Here (belatedly) is part of the response I sent to Dr. Arthur (see /m30) last month. The Gentium font is also available for Linux.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Greetings from Niger. I'd suggest right off going with a Unicode font such as those resident on most Windows systems (Lucida Sans Unicode, Arial Unicode MS) or one like Gentium, which is free for download at http://www.sil.org/~gaultney/gentium/ (and available for Mac as well as PC/Windows). There are links to other fonts and info at http://www.bisharat.net/A12N .

Font development is somewhat involved, but there is definitely a need for good fonts with extended characters for African languages.

Edited by author 02-12-2004 03:05 PM
A draft of a list of plant names in Dagbani as compiled by Roger Blench (who is or was working with with ODI) is available in PDF format at:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/roger_blench/...20plant%20names.pdf

I tried to block and copy names with the extended Latin letters, but those letters were transformed to other ANSI characters. (Adobe's coding? Or my Windows 98 system?)

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Larry Osei-Kwaku reports on the "Twi-classes" list (see /m29) - that Google is now localized for Twi: http://www.google.com/intl/tw/

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Hi Don

interesting. Does Twi use any extended latin characters?

Andrew

QT - BisharatNet wrote:

>
> .
>


--
Andrew Cunningham
e-Diversity and Content Infrastructure Solutions
Public Libraries Unit, Vicnet
State Library of Victoria
328 Swanston Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Australia

andrewc+AEA-vicnet.net.au

Ph. 3-8664-7430
Fax: 3-9639-2175

http://www.openroad.net.au/
http://www.libraries.vic.gov.au/
http://www.vicnet.net.au/
< replied-to message removed by QT >

Andrew, Yes it does. See /m19. Don

am i mistaken, or are the extended Latin characters for Twi missing from the Twi Google interface?

FYI from Unicode list - question on fonts and response...

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Hudson" <tiro@tiro.com>
To: <Kyekyeku.Opoku-Pong@nokia.com>
Cc: <unicode@unicode.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 2:11 AM
Subject: Re: Modifying Standard fonts


Kyekyeku.Opoku-Pong@nokia.com wrote:

> A colleague and I are working on a keyboard standard for our country,
Ghana. We think that the people of Ghana would like to use this keyboard but
would also like to use the Standard fonts as well.
>
> Standard fonts like Arial, Times New Roman don't have the Ghanaian
letters. The Ghanaian letters, as I have learnt from this forum are all in
Unicode.
>
> My questions is, would it be legal for us to modify these Standard fonts
and package them with our keyboard software so that anyone who uses our
keyboard could also use these standard fonts? We would


This question should be addressed to Microsoft Typography, members of which read this list any may respond offline. The short answer is that the Windows core fonts are considered operating system components and covered by the Windows end user license which prohibits all decompiling and modification. So no, it is not legal for you to modify these fonts. I believe, however, that all these fonts are being updated for the next version of Windows, and will support a wide range of African languages. Again, I recommend that you contact MS Typography: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/AboutMST.mspx

John Hudson

--

Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com
Vancouver, BC tiro@tiro.com

From my understanding, Microsoft are updating their core fonts, which will be included in their next operating system. Which isn't due for quite a while. And I doubt that the fonts will be made available to users of older operating systems.

For updating fonts, it might be worth locating fonts that allow you to modify and redistribute them. There are some fonts released under licenses similar to the GPL.

Thanks, Andrew. Your response (/m38) and John's (in /m37) speak to one of two separate though obviously connected issues in Kyekyeku's question. That is, fonts with the necessary extended characters. There is some discussion of that on this forum, for example in /m31, and earlier on font design.

The second issue is the keyboard standard for use of the small but growing number of fonts with the extended characters used to write Ghanaian and other African languages. The keyboard layouts you (Andrew) and others have produced that are collected at http://www.bisharat.net/A12N/Projects would hopefully serve as useful models or sources for ideas on different strategies for layout and keys (sequences) for other projects needed to provide for input of extended characters.

It would be ideal in the longer term to have a broader standard available for languages used in groups of African countries - perhaps not all languages in all countries because that might get too complicated for average users, but all Ghanaian languages should be easy enough. The workshop on African languages & the internet at Bamako 2002 recommended coordination on keyboard standards but I haven't heard of anything being done to that end.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

PS- GPL = General Public License (GNU) ?

Andrew, Re /m36, I don't know Twi, but the chances are that they (the localizer and/or Google) substituted Basic Latin (ASCII) counterparts for extended Latin characters where the latter normally would be used. Kind of like French and Spanish back in the days before you could use accented characters on computers? Don

Thank you for your responses to my question even I sent to wrong address.

Our keyboard has been tested on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The problem is that if the keyboard would be adopted soon in Ghana, most of the users will have Windows 2000 and XP. Does Microsoft own the Standard fonts? If so would be possible for my colleague and I to have their permission to add the Ghanaian characters? I will try to find out from Microsoft home page if there is any one I can talk to about the font modification.

I understand Microsoft is working to include most of the Unicode characters in the future OS. Is there anyway of finding out if the Ghanaian characters will be included? Would there be anyway of making sure that the Ghanaian characters are included?

Recently Microsoft signed an IT Research and developemnt pact with Ghana so that could be one channel for influencing this font issue.

These are the questions we do not have answers to. If anyone can help we will be grateful.

Thank you

re /m41

From memory some of the standard fonts, if not all, are licensed by Microsoft from font development companies. I seriously doubt if you could get permisison to modify the fonts. Microsoft Tpography tem would be the people to ask, but I suspect that the answer will be no.

From my undertsnading, the new core fonts for the next Windows OS will provide support for Unicode 4.0. So if that provides the characters you need, then there shouldn't be much problems. But this may not hold for all African languages. One of the key issues will be glyph variation. An example is the capital form of the latin letter ENG, which has one shape in Africa, and an alternative glyph in its usage in Northern Europe and Australia.

In theory, an OpenType font can contain both glyphs and present the appropriate glyph based on the language or typographic tradition of the text. Unfortunately existing applications and operating systems have no methods built in to them to make use of this feature in the OpenType specification.

A practical example. I've created some web pages for some Sudanese languages. I use the font Doulos SIL which has both OpenType tables and Graphite tables. When I display the web pages in the SILA version of Mozilla (with graphite support) i see the n-form of teh capital ENG. If I use Mozzilla/Firebird using Uniscribe support, or use Internet Explorer I see the N-form of capital ENG. So the default glyph is different in different web browsers based on which rendering engine is being used. At least with this font.

Andrew

re /m40

Don, I suspect thats whats happened. Despite the fact that Google interface is unicode, web designers choice of fonts overriding orthographic considerations?

Andrew

re /m39

with some of our internal keyboard development projects here, we've shifted our logic somewhat.

We see a need for "regional" keyboards and for language specific keyboards.

At the moment we are expanding the language support on a couple of our regional keyboard layouts. For instance the southern sudanese keyboard. Regional keyboards are useful in environments where a range of languages are spoken/written.

Although, if extensive typing is being done in only one language, then sometimes it is better to develop language specific keyboard layouts, esp if additional behaviours suited to a particular language are involved.

As an example, one language we work with has long breathy vowels, so a long breathy a is represented by two a-diaeresis characters (ää). I could type

'a' + 'diaeresis' + 'a' + 'diaeresis' -> ää

But in this language you never have a letter combination 'aä' or 'äa' only 'aa' or 'ää' so it was possible to construct a keyboard sequence

'a' + 'a' + 'diaeresis' -> ää

which is quicker and easier to type.

Likewise the behavour of the backspace key could be changed to delete a breathy character (ie ä) or a long breathy character (ää) in one keystroke, similarly shift delete could delete the diaeresis, ie convert a breathy vowel (with diaeresis) to its none breathy equivalent (without diaeresis).

These are some of the benefits that could be brought to a language specific keyboard that would probably not be possible or desirable on a regional keyboard.

Andrew

Kyekyeku, Thanks for the follow up. You didn't send your inquiry to the wrong address (Unicode list), but it also is on-topic for these fora that have a Ghana or Africa-wide focus. Each have somewhat different readership (although some overlap).

I think John and Andrew answered the proprietary issues re development of the fonts in question, but you raise an interesting question of whether the agreements between MS and various governments like the one you mention for Ghana include font and keyboard capacity for all languages in the countries concerned.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net


Quoting QuickTopic daily digest <qtopic+16-9xffAXi7whnv@quicktopic.com>: > --QT-------------------------------------------------------------
> Messages for the topic "Ghanaian languages & ICT" for 03-11-2004.
> Reply by email or visit
> http://www.quicktopic.com/16/H/9xffAXi7whnv
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> From: Kyekyeku Opoku-Pong Time: 06:54 AM
> Thank you for your responses to my question even I sent to wrong
> address.
>
> Our keyboard has been tested on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The
> problem is that if the keyboard would be adopted soon in Ghana,
> most of the users will have Windows 2000 and XP. Does Microsoft
> own the Standard fonts? If so would be possible for my colleague
> and I to have their permission to add the Ghanaian characters? I
> will try to find out from Microsoft home page if there is any
> one I can talk to about the font modification.
>
> I understand Microsoft is working to include most of the Unicode
> characters in the future OS. Is there anyway of finding out if
> the Ghanaian characters will be included? Would there be anyway
> of making sure that the Ghanaian characters are included?
>
> Recently Microsoft signed an IT Research and developemnt pact
> with Ghana so that could be one channel for influencing this
> font issue.
>
> These are the questions we do not have answers to. If anyone can
> help we will be grateful.
>
> Thank you
> ------------------------------------------------------------
...

The following concerning Kyekyeku's work appeared today on the GINKS list (associated with http://www.ginks.org/) and was forwarded to me by Kelly Morris. DZO

A Keyboard for Ghanaian languages

Two Software Engineers at Nokia Corporation, Finland, Kyekyeku Opoku-Pong and Isaac Quarshie have come up with a keyboard design for Ghanaian languages. The keyboard in its prototype state can be used for most of the Ghanaian languages including Akan, Ga, and some of the northern languages. The keyboard modifies the standard 101 QWERTY keyboard to include the "open letter o" pronounced "ooh" in Akan and the "open letter e" pronounced "eeh" in Akan and the "eng" character used in Ga, Adangbe and some of the northern languages. This means that the user Ghana type English as usual and also type in the Ghanaian languages at will. The keyboard also the cedi sign.

According to the designers, their aim was to contribute to the ICT revolution in Ghana. Kyekyeku Opoku-Pong and Isaac Quarshie remarked that in the beginning of this endeavour, they had no idea how to implement the keyboard but with perseverance, they have now achieved what one day will give every Ghanaian the chance to type freely any Ghanaian language on the computer.

The keyboard has been tested on Windows 2000 but should work with Windows XP. The designers hope that Ghana government all the right authorities will support their efforts. The sort of help they will include the recommendation of the right layout by an authority in Ghana, the set characters that will make the final design good for most or all of the major languages in Ghana and the funding and promotion of the keyboard.

Source: GHP