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Joel Cherney
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 26, 2009
Question

Name some good dictionary fonts!

  • May 26, 2009
  • 2 replies
  • 3471 views

I might be getting involved in a project that involves making a dictionary for a First Nations/Native North American language, and I'd appreciate it if someone could suggest some fonts. The materials are currently mostly in Gentium, which looks okay to me. Although its coverage is impressive and it doesn't look half bad, I have the knee-jerk reaction to free fonts that many of us have - it's not a reasonable reaction, I think, in this case. SIL as an organization is radically different from 1001FreeFonts.com, so I'm not worried about malformed fonts causing issues at print. I'm simply curious if there isn't anything out there that I've never heard of due to the fact that I've spent the last decade in a cash-strapped nonprofit organization.

The glyph complement I'd need is already covered by Gentium. It features some IPA here and there, and quite a few characgters that I've never seen in use before. Some of the necessary glyphs include:

  Latin letter L with "belt." (What? Belt? Well, I never.)

  Glottal stop glyph

  Small capital I

  Modifier letter half triangular colon (Once again, what?)

That's just skimming off the top. Any suggestions?

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    David W. Goodrich
    Participating Frequently
    May 28, 2009

    You might want to ask your question over on the Typophile forums, where there is a currrent discussion on IPA Greek and where some of the regulars sometimes mention work on Native American languages.

    Good luck,

    David

    Participating Frequently
    May 26, 2009

    I'd contact Tiro Typeworks about Huronia if I were you. Check this out:

    http://www.tiro.com/Huronia/index.html

    Tell Ross I sent you.

    Joel Cherney
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    May 27, 2009

    Many thanks, John. I have a serious child-burned-by-stove response to the words "Current Development $FONTNAME Specimen" on his site, but Ross' work looks excellent. The oblique aboriginal syllabics in particular are a real surprise. Thanks for the advice.