LINGUIST List 6.56

Mon 16 Jan 1995

Disc: Translating fonts

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1. Ecological Linguistics,Anderson,PAS, Translating IPA fonts Mac Wind
2. Beard Robert E, Re: 6.05 Sum: Translating IPA fonts between Macs and DOS/ Windows

This is a response to the posting "Translating IPA between Macs and DOS/
Windows" which suggested using the SIL phonetics fonts. We were not aware of
the earlier question being asked, and therefore here contribute arguments for
two different conclusions.

The ***long-run*** conclusion which is on the verge of becoming short-run is to
use only 16-bit fonts in the new international standard code, Unicode or ISO
10646. This coding means that a particular code will always represent exactly
the same character or diacritic or etc., not sometimes in one font having one
meaning and other times in another font having another meaning. The goal
stated by Mike Hammond would seem to require that users convert to this mode as
fast as possible. This is certainly true as far as ***archiving*** papers on
phonetics is concerned. Ecological Linguistics will be trying very hard to
offer such fonts in the permanent international standard coding by the end of
1995.

In the short run, the same characteristics listed for the SIL fonts in 8-bit
coding apply also to the Ecological Linguistics fonts in 8-bit coding, and the
glitches are exactly the same (TrueType zero-width characters in Windows,
different names for the fonts). Ecological Linguistics is in the process of
removing one of these glitches (naming). There are additional advantages of the
Ecological Linguistics fonts not shared by the SIL fonts. A new phonetic
typeface similar to "Antiqua" will be added by Ecological Linguistics this
summer.

First, what is available:

1) The four fonts in the sans-serif Lucida family, designed by the noted
typographer Charles Bigelow, are available free (for a mere $5 handling
charge). These are supplied in both Postscript Type 1 and TrueType on the Mac,
in TrueType for Windows.

LucidaSansIPAText
LucidaSansIPAExt(ended)
LucidaSansPhoAlt(ernate)
LucidaSansSecondAlt(ernate)

(2) The fonts in the serif family are commercially available at $60, the first
three of these matching the Lucida series exactly. Again supplied in both
Postscript Type 1 and in TrueType on the Mac, in TrueType for Windows.

IPATimes (Regular, Bold, Oblique, and BoldOblique styles)
IPATimesExt(ended) (Regular, Bold, Oblique, and BoldOblique styles)
IPAAlternate (Regular and Oblique styles)

The additional advantages of the Ecological Linguistics fonts are principally
in far superior Macintosh keyboarding, more intuitive and natural -- the user's
decisions are more meaningful, while more of the typographic variants are
automated. There is also a somewhat larger repertoire, and the Ecological
Linguistics fonts continue to be extended with new additions. They cover both
IPA and Americanist traditions of phonetic and phonemic notations.

Sincerely, Lloyd Anderson

Message 2: Re: 6.05 Sum: Translating IPA fonts between Macs and DOS/ Windows

 I do not use the SIL IPA fonts but have rather developed my own fonts
which combine IPA and alphabet characters for the world's more popular
languages. However, I do use zero-width characters for exotic diacritics
and suffered the problem of misplaced diacritics mentioned by Mike Hammond
and Albert Bickford. I solved the problem by finding the screen driver
information in my Win.ini file (it is under "Mach" for my ATI driver) and
set the "Cache characters" value to "Off" ("No" may also work). The
problem with ATI drivers is that the character caching mechanism does not
allow for zero width. I haven't noticed any loss of speed or accuracy as
a result although presumably there is some loss of speed.
 --RBeard