SOUTH ASIAN LANGUAGE FONTS
(x-posted from the Indology list)
December 7, 1994
From: Frances Pritchett <fp7@columbia.edu>
Dear colleagues,
Here is the list of South Asian fonts, as it presently stands. We are incorporating it into the Inventory of Language Materials (ILM) section of the South Asia Gopher. Of course it's very incomplete, but with your help and feedback it can become much more extensive. Remember that I'm no computer expert, I'm just acting as a compiler. All comments and evaluations of particular fonts will be most welcome.
Also, if you know of any computer language-learning materials, please let me know; we'll incorporate them into our language-by-language files on available teaching materials.
Thanks in advance for all suggestions, Fran Pritchett
I N V E N T O R Y O F
L A N G U A G E
M A T E R I A L S
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An electronic publication project
General editor: Frances Pritchett <fp7@columbia.edu>
Publishing supervisor: David Magier
Hard copy publisher: Southern Asian Institute,
Columbia University
Year of publication: annual, with frequent updates
May be copied or distributed without permission.
Comments and suggestions are welcomed by the editor.
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C O M P U T E R S C R I P T F O N T S
Editor for Fonts: Frances Pritchett,
Columbia University <fp7@columbia.edu>
For general information about ILM, see:
INTRODUCTION TO ILM
IMPORTANT NOTE: The editor has not tried out these fonts and
does not vouch for any of their claims. This information has
been compiled as a public service only.
--Last updated: December 1994--
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AUTHOR: Aklujkar, Prof. Ashok <aklujkar@unixg.ubc.ca>, Department of
Asian Studies, Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.,
Canada V6T 1Z2. Phone 604-822-5185 or 604-274-5353. Fax 604-
822-8937.
LANGUAGE: Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi: "Avanti," "Kashi" PRICE: $40. ("I contribute the net proceeds to a student assistance
fund.") OPERATING SYSTEM: Mac. COMMENT: "Avanti was made by me in 1985 (slightly improved in 1988)
for dot-matrix printers; it is a considerably improved version
of what George Hart (Univ. of California, Berkeley) had
accomplished. A logical assignment of Nagari letters to the
Roman keyboard, one that speeds up typing and learning, is my
other main contribution. That the font prints well even on
laser printers is something that still surprises me. It is,
for example, the type used for Devanagari text matter in my
book *Sanskrit: an Easy Introduction to an Enchanting
Language*. The diskette also includes the Roman fonts "Ganga"
and "Sindhu" which can be used for transliteration of most
literary languages of South Asia" (--Author).
AUTHOR: Bryant, Dr. Kenneth E. <ken.bryant@mtsg.ubc.ca>, Department
of Asian Studies, 1871 West Mall, Univ. of British Columbia,
Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6T 1W5. Phone 604-822-5185 or 604-
274-5353. Fax 604-822-8937.
LANGUAGE: Hindi, Sanskrit: "Jaisalmer" for Devanagari, "Taj" for
Roman transliteration
PRICE: $100. OPERATING SYSTEM: Mac: Postscript Type 1, Truetype. Windows
versions available soon. COMMENT: "The two fonts, sold as a package, come in Regular, Bold,
Italic, and Bold-Italic. Included in the package are keyboard
layout files for the system folder, which extensively redefine
the system of dead keys. This is particularly important for
Jaisalmer; it includes a very large number of conjuncts for
Sanskrit which can only be accessed through dead key
combinations. Extensive documentation" (--Author).
AUTHOR: C-DAC, Center for Development of Advanced Computing, Pune,
India. LANGUAGE: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri,
Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sinhala,
Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, etc.
CONTACT: Mohan Tambe <tambe@parcom.ernet.in>, CDAC, Pune University
Campus, Ganeshkhind, Pune, India 411 007. Phone 212-33-2461,
33-2483, 33-2479. Fax 212-33-7551.
PRICE: All the available fonts in any single script, Rs. 12,000. Any
two languages, Rs. 24,000. All Indian scripts, Rs. 38,000.
OPERATING SYSTEM: SCO-XENIX, or any IBM PC compatible running a Unix
variant.
COMMENT: A strikingly fine set of TrueType fonts for all the Indian
languages. (This is the same group responsible for the GIST
card, a board for creating a multilingual machine from several
different types of computers.) Characters are encoded using
the Government of India standard, ISCII.
INFORMATION: James Nye <jnye@midway.uchicago.edu>, 312-702-8430
AUTHOR: Chopde, Avinash <avinash@acm.org> <avinash@avid.com>, Avid
Technology, Inc., Tewksbury, Mass. Phone 508-640-3138. LANGUAGE: "ITRANS": Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu PRICE: Free ACCESS: cs.duke.edu /dist /sources /itrans32.*
OR: oak.oakland.edu /pub /msdos /tex /itrans32.* OPERATING SYSTEM: TeX on Unix/DOS COMMENT: .zip for DOS, .tar.Z for Unix. A set of programs for
producing Indian script output from transliterated input;
optionally integrates with TeX; a formatter is included that
outputs PostScript directly. CS encoding will soon be added
as a supported input coding scheme.
AUTHOR: Courtney, David <tabalji@aol.com> LANGUAGE: Hindi, Sanskrit PRICE: $25 ACCESS: Available as a shareware package on the networks. OPERATING SYSTEM: Mac, but adaptible for Windows. COMMENT: "A Truetype font. The package contains extensive
documentation and a large number of conjunct forms and a few
dingbats; also a bit-mapped version. It has a very large set,
so many of the characters are only availible through deadkey
combinations. The real strength of the script is its
orientation towords DTP applications that revolve around
traditional Hindustani musical notation" (--Author).
AUTHOR: Deshpande, Dr. Madhav <mmdesh@umich.edu>, Department of Asian
Languages and Cultures, 3070 Frieze Building, Univ. of
Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. Phone 313-747-2159.
LANGUAGE: Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit PRICE: Each font $100, all three $250 OPERATING SYSTEM: Postscript and truetype versions of Nagari and
Roman diacritics fonts for Macintosh. The Nagari "Madhushree"
font works for Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi. "Mandakini" works
for Sanskrit and Hindi, and can do all the dotted letters used
to transcribe Urdu sounds. The Roman diacritics font,
"Manjushree-CSX," follows the CSX coding, but has a lot more
diacritics.
COMMENT: "The print quality of the Devanagari fonts approximates the
typography of Nirnayasagara press. The Manjushree-CSX font
looks like Times-Roman. All three fonts are of the best
publishing quality if used with a high resolution laser
printer" (--Author).
AUTHOR: Ecological Linguistics <ecoling@applelink.apple.com>, PO Box
15156, Washington DC 20003. Phone 202-547-7678. LANGUAGE: Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi,
Sinhalese, Tamil, Telugu, Tibetan, etc.; also Kharoshti,
Brahmi, Harappan symbols
PRICE: $70 per font OPERATING SYSTEM: Mostly Mac, TrueType for Windows also available. COMMENT: "We specialize in complex alphabets and, for Macintosh,
super-efficient software-selectable keyboards" (--Author).
Slogan: "Offering All Alphabets of the World."
AUTHOR: Flyn, Christopher J. <cfynn@sahaja.demon.co.uk>. LANGUAGE: Tibetan MAINTAINER: Dr. T. Matthew Ciolek <tmciolek@coombs.anu.edu.au>, ANU
Social Sciences Information Systems Administrator, Coombs
Computing Unit, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian
National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
PRICE: Free ACCESS: Gopher pointer: Name=tibet-software; Type=1; Port=70;
Path=ftp:coombs.anu.edu.au@ /coombspapers /otherarchives
/asian-studies-archives /tibetan-archives /tibet-software;
Host=cis.anu.edu.au
OPERATING SYSTEM: The "TibKey" software is a Tibetan keyboard
emulator program for Windows 3.1x and Tibetan `Modern'
TrueType font. Documentation (a total of 14 files, 390Kb) is
included.
AUTHOR: Govindaraj, Dr. LANGUAGE: Tamil PRICE: Free ACCESS: mac.archive.umich.edu:/mac /system.extensions /font /type1
/palladam2.1.sit.hqx
OR: wuarchive.wustl.edu:/systems /mac /umich.edu
/system.extensions /font /type1 /palladam2.1.sit.hqx
OPERATING SYSTEM: Macintosh
AUTHOR: Goyal, Ashok <goyal@bnr.ca>, Vaishnav Books Ltd. LANGUAGE: Hindi, Gujarati, Sanskrit MAINTAINER: Digitron Computers, Toronto, Canada. Phone 905-454-3620.
Also: Digitron, 3 Smithers Cr, Brampton, Ontario Canada L6Y
3L3.
PRICE: $199 OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows
AUTHOR: Hart, Prof. George. LANGUAGE: Hindi, Tamil PRICE: Free; these fonts are now entirely in the public domain. ACCESS: mac.archive.umich.edu:/mac /system.extensions /font /type3
/indianfonts.sit.hqx
OR: wuarchive.wustl.edu:/systems /mac /umich.edu
/system.extensions /font /type3 /indianfonts.sit.hqx
OPERATING SYSTEM: Macintosh INFORMATION: Ravinder Bhumbla <rbhumbla@UCSD.EDU>
AUTHOR: Hellingman, Jeroen <jhelling@cs.ruu.nl> LANGUAGE: Malayalam PRICE: Free OPERATING SYSTEM: TeX/Metafont
AUTHOR: Humanities and Arts Computing Center. LANGUAGE: Tamil MAINTAINER: Humanities and Arts Computing Center, Univ. of
Washington. Email: <ridgeway@washington.edu> PRICE: Free ACCESS: ymir.claremont.edu:[TEX.BABEL.Tamil]*.* OPERATING SYSTEM: itrans (source in this post) or C + TeX with
included preprocessor
AUTHOR: Inaam Alvi Computers. LANGUAGE: Bengali, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Hindi, Urdu MAINTAINER: Artistic Computers, 601 8th Ave., 2nd floor, New York, NY
10018. Phone 212-279-7010; 212-643-2199. Fax: 212-714-2221. OPERATING SYSTEM: Runs on PCs in DOS. COMMENT: Expensive but elegant; individuals can buy stripped-down
versions of fonts actually designed for newspaper use. Good
technical support.
AUTHOR: InPros (Intellectual Property Solutions) <info@inpros.com>,
Box 57-2141, Houston, TX 77257-2141; phone 713-465-2967 (fax,
voice mail, and fax-on-demand).
LANGUAGE: Hindi: "SheelRekha," "RoopLekha," "Kamal," etc.; Gujarati:
"Shefali," "Nita," "Anarkali," "Agni," etc.; Bengali:
"Jayanti," "BornaMala," etc.; Punjabi: "Pushpa," "Suman,"
"Badal," "Arup"; Sanskrit: "Sansipro"; Transliteration:
"Diplomat," "MonoPali"
PRICE: $20+ for a set of three basic fonts. OPERATING SYSTEM: Mac or MS-Windows. COMMENT: Fonts are said to be high-quality and inexpensive.
Unencoded sample available by contacting <info@inpros.com>.
Other languages and fonts are continuously being added. "It
is our intention to create a data base of files that can be
printed in Hindi and other languages" (--Authors).
AUTHOR: Kumar, Ashwini <kumar@duck.ncsc.org>. LANGUAGE: Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, etc. MAINTAINER: H&M Enterprises, 8304 N.W. 113 Terrace, Oklahoma City, OK
73162. Phone 405-728-0634 (voice & fax). OPERATING SYSTEM: PC/XT,AT COMMENT: Bilingual word processor for IBM PC/XT and AT as well as
clones.
AUTHOR: Kushwaha, Ramesh <Ramesh.Kushwaha@um.cc.umich.edu>, Medcom,
3757 Helen Ave., Ypsilanti, MI 48197. Phone 313-434-1970. LANGUAGE: Hindi: "Vernmala" PRICE: $25 OPERATING SYSTEM: Outline, scaleable, True Type Font that can be used
on any software supported under Microsoft Windows 3.1 or any
Macintosh system. Postscript Type 1, Type 3, Encapsulated
Postscript or Bitmapped fonts can also be generated.
AUTHOR: Lagally, Prof. Klaus, <lagally@informatik.uni-stuttgart.de>,
Institut fuer Informatik, Zeige mir deine Uhr,
Breitwiesenstrasse 20-22, 70565 Stuttgart, Germany. Phone
+49-711-7816392. Fax +49-711-7816370.
LANGUAGE: Urdu (also Arabic (fully vowelized), Persian, Pashto,
Ottoman)
PRICE: Free ACCESS: ftp.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de:/pub /TeX /arabtex
/arabtex.%*,faq%
OR: sunsite.unc.edu:/pub /packages /TeX /language /arabtex
OPERATING SYSTEM: LaTeX, macro package plus METAFONT sources COMMENT: Uses Arabic-style Naskh fonts; Persian-style Nastaliq fonts
under development. Limited support for Biblical Hebrew
(vowelized), Ugaritic Cuneiform (inquire).
AUTHOR: Linguist's Software, Box 580, Edmonds, WA 98020-0580. Phone
206-775-1130. Fax 206-771-5911. LANGUAGE: Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi, Sanskrit PRICE: $99.95 each OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows.
AUTHOR: Linotype-Hell, Bath Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire,
England GL53 7LR. Phone 024-222-2333. LANGUAGE: Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, Tamil PRICE: substantial OPERATING SYSTEM: Mac, MS-DOS, etc.
AUTHOR: Monotype Typography Ltd., Perrywood Business Park, Salfords,
Redhill, Surrey RH1 5JP, England. Phone 44-0737-76-5959. Fax
0737-76-9243, 0737-76-0942. Contact: Ian Bezer or Julie
Collier-Smith.
LANGUAGE: Bengali, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam,
Oriya, Pushto, Sinhala, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu
OPERATING SYSTEM: "Monotype seems to have packages which provide the
required font together with Mac or MS Windows keyboard
drivers, etc. I was quoted 238 pounds for a Devanagari font
with keyboard driver for Windows. You can also buy larger
collections of characters, spread over several fonts, which
have a greater variety of special sorts (pre-made conjuncts,
etc.), but then you have to sort out the composition issues
yourself. Prices still reasonable." (--Dominik Wujastyk)
COMMENT: "These fonts are *really* good. This is what has been used
for major publishing (including newspapers) all over Asia
since the twenties." (--Dominik Wujastyk)
AUTHOR: Mukkavilli, Lakshmankumar and Lakshmi <lzk60@css.amdahl.com>,
915 Almaden Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94086. LANGUAGE: Telugu ACCESS: blackbox.hacc.washington.edu:pub /tex /telugu (temporary) OPERATING SYSTEM: Metafont and TeX
AUTHOR: Multi-Lingual Scholar, Gamma Productions, Ind., 710 Wilshire
Blve, Suite 609, Santa Monica, CA 90401. Phone 213-394-8622. LANGUAGE: Hindi, Urdu, etc. OPERATING SYSTEM: IBM COMMENT: This company aspires to cover an enormous number of
languages worldwide, including South Asian language fonts.
AUTHOR: Rahman, Anisur, 722 N. 13th Street #505, Milwaukee, WI 53233.
Phone 414-223-3152. LANGUAGE: Bengali PRICE: $0, copyrighted ACCESS: use archie, sgaon.zip Sonar Gaon OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 3.0
AUTHOR: Scharf, Peter M. <Peter_Scharf@brown.edu>. Dept. of
Classics, Brown Univ., PO Box 1856, Providence, RI 02912. LANGUAGE: Hindi, Sanskrit OPERATING SYSTEM: Mac; bit-map screen font, transliteration system COMMENT: Designed for easy typing of all-ASCII character sets; can be
adapted for inputting to other fonts
AUTHOR: Script Software International, CAE Lake Shandalee Road,
Livingston Manor, NY 12758-0131. Phone 914-439-3972. LANGUAGE: Hindi, Sanskrit OPERATING SYSTEM: Bitmap and PostScript laser fonts for the Mac and
PC, Optical Character Recognition for the Mac only, and
utilities for file conversion, transliteration, and easier
typing.
AUTHOR: Singh, Jasbir <jasbir@maboli.com>, Maboli Systems, Inc., P.O.
Box 3629, Wise, VA 24293. LANGUAGE: Punjabi: "AnandpurSahib Lippi," "Jhelum Lippi" PRICE: $35 for Regular Version, $100 for Professional Version OPERATING SYSTEM: Mac, Windows COMMENT: Price includes one TrueType font, manuals and templates,
postage. Professional package has both fonts, extras, two
Punjabi games. Both versions can be used with *all* software.
AUTHOR: Srinivasan, Dr. K. LANGUAGE: Tamil PRICE: $40 (shareware), $0 for non-profit use ACCESS: oak.oakland.edu:/pub /msdos /editor /adami91.zip
OR: wuarchive.wustl.edu:/mirrors /msdos /editor
/adami91.zip
OR: nic.switch.ch:/mirrors /msdos /editor /adami91.zip
OPERATING SYSTEM: DOS; Windows COMMENT: Standalone word processor.
AUTHOR: Frans J. Velthuis <velthuis@rc.rug.nl>, Nyensteinheerd 267
9736 TV, Groningen, The Netherlands. LANGUAGE: Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Sanskrit, etc. (Devanagari font) PRICE: $0 ACCESS: available by anonymous FTP as `devnag' and supporting files,
from the following TeX font repositories (among others):
ftp.tex.ac.uk:/ctan /tex-archive /language /devanagari
nic.switch.ch:/mirror /tex /language /devanagari
ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.au:/pub /tex /ctan /language /devanagari
ftp.ibp.fr:/pub /TeX /CTAN /language /devanagari
ftp.shsu.edu:/tex-archive /language /devanagari
labrea.stanford.edu:/pub /tex /incoming
OPERATING SYSTEM: TeX, C, METAFONT source
AUTHOR: Vishnu, Meenan <mvishnu@bbcr.uwaterloo.ca>. LANGUAGE: "All Indian languages" MAINTAINER: Ethno Multimedia, Toronto, Canada. OPERATING SYSTEM: Macintosh; Windows
LANGUAGE: Urdu MAINTAINER: Amir Aslam (?) <usgaaaax@gsusgi2.gsu.edu> ACCESS: Call 1-800-308-8883 for information, free catalogue
Posted: 8 Dec 1994