My desire is to create (make) a set of fonts for the Akan language for Windows 2000 to begin with. I have been able to create a crude version for my own use but I know that the people of Ghana would be very happy to be able to install a standardized version for their own use. I would also want to eventually map it to a keyboard, probably with extra keys for the two Akan characters.
My problem is:
1. How do I set out to create such a font?
2. How do I use the existing character 0190/025B in such a font?
3. How do I create and get the 15th character accepted in the Unicode set?
1. See www.fontlab.com
2. Make a Unicode encoded font (TrueType or CFF OpenType). For use in Windows 2000 or XP or other Unicode text processing environments, you do not need to worry about 8-bit codepages: so long as the glyphs for these letters are mapped to the correct Unicode characters in the font cmap table, they will work. If you want to make your own keyboard layout driver for Akan, you can use Microsoft's new Keyboard Layout Creator: http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/msklc.mspx
3. The 'open o' character is already included in the Unicode Standard. The uppercase letter is U+0186 and the lowercase is U+0254.
A couple of additional comments:
Akan is a tonal language, yes? This likely means that although the Bureau of Ghana languages specifies an alphabet of 22 letters there are circumstances in which it is necessary to indicate tones to differentiate otherwise identical words. For educational and lexicographical texts it may also be desirable to indicate nasalisation. This means that simply providing glyphs for the 44 upper- and lowercase letters might not be sufficient: you may also need dynamic mark positioning.
Microsoft are apparently releasing a number of updates to their core font set with upcoming versions of Office and Windows that will include extensive African language support.
John Hudson
Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com Vancouver, BC [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The sight of James Cox from the BBC's World at One,
interviewing Robin Oakley, CNN's man in Europe,
surrounded by a scrum of furiously scribbling print
journalists will stand for some time as the apogee of
media cannibalism.
- Emma Brockes, at the EU summit
