Convert to Glyphs format

[ohbendy]

Starting with the TTF that Craig has converted to the correct Unicode values, I have created a new source file in Glyphs.

I have renamed the glyphs from Monotype's opaque format to the usual Glyphs format. Each glyphs gets a -myanmar, -shan, or -aiton suffix, depending on how the character is named in Unicode. Glyphs containing more than one character are joined with an underscore (so asat_anusvara-myanmar). Alternate forms of glyphs get a .suffix (so ka-myanmar.below for the subscript form).

I have corrected glyph properties so that all alphabetic characters are spacing letters, all diacritics are nonspacing marks, numbers are decimal digits.

I have put a custom glyphOrder parameter in the font so that glyphs are kept in sequence. I've coloured those glyphs so that yellow are the specific Phake glyphs with large dots, cyan are Burmese glyphs that may appear in Phake texts (but do not currently have the large dots), and pink are control characters that any Myanmar font should contain.

There are a bunch more glyphs from Noto Sans Myanmar, which I will delete unless Stephen you advise any of these will be needed for a Phake font (tone marks?):

[ohbendy]

A few notes on the current glyphs:

• glyph for Nga is identical with the prebase -e vowel. Is this ok? I thought the Nga should have the blob at the top.
• glyph for Ra doesn't have large dots, do we want to use the same shape as in the La glyph?
• we have two different glyphs for Nya, what's the reasoning please?
• numerals don't have dots, but as we saw in Kensan's manuscripts, they could also have dots.
• I included the danda signs from Noto, so if we do include those I'll need to scale to the same size as the letters.

[ohbendy]

* glyph for Nga is identical with the prebase -e vowel. Is this ok? I thought the Nga should have the blob at the top.

It sounds like nobody complained on the Facebook post where the Nga has the blob at the top, and it certainly makes more sense to me to differentiate it from the -e vowel which has the blob at the bottom.

Some manuscript examples with the blob at the top:

[StephenMorey]

Ben, yes, very interesting discussion. In the Mahosatha 1821 manuscript it is written with 'blob' at the bottom. In the first line of the text there are four NGA, but there are examples of E on lines 2 and 3. Note that writing of the vowel E also includes the proposed MYANMAR SYMBOL AITON AW so there won't be any ambiguity

[StephenMorey]

I will email you a transcription of the first section of this manuscript to help in reading But the transcription was based on two versions of the text. This one, for example, lacks the first two words nai le

[ohbendy]

The text of the transcription seems to be different, I can't match it up. Line 3 in the image above begins with ၸြႃႜ (phra) but the transcription gives ꩡ်ံ (cem).

[StephenMorey]

There are differences between the transcription because the transcription is actually combining two versions of the manuscript. It will help us find words in the text but needs to be checked.

[ohbendy]

I can include the NGA with the blob at the bottom as a stylistic alternate if you like; that way users could choose which version they want to use.

[ohbendy]

Closing this thread for now.