this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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Technology

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23
TIL British Columbia created a font to support Indigenous languages (www2.gov.bc.ca)
submitted 1 year ago by dankeck@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
4 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Via the A11yTalks webinar Accessibility in Action: Indigenous Communities by Meggan Van Harten

Several typefaces were examined that matched the criteria and a handful of these were tested. Noto Sans stood out as an option as it already had an extensive set of characters supporting over 800 languages, including many Indigenous languages in Canada. The typeface was also originally designed for enhanced readability on-screen.

Under an open-font license, Noto Sans presented the opportunity to access the font files and modify and improve its character sets. With expertise from a typographic Indigenous language expert, and from FirstVoices (an initiative of the First Peoples’ Cultural Council), additional characters and syllabic glyphs were added to support Indigenous languages in B.C. This new typeface was named BC Sans and first launched in 2019.

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[–] shepherd@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Wow, I'm pretty impressed with BC for this.

Having font support really legitimizes a language. It's basically impossible to make digital content if you can't type in your language, so this is really unlocking a lot for the readers and writers of all those languages!

[–] fades@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Wow all that and they don’t even show said font? Looked all thru that 50 min video

[–] dankeck@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I edited my post and added a link to the font.

[–] fades@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Thank you!!