Harvard-Kyoto font for download - Veni HK Serif

Since most of us input Sanskrit and Bengali texts in Harvard-Kyoto, as it's by far the fastest method I've come across, here's a font I crunched together to make the work more comfortable.

The font available for download, Veni HK Serif, is based on Bitstream's open-source font, Vera, and has been modified to display conventional diacritic characters in place of the capital letters used in Harvard-Kyoto.

[attachmentid=1527]

~ the relevant character set ~

The character "d" with an open dot under has been chosen to represent the gau.DIya letter, "y" with a dot below on the right side has been chosen for the other Bengali "y". Some of the more exotic characters (see the full H-K transliteration here) hve been excluded. This is all open to feedback.

The font is available as OTF (OpenType Font), making it cross-compatible with most modern operating systems.

[attachmentid=1528]

Since most of us input Sanskrit and Bengali texts in Harvard-Kyoto, as it's by far the fastest method I've come across, here's a font I crunched together to make the work more comfortable.

The font available for download, Veni HK Serif, is based on Bitstream's open-source font, Vera, and has been modified to display conventional diacritic characters in place of the capital letters used in Harvard-Kyoto.

[attachmentid=1527]

~ the relevant character set ~

The character "d" with an open dot under has been chosen to represent the gau.DIya letter, "y" with a dot below on the right side has been chosen for the other Bengali "y". Some of the more exotic characters (see the full H-K transliteration here) hve been excluded. This is all open to feedback.

The font is available as OTF (OpenType Font), making it cross-compatible with most modern operating systems.

[attachmentid=1528]

And here's a sample document to test it with.

[attachmentid=1530]

Did anyone try this out? I see seven downloads (and 14 of the sample document which isn't going to be of much interest if you don't work with transliterated documents, there's no translation included).

My OS is too old to accept OpenType fonts (Windows ME). Could you make a TrueType version?

It's an excellent idea Madhava, what software did you use to do make the font? Is it open source or alternatively not too expensive?



My preference for Y would be a y with a dot on top and to be extra pedantic, just to the right hand side so that the glyph bears some resemblance to a letter j (which it sounds like).

For ".D" I like the method used in old versions of the Iskcon songbook where they used r with a dot on top. if only cos "ami boro duhkhi" looks less wrong than "ami bodo duhkhi". I do understand though that r-circle is in the IPA but it took me a while to actually work out the difference between the two.

In early editions of the iskcon book they used a tilda above the vowel for chandrabindu and in later editions they used an n with a dot underneath it which is clumsy. Tricky to implement the chandrabindu and still be portable over any system? Reading the typography pages at the microsoft website you can do some fab stuff with placement of glyphs and substitution of ligatures. Perhaps the chandrabindu could be over the previous character above where the macron would be.

Did you like the tilda idea? It seems better than the alternative of G="n with dot on top". We should avoid a one to many correspondance from HK to glyphs if at all possible.

Have you had any ideas how to write বউ, লইলে. I like Jagat's idea of baü and laïle to distinguish the words from বৌ and লৈলে

ATM 4.1 light is a free download.

Hmm, a bit on the right side? Isn't that a bit of a stretch? I was thinking of placing it down to bring it closer to the way the original looks...



Whatever works, I'm fine with that. Peculiar though that in the original script the difference is nothing but the dot under. Other insights, anyone else?



The character can have zero width and toss the chandrabindu x amount left from the position. That isn't a problem.

However what's H-K for chandrabindu?





In other words, baU and laIle? (I'm not sure you got it right above, it read laJle to me.)

However I wonder how this'll work in conversions. There'll have to be an extra step there to first convert all whatever-I's and whatever-U:s to something distinguishable, otherwise they'll just convert to long I and U, which isn't what we're after.

We need to work on a standard that will keep the conversions lossless.

definitely ~ for chandrabindu, another word for ~ is tilde (pronounced tilda). BTW Tilda is the premium make of basmati rice here in england. definitely not G="n with dot on top" though.

But that's a separate character anyway.

I don't know Bengali letters quite well, so can somebody provide me reference for letters in discussion and their equivalents in HK and Veni HK Serif font?

অ - a; আ - A; ই - i; ঈ - I; উ - u; ঊ - U; ঋ - R; ৠ - RR; ঌ - L; ৡ - LL; এ - e; ঐ - ai; ও - o; ঔ - au;
ক - ka; খ - kha; গ - ga; ঘ - gha; ঙ - Ga;
চ - ca; ছ - cha; জ - ja; ঝ - jha; ঞ - Ja;
ট - Ta; ঠ - Tha; ড - Da; ঢ - DHa; ণ - Na;
ত - ta; থ - tha; দ - da; ধ - dha; ন - na;
প - pa; ফ - pha; ব - ba; ভ - bha; ম - ma;
য - ya; র - ra; ল - la;
শ - za; ষ - Sa; স - sa; হ -ha;
ঁ - M (chandrabindu); ঃ - H (visarga);
-----
ড় - ? (rra);
ঢ় - ? (rha);
য় - ? (yya);
ৰ - ? (ra2);
ৱ - ? (ra3).

This ought to clarify it. The chandrabindu isn't in place nor are the changes Ananga suggested implemented yet. I had to attach "a" to chandrabindu etc. as it wouldn't display without.

[attachmentid=1539]

Ananga, with regards to ~, looking at the full H-K scheme, it seems & is already allocated for that. (Anunasika and chandrabindu are synonymous as far as I know.)

I haven't a clue over the last two "r":s given in the chart Kalkidas posted. Are they actually used in Bengali?

While I'm at it, would someone care to comment on the following:


Udatta, anudatta and svarita are concerned with the pitch in Vedic hymns, while upadhmaniya and jihvamuliya are marks indicating how ardha-visarga is pronounced. (reference) I realize they aren't a very immediate concern for most of us; however, out of sheer curiosity, what are the conventions for their transliteration? At any rate, I wouldn't replace for example semi-colon with a fancy pitch mark for the font, since it seems to be frequently employed in modern Bengali texts as such, and is therefore a necessary character.

With regards to Y, I've seen ÿ (y with double dot over) used for that, I believe that's the phonetic spelling (?). Any thoughts on that?

a	A	i	I	u	U
	ा া	ि ি	ी ী	ु ু	ू ূ
	093E 09BE	093F 09BF	0940 09C0	0941 09C1	0942 09C2
अ অ	आ আ	इ ই	ई ঈ	उ উ	ऊ ঊ
0905 0985	0906 0986	0907 0987	0908 0988	0909 0989	090A 098A

R	e	ai	o	au
ृ ৃ	े ে	ै ৈ	ो ো	ौ ৌ
0943 09C3	0947 09C7	0948 09C8	094B 09CB	094C 09CC
ऋ ঋ	ए এ	ऐ ঐ	ओ ও	औ ঔ
090B 098B	090F 098F	0910 0990	0913 0993	0914 0994

~	M	H
ँv ঁ	ं ং	ः ঃ
0901 0981	0902 0982	0903 0983

ka	kha	ga	gha	Ga
क ক	ख খ	ग গ	घ ঘ	ङ ঙ
0915 0995	0916 0996	0917 0997	0918 0998	0919 0999

c	ch	j	jh	J
च চ	छ ছ	ज জ	झ ঝ	ञ ঞ
091A 099A	091B 099B	091C 099C	091D 099D	091E 099E

T	Th	D	Dh	N
ट ট	ठ ঠ	ड ড	ढ ঢ	ण ণ
091F 099F	0920 09A0	0921 09A1	0922 09A2	0923 09A3
		P	Ph
		ड़ ড়	ढ़ ঢ়
		095C 09DC	095D 09DD

t	th	d	dh	n
त ত	थ থ	द দ	ध ধ	न ন
0924 09A4	0925 09A5	0926 09A6	0927 09A7	0928 09A8

p	ph	b	bh	m
प প	फ ফ	ब ব	भ ভ	म ম
092A 09AA	092B 09AB	092C 09AC	092D 09AD	092E 09AE

y	r	v	l
य য়	र র	व ব	ल ল
092F 09DF	0930 09B0	0935 09AC	0932 09B2
Y
য
09AF

z	S	s	h
श শ	ष ষ	स স	ह হ
0936 09B6	0937 09B7	0938 09B8	0939 09B9

hasant	avagraha
् ্	ऽ ঽ	।	॥
094D 09CD	093D 09BD	0964	0965

[ Edit: Fixed glitches in the HTML that messed up the display. - Madhava ]

I have a bit of a dead end here with the chandrabindu. Common words using it are tA&ra and tA&hAra. Especially with the latter, we're just badly out of space with regards to where it can be placed. It just doesn't fit there. Suggestions? (Accompanied with a visual example if possible.)

Here's one rather bizarre idea. (Samples of the two other changed characters included.)

[attachmentid=1549]

the y in gauPiya is a normal y the ÿ (minus I am suggesting the leftmost dot) is for the ye which sounds like je eg. Ye jana mora kRSNa bhaje...
and Yakhana choTa chilAm etc. Yadi...

Thanks for tweaking my HTML. I tried to get the indian scripts larger but somehow that didn't work

Hmm...

য.য would thus be ÿaya correct? য = ÿ | .য = y? So I'll just swap those two. And what, the left dot off, the right left where it is?

Regarding your table, you can't define the characteristics of table divisions (td) in the table row (tr), each division needs to be defined. The reason why your table went off was there was an extra tag there.