Tibetan (Tag) | FontStruct

82 147115 Published: 15th July, 2016
Last edited: 8th July, 2016
Created: 28th June, 2016

My take on the Mongolian 'Phags-pa script designed by the Tibetan monk Phagspa in 1269, based on the Tibetan script, to write Mongolian, Tibetan, Sanskrit and Chinese. This font is based on the Tibetan style which consists almost entirely of straight lines and right angles. It seemed like a prime candidate for a FontStruct treatment. I've added rounded corners and serifs to make it more visually interesting.

The script is written in vertical columns top-to-bottom and left-to-right and thus needs to be rotated 90° clockwise and the columns then reversed.

'Phags-pa was added to the Unicode standard in version 5.0 in 2006. This font however uses an ad-hoc mapping to Ascii characters which admittedly doesn't always make sense. I kind of gave up in the end and started assigning a bunch of letters to digits. Letters are connected into syllable block by a thin line (mapped to '-'), usually on the right-hand side. A straight line clashed wth the serifs so I made it into a small arch.

The script is an abugida: the vowel ‹a› is inherent in each syllable and thus not written.

Non-Latin

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45 1751 Published: 13th July, 2016
Last edited: 3rd July, 2016
Created: 23rd June, 2016

My take on the Mongolian Horizontal Square script designed by Mongolian spiritual leader Zanabazar to write Mongolian, Tibetan and Sanskrit. It's based on the Tibetan script. The script consists mostly of straight lines and right angles and seemed like a prime candidate for a FontStruct treatment. I've added rounded corners and serifs to make it more visually interesting.

The script has been accepted by the Unicode Technical Committee for inclusion in a future version of the Unicode standard*. This font uses an ad-hoc mapping to Ascii characters: upper case for aspirated plosives, 'f' and 'q' for retroflex plosives and a lot of mappings that make even less sense as I started to run out of Latin letters. The mapping is based on Sanskrit and Tibetan; Mongolian uses some characters differently. However, the font does not do stacked consonants required by the two former.

The script is an abugida: the letter ‹a› is inherent in each consonant letter and the vowel is then modified using diacritics. Initial vowels are written with a special letter, mapped to 'A', that's wider than the rest and has its own set of diacritics, mapped to digits 0–9.

* http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2014/14024-zanabazar-square.pdf

Non-Latin

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34 19214 Published: 14th October, 2012
Last edited: 18th July, 2014
Created: 25th September, 2012
This Script is influenced by the art-style of Tibetan. Although as soon as i formed a few basic shapes and themes for a few characters, it quickly took on a shape for itself. This is still a Syllabary used to write my Conlang, Iltantu. It works exactly the same as my more recognizable Latinesque Syllabary "Iltantu-Romu". The characters are mapped in the same exact spots, and one script can be substituted for the next. It's merely a stylistic difference (as Times New Roman is to Blackletter, for instance)This is a clone of Iltantu-Romu

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14 0672 Published: 17th November, 2009
Last edited: 26th November, 2009
Created: 5th November, 2009
Originally inspired by sacred tibetan writing. It was much harder to achieve the look than first anticipated. Tried to work each letter around a singular central curve and included features i noticed in tibetan writing.

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