Post by Okwes on Sept 23, 2006 10:50:38 GMT -5
Technology leads to cool fonts in Native language
Part of effort to preserve tribesÂ' culture and heritage
PABLO MT
Native American Times 9/14/2006
www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?actionfiltered=displayarticle&artic\
le_id=8178
<http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=8\
178>
Members of the Salish and Kootenai Tribes now have their native language
at their fingertips. Literally.
With the help of various small grants and the donated time and effort of
an area resident, the tribes now have new keyboards and an easily
installed font to help in the creation of documents written in Salish
and Kootenai.
Â"When modern technology first arrived here, it started taking our
language and culture away from us,Â" said Tony Incashola, director
of the Salish Pend dÂ'Oreille Culture Committee. Â"But now
weÂ're learning how to take that same technology and turn it around,
using it to teach our children our language and culture.Â"
The new fonts work on both PC and Mac computer platforms. Word
processing programs can also spell check documents written in both
tribal languages. The new fonts also allow for use of teaching programs
like crossword puzzles and software that creates teacher user plans.
Jim Ereaux, a former employee at Salish Kootenai College, employed his
technical expertise to develop the two new fonts.
For many years the tribesÂ' cultural committee have used a variety
of computer fonts and applications for language development,
publications and historical documentation. The primary fonts in use were
developed at Salish Kootenai College about 15 years ago, but tribal
officials say it was only a partial solution because of limited
technology to support multi-language development. Members of the culture
committee requested that new resources be developed that fully support
the languages, are usable on both Windows and Macintosh OS X, work with
various publishing and language applications, and support the use of
customized keyboards.
Work began on the project in late 2005 in close coordination with the
Culture Committees, several linguists, and the broader typographic
community on the Internet.
In April 2006 a small grant was written through Salish Kootenai College
to both Blackfoot Telephone Cooperative and the Lower Flathead Valley
Community Foundation to support the creation of customized keyboards for
both languages. Both organizations donated nearly $6,000 to the project.
The grant also provides support to purchase desktop publishing
applications and distribute the customized keyboards to area schools on
the reservation.
The new fonts utilize two recent technologies called Â"UnicodeÂ"
and Â"OpenType.Â" Unicode is a worldwide standard for
representing glyphs, such as the letter Â`aÂ' or an accent
symbol, for all modern languages and supports over one million possible
characters. Many languages require several glyphs to compose one
character, which the OpenType standard manages. Both of these
technologies allow documents created with the fonts to be exchanged
between PC Compatible and Macintosh OS X computers. Not all computer
operating systems or applications will support these new technologies.
The minimum requirements are Windows XP and higher on the PC and OS 10.4
on the Macintosh.
The tribes are based in the Montana town of Pablo
Part of effort to preserve tribesÂ' culture and heritage
PABLO MT
Native American Times 9/14/2006
www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?actionfiltered=displayarticle&artic\
le_id=8178
<http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=8\
178>
Members of the Salish and Kootenai Tribes now have their native language
at their fingertips. Literally.
With the help of various small grants and the donated time and effort of
an area resident, the tribes now have new keyboards and an easily
installed font to help in the creation of documents written in Salish
and Kootenai.
Â"When modern technology first arrived here, it started taking our
language and culture away from us,Â" said Tony Incashola, director
of the Salish Pend dÂ'Oreille Culture Committee. Â"But now
weÂ're learning how to take that same technology and turn it around,
using it to teach our children our language and culture.Â"
The new fonts work on both PC and Mac computer platforms. Word
processing programs can also spell check documents written in both
tribal languages. The new fonts also allow for use of teaching programs
like crossword puzzles and software that creates teacher user plans.
Jim Ereaux, a former employee at Salish Kootenai College, employed his
technical expertise to develop the two new fonts.
For many years the tribesÂ' cultural committee have used a variety
of computer fonts and applications for language development,
publications and historical documentation. The primary fonts in use were
developed at Salish Kootenai College about 15 years ago, but tribal
officials say it was only a partial solution because of limited
technology to support multi-language development. Members of the culture
committee requested that new resources be developed that fully support
the languages, are usable on both Windows and Macintosh OS X, work with
various publishing and language applications, and support the use of
customized keyboards.
Work began on the project in late 2005 in close coordination with the
Culture Committees, several linguists, and the broader typographic
community on the Internet.
In April 2006 a small grant was written through Salish Kootenai College
to both Blackfoot Telephone Cooperative and the Lower Flathead Valley
Community Foundation to support the creation of customized keyboards for
both languages. Both organizations donated nearly $6,000 to the project.
The grant also provides support to purchase desktop publishing
applications and distribute the customized keyboards to area schools on
the reservation.
The new fonts utilize two recent technologies called Â"UnicodeÂ"
and Â"OpenType.Â" Unicode is a worldwide standard for
representing glyphs, such as the letter Â`aÂ' or an accent
symbol, for all modern languages and supports over one million possible
characters. Many languages require several glyphs to compose one
character, which the OpenType standard manages. Both of these
technologies allow documents created with the fonts to be exchanged
between PC Compatible and Macintosh OS X computers. Not all computer
operating systems or applications will support these new technologies.
The minimum requirements are Windows XP and higher on the PC and OS 10.4
on the Macintosh.
The tribes are based in the Montana town of Pablo