[IAEP] Sugar UI font

[Sridhar Dhanapalan]

On 25 January 2012 23:17, Chris Leonard <cjlhomeaddress at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Just a thought I would like to throw into the mix while you are still
> in the investigation phase.  You might want adding a selection
> criteria that the font should be capable of representing of any
> unusual characters that may have been introduced in the orthography of
> aboriginal languages.
>
> A common pattern is that native languages (frequently oral without
> written forms) has a wriiten form developed during the colonial period
> (often by missionaries seeking to translate the Bible).  This
> sometimes leads to an alphabet and orthography that is drawn from the
> (typically Latin) alphabet of the colonizing culture.  However, in
> order to represent certain sounds unique to the indigenous language,
> additional characters are introduced.  By way of example, a number of
> indigenous languages of Mexico introduce a "crossed I" (ɨ) into the
> alphabet to represent a particular variation of the "i" sound.  I know
> nothing of the orthography of Australian native languages and so this
> may not end up being a concern, but it should be taken into
> consideration.
>
> If you want a font standard that will continue to serve Australia when
> indigenous language localization becomes an element of your program
> (as it hopefully will someday)  you should make sure that you do not
> lock into an option that will limit your abilities to represent
> aboriginal languages in future.
>
> Warmest Regards.
>
> cjl

Thanks for that advice!

I was casually keeping in mind the special characters required for the
Yolngu Matha language, spoken by the people of north-east Arnhem Land,
but you make a good point that indigenous character sets should be
taken more seriously. Some needed characters are available in major
fonts, but not knowing all languages I cannot know for sure if they
are all available.

The typeface that comes closest to our needs is Andika [1]. It has a
'bowl a' (a good thing) but it also has a hooked 9 (a bad thing). It
also isn't very legible at small sizes.

I'm surprised that no fonts that meet our criteria appear to exist.
How are the characters "a" and "9" taught in schools in other
countries?


[1] http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=Andika