"Nieuwe Javaansche" style of Noto Sans Javanese

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Get the feedback below. Need to investigate on whether "Nieuwe Javaansche" 
style is the right thing to follow.

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The structure of many letters and the form of some diacritic marks -- notably 
/uniA981/uniA9B3/uniA9B7/uniA9C7/uniA981_uniA9BC -- seem to be influenced by 
the Nieuwe Javaansche typeface introduced by Tetterode in 1912. This typeface 
was based on proposals for simplifying the Javanese script made by P. Penninga, 
Dutch representative of the British Bible Society. I would be very cautious 
about taking this approach in a Javanese font today, but I really have no idea 
how Penninga's ideas are regarded or how easily his proposed forms are 
recognised by users familiar with the traditional script. However, this design 
decision seems to be behind the criticisms made in
https://code.google.com/p/noto/issues/detail?id=149
The characteristics of the Nieuwe Javaansche forms seen in the Noto font are 
the collapse of smaller counters into single vertical strokes, even on the 
leading edge of letters such as U+098F, which one doesn't see in either the 
formal or cursive manuscript styles. These are the things drawn attention to in 
the <comparison.png> attachment to issue 149.

Although adapting many forms from the Nieuwe Javaansche, it should be noted 
that Noto Sans Javanese is not a strict implementation of Tetterode's type for 
Penninga, but is a hybrid of different styles. The descender forms used in the 
font -- notably the U and UU vowel signs -- are derived from neither the 
upright formal manuscript style nor Nieuwe Javaansche, but are instead based on 
the forms of the cursive, slanted style. These work quite well with the Nieuwe 
Javaansche-inspired letter shapes, and are simpler than the usual upright 
forms, and hence easier to handle in the short descender space allotted.
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Original issue reported on code.google.com by xian...@google.com on 28 Mar 2015 at 1:13

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by xian...@google.com on 1 Apr 2015 at 6:14

[behdad]

cc @xiangyexiao

[bennylin]

please label this bug as Script-Javanese, thanks!

[kmansourMT]

See pertinent response under https://github.com/googlei18n/noto-fonts/issues/149

[NorbertLindenberg]

It might be useful to say a bit about how and why this style was chosen. Is it one that Javanese who have learned to read and write their script are comfortable reading? Is it in common use (relative to other Javanese styles), or is it a historic outlier?

[marekjez86]

Design was closed a while ago for the current release.

[dougfelt]

I agree with Norbert some description of the choices made in the design would be helpful.

[marekjez86]

@bennylin : this is unrelated to the problem listed here. However, I'd like to hear your opinion/feedback on two proposals for the replacement of the current Javanese which is included in the PDF below (the original is grey, the suggested change is in black). Please look at the pages # 2 and # 3 in the PDF and tell use what version do you prefer and why?

Proposal for NotoSansJavanese.pdf

[marekjez86]

@bennylin : BTW, we are leaning toward page # 3 (low contrast design option) because it is matching better Noto Sans and Roboto font design. If you are opposed to it, what would be the major critique or argument against page # 3 (low contrast design option) becoming the new design?

[bennylin]

hi @marekjez86, I really like the first one (page 2) because there's difference in boldness between the upward stroke and downward strokes, just like in handwriting. also, the "adeg-adeg" is better.

The "da", however, could be modified more to resemble the shape that we're most familiar with.

I'm eager to see the full set of the 20 basic "aksara" and their "pasangan"s.

My critique for page 3 are:

• the "da" letter (as per above),
• the "pada lungsi" (period) could be more diagonal
• the "ra" letter is awkward looking

Other than that it's a wonderful font.

[bennylin]

This is a comparison glyph that I made that's useful to see how well those rare forms look like.

[marekjez86]

please check fonts in https://github.com/googlei18n/noto-fonts/tree/master/phaseIII_only/unhinted/otf/NotoSansJavanese or https://github.com/googlei18n/noto-fonts/tree/master/phaseIII_only/unhinted/ttf/NotoSansJavanese