some of the combine characters can cause problems.

However, Charis SIL has a rather annoying feature: when you italicize a it becomes ɑ, and in many ATR languages of Africa, the distinction between a and ɑ does indeed exist.  To turn this off, you're forced to use a user-selected variant of slant-italics, which not all programs support, or make your own font, which can cause other problems such as with some typesetters or journals, who aren't willing to do that.

When I emailed SIL, they weren't willing to change the basic function of the font because they said there hasn't been a demand for it.

But right now, this means that linguists are left without a single option for a font supporting both IPA and italics.

If anyone has any alternatives they've used, I'm open to listening, but I can't imagine having both italics and IPA in an article or book is very rare, and I've seen numerous books which have evidently had problems with this.

And, if anyone else would like to email SIL, their email address is:
nrsi_intl at sil.org.  Perhaps more linguists requesting this feature could encourage SIL enough to create a font with support for italicized IPA.

Best,

Don
--
Don Killian
Researcher in African Linguistics
Department of Modern Languages
PL 24 (Unioninkatu 40)
FI-00014 University of Helsinki
+358 (0)44 5016437