• Evkob@lemmy.ca
    14·
    1 year ago

    That’s so cool! I had never really considered how important fonts are for language preservation in the 21st century where so much language and communication is written on a screen, I’m glad someone’s putting in the work.

    • Evkob@lemmy.ca
      10·
      1 year ago

      This is admittedly off-topic, but the hardcore descriptivist in me can’t help but speak out. Feel free to ignore!

      “Font” is widely colloquially accepted as a synonym for “typeface”. I’d wager that for most people (outside of graphic designers or technologically-inclined folk), “font” is more likely to be understood than “typeface”. What is the purpose of language if not communicating ideas? Being understood is, for me at least, more important than pedantic correctness.

      Plus, language evolves, just as humans do. If it didn’t, we’d have reserved “typeface” as a word for the design of cast or engraved blocks used in printing. Would you agree with a prescriptivist saying we shouldn’t use the word “typeface” in computing, since the text is made from pixels and not a block stamping ink?

      Thanks all for coming to my TED Talk.

  • whelmer@beehaw.org
    5·
    1 year ago

    This is very cool. My partner works on documenting and preserving languages and I spent a bunch of time recently learning how to create xkbd layouts to get that shit working on Linux. Like the fonts are important but so are the keyboard mappings.

    Unicode is a really cool thing.

  • blindsight@beehaw.org
    4·
    1 year ago

    Thanks for sharing! This is great. I was just talking with coworkers about the need for this in education. We should be able to accept all Canadian students’ names as written.