Alaskool -- Online resources about Alaska Native History, Education, Language, and Culture

Interactive Language Tools
By Katie Eberhart
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Interactive Language Tools
Alaska Native Language
Dictionary & Phrasebook Builder

User Interface:
Cup'ik, Yup'ik, Tlingit

Language Literacy Tools on Alaskool
The main language resources or literacy tools available on this site include:

Iñupiaq Phrasebook (basic expressions & helpful words made in consultation with Elders from NANA region)
Cup'ik Glossary (Chevak Site)
Tlingit Dictionary Nouns & Tlingit Dictionary Verbs
Iñupiaq Dictionary (General)
Language Fonts for Iñupiaq & Unangam Tunuu (Aleut)

Native Languages, Technology and the Internet
The good thing about web pages is they are accessible from a Mac or PC computer. Web browser software tends to level the playing field between these two operating systems. Following are discussions of issues we encountered while developing Native language content for the www.Alaskool.org web site.

FONTS ISSUES
In order to use technological resources (i.e., computers, and the Internet) for dispersing knowledge about a written language, the language must be written using either regular fonts that are already available (Arial, Times New Roman, etc.) or fonts created especially for the language. To create a font for a language, several ingredients are needed: 1) an expert on the language who is knowledgeable about special characters of the language needing to be represented; 2) computer software for creating the font; 3) someone knowlegeable about the process of creating the font and software; 4) someone to test the font.

ISER has created two public domain fonts: Iñupiaq (used primarily in north and northwest Alaska) and Unangam Tunuu (indigenous language of the Aleutian Chain). Using the Iñupiaq font as an example, these were steps we took in its creation:

1. Have a Planning Session
Review the orthography and alphabet (especially special characters) of the language. The major goal is to acquire a clear understanding of all characters of the alphabet contained in the language including: 1) those that can be expressed and represented on the standard typewriter keyboard; and 2) characters of the alphabet which are not used on a regular keyboard. It is crucial to discuss which keyboard characters are seldom used in the written language and to make a plan for how to represent the special characters. The best strategy we discovered for cross-platform compatibility (Mac and PC computer useability) was to substitute different or special characters for keyboard characters that were essentially "unused." For example, in Iñupiaq we substituted the keyboard letter "b" for the dotted "g" because "b" was a keyboard letter not widely used in the language.

Extended Character Set Option (Special Characters Such as © or ® not on a Standard Keyboard): While developing the Iñupiaq font we attempted to use space in the "extended character set" i.e. special characters accessed by pressing the "alt" key and a sequence of four numbers. This feature turned out to be a clunky key sequence for both PC and Mac users, and produced incompatible results when incorporated into the font. For example, when these characters were saved on a PC, and read from a Mac computer, the extended character set option for Iñupiaq letters produced characters that were not the same between the two platforms.

2. Agree on Acceptable Trade-offs
We chose to give up several necessary English characters in order to create the Iñupiaq font even though we were aware of the hassle of having to switch back and forth between Iñupiaq and English in the same document or e-mail.

It seemed that having a font that worked consistently on both PCs and Macs as well as web pages justified the inconvenience of having to switch between font types, when incorporating an English word or phrase in an Iñupiaq document.

3. Software for Developing Native Language Fonts
We used Fontographer, software program which allows creation of a Mac and PC font from the same base file. Fontographer was a good program for producing cross-platform fonts but it does have a learning curve (i.e. you must spend time learning how to use the program).

4. Base Fonts and Copyright Issues
To save time when creating a new font, start by importing an existing font into Fontographer. After importing the font, begin editing the special characters to create your new font. It is important to keep in mind that the font used as the base font should either be a public domain font or if not in the public domain, permission for use must be acquired. Beware that fonts that appear to come with a program such as Fontographer may be copyright protected.

Installation & Checking Copyright: To see information about a font that has been installed on a PC, click on Start Menu - Settings - Control Panel then double-click Fonts. Find the font that you're interested in and double-click on it. The font will open in the Font Viewer with information about the ownership or creator of it and whether it is copyrighted.

5. Creating the Font
If you followed the above steps, you will have a font creation program (such as Fontographer), a base font to work with (unless you plan to start totally from scratch and create all the characters!), and a plan or strategy to connect new characters you have created to keys on the keyboard. The next step is to open the base font in the font creation program, then edit or replace characters according to your keyboard plan, and finally export it to both Mac and PC formats.

6. Test It! Then test it Again!
Be sure to test the special characters by using the new font on a PC (Microsoft Word is a common cross platform word processing program). Then open the same document on a Mac computer to make sure all the characters appear correctly. Do the same test in reverse order by creating a document on a Mac and checking to see if it appears correctly on a PC. Make sure when you open the document in the other computer's word processing program the same font is selected.

7. Ownership and Copyright Issues
The fonts ISER created are labeled "public domain and freely available." The strategy we used was to "mark" the font as being in the Public Domain then we made sure each font was easily and freely available to the public.

Iñupiaq Font: The Iñupiaq font is available to download at http://www.alaskool.org/language/inupiaqpb/getfont.htm.

Unangam Tunuu Font: The Unangam Tunuu font can be accessed for download at http://www.alaskool.org/language/fonts/unangam/unangam_font.htm.