BabelStone Roman is a Unicode serif font covering the Latin script. It was designed primarily for use in phonetic transcription of Tangut, but may be useful for other purposes. The font is derived from Doulos SIL version 5.000, but restricted to the Latin script, with a number of additional characters included. The current version of the font supports Unicode 14.0 (released 14 September 2021), and covers all 1,374 Latin script characters defined in Unicode 13.0, as well as 30 of the 101 Latin script characters defined in Unicode 14.0.
NB At present the inter-character spacing and kerning of the font is rather poor, but I plan to improve this when I have time.
Script | Language | Features | Explanation |
---|---|---|---|
Latin <latn> | Default <dflt> | Glyph Composition Decomposition <ccmp> |
Maps all canonically decomposed character sequences (NFD) to their corresponding precomposed glyphs (NFC). Maps all Unicode Named Character Sequences to precomposed glyphs. Maps character sequences used for phonetic transcription and transliteration to precomposed glyphs. |
Latin <latn> | Default <dflt> | Mark Positioning <mark> | Adjusts positions of combining marks for two characters when both characters are lowercase (this does not seem to work, so maybe I am using the wrong feature). |
BabelStone Roman includes a total of 3,011 Unicode characters, including all 1,374 Latin script characters defined in Unicode 13.0, as well as 30 of the 101 Latin script characters defined in Unicode 14.0.
Unicode Block | Range | Coverage | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Basic Latin | 00000..0007F | 97 out of 128 characters | |
Latin-1 Supplement | 00080..000FF | 96 out of 128 characters | |
Latin Extended-A | 00100..0017F | 128 out of 128 characters | |
Latin Extended-B | 00180..0024F | 208 out of 208 characters | |
IPA Extensions | 00250..002AF | 96 out of 96 characters | |
Spacing Modifier Letters | 002B0..002FF | 80 out of 80 characters | |
Combining Diacritical Marks | 00300..0036F | 108 out of 112 characters | |
Greek and Coptic | 00370..003FF | 40 out of 135 characters | |
Cyrillic | 00400..004FF | 4 out of 256 characters | Letters used for tones in old Zhuang orthography |
Combining Diacritical Marks Extended | 01AB0..01AFF | 17 out of 17 characters | |
Phonetic Extensions | 01D00..01D7F | 111 out of 128 characters | |
Phonetic Extensions Supplement | 01D80..01DBF | 64 out of 64 characters | |
Combining Diacritical Marks Supplement | 01DC0..01DFF | 58 out of 63 characters | |
Latin Extended Additional | 01E00..01EFF | 256 out of 256 characters | |
General Punctuation | 02000..0206F | 101 out of 111 characters | |
Superscripts and Subscripts | 02070..0209F | 42 out of 42 characters | |
Currency Symbols | 020A0..020CF | 32 out of 32 characters | |
Combining Diacritical Marks for Symbols | 020D0..020FF | 7 out of 33 characters | |
Letterlike Symbols | 02100..0214F | 32 out of 80 characters | |
Number Forms | 02150..0218F | 60 out of 60 characters | |
Arrows | 02190..021FF | 19 out of 112 characters | |
Mathematical Operators | 02200..022FF | 40 out of 256 characters | |
Miscellaneous Technical | 02300..023FF | 29 out of 256 characters | |
Control Pictures | 02400..0243F | 1 out of 39 characters | |
Geometric Shapes | 025A0..025FF | 4 out of 96 characters | |
Miscellaneous Symbols | 02600..026FF | 45 out of 256 characters | |
Dingbats | 02700..027BF | 6 out of 192 characters | |
Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-A | 027C0..027EF | 4 out of 48 characters | |
Miscellaneous Symbols and Arrows | 02B00..02BFF | 4 out of 253 characters | |
Latin Extended-C | 02C60..02C7F | 32 out of 32 characters | |
Supplemental Punctuation | 02E00..02E7F | 83 out of 83 characters | |
Modifier Tone Letters | 0A700..0A71F | 32 out of 32 characters | |
Latin Extended-D | 0A720..0A7FF | 193 out of 193 characters | |
Latin Extended-E | 0AB30..0AB6F | 60 out of 60 characters | |
Private Use Area | 0E000..0F8FF | 394 out of 6,400 characters | E021..E0FF: Mirrored clones of 0021..00FF E121..E1FF: Rotated clones of 0021..00FF F002..F032: Various Latin letter variants and ligatures |
Alphabetic Presentation Forms | 0FB00..0FB4F | 7 out of 58 characters | |
Combining Half Marks | 0FE20..0FE2F | 4 out of 16 characters | |
Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms | 0FF00..0FFEF | 103 out of 225 characters | |
Specials | 0FFF0..0FFFF | 1 out of 5 characters | |
Ancient Symbols | 10190..109CF | 14 out of 14 characters | |
Latin Extended-F | 10780..107BF | 12 out of 57 characters | |
Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols | 10190..109CF | 254 out of 996 characters | Latin Bold, Italic, Bold-Italic, Fraktur, and Fraktur Bold letters |
Latin Extended-G | 1DF00..1DFFF | 5 out of 31 characters | |
Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement | 1F100..1F1FF | 6 out of 200 characters | Creative Commons symbols |
Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs | 1F300..1F5FF | 1 out of 768 characters | |
Transport and Map Symbols | 1F680..1F6FF | 1 out of 117 characters | |
Symbols for Legacy Computing | 1FB00..1FBFF | 10 out of 212 characters | Segmented digits for 0..9 |
BabelStone Roman supports a wide range of ligatures for Latin letters, in particular those used in Roman inscriptions. To generate the ligature insert a Zero Width Joiner (ZWJ) character (U+200D) between the letters to be ligatured, as shown in the table below. As the Unicode Standard does not provide a mechanism for displaying more than one ligature glyph form for the same sequence of letters, I have had to improvise when there are multiple attested ligature forms. In such cases, the font requires a single ZWJ for the first ligature form, two ZWJ characters for the second ligature form, and three ZWJ characters for the third ligature form, etc., as shown in the table.
Sequence | Ligature | Notes |
---|---|---|
a ZWJ e | ae | |
c ZWJ t | ct | |
f ZWJ f | ff | |
f ZWJ i | fi | |
f ZWJ l | fl | |
f ZWJ f ZWJ i | ffi | |
f ZWJ f ZWJ l | ffl | |
o ZWJ e | oe | |
s ZWJ t | st | |
ſ ZWJ t | ſt | |
A ZWJ B | AB | |
A ZWJ D | AD | |
A ZWJ ZWJ D | AD | |
A ZWJ E | AE | |
A ZWJ F | AF | |
A ZWJ G | AG | |
A ZWJ H | AH | |
A ZWJ L | AL | |
A ZWJ M | AM | |
A ZWJ ZWJ M | AM | |
A ZWJ N | AN | |
A ZWJ ZWJ N | AN | |
A ZWJ P | AP | |
A ZWJ R | AR | |
A ZWJ T | AT | |
A ZWJ T ZWJ V | ATV | |
A ZWJ T ZWJ V ZWJ R | ATVR | |
A ZWJ V | AV | |
A ZWJ ZWJ V | AV | |
A ZWJ V ZWJ E | AVE | |
A ZWJ ZWJ V ZWJ E | AVE | |
A ZWJ V ZWJ G | AVG | |
A ZWJ V ZWJ R | AVR | |
A ZWJ X | AX | |
B ZWJ B | BB | |
B ZWJ E | BE | |
B ZWJ I | BI | |
B ZWJ R | BR | |
B ZWJ T | BT | |
C ZWJ E | CE | |
C ZWJ I | CI | |
C ZWJ O | CO | |
C ZWJ V | CV | |
C ZWJ ZWJ V | CV | |
D ZWJ D | DD | |
D ZWJ E | DE | |
D ZWJ ZWJ E | DE | |
D ZWJ ZWJ ZWJ E | DE | |
D ZWJ I | DI | |
D ZWJ I ZWJ K | DIK | |
D ZWJ O | DO | |
D ZWJ R | DR | |
E ZWJ D | ED | |
E ZWJ ZWJ D | ED | |
E ZWJ ZWJ F | EF | |
E ZWJ I | EI | |
E ZWJ L | EL | |
E ZWJ M | EM | |
E ZWJ M ZWJ I | EMI | |
E ZWJ N | EN | |
E ZWJ N ZWJ T | ENT | |
E ZWJ N ZWJ ZWJ T | ENT | |
E ZWJ N ZWJ T ZWJ E | ENTE | |
E ZWJ Q | EQ | |
E ZWJ R | ER | |
E ZWJ ZWJ R | ER | |
E ZWJ R ZWJ I | ERI | |
E ZWJ T | ET | |
E ZWJ ZWJ T | ET | |
E ZWJ ZWJ ZWJ T | ET | |
F ZWJ E | FE | |
F ZWJ I | FI | |
G ZWJ A | GA | |
G ZWJ O | GO | |
G ZWJ V ZWJ S | GVS | |
H ZWJ A | HA | |
H ZWJ E | HE | |
H ZWJ I | HI | |
H ZWJ R | HR | |
H ZWJ Y | HY | |
I ZWJ B | IB | |
I ZWJ D | ID | |
I ZWJ E | IE | |
I ZWJ H ZWJ S | IHS | |
I ZWJ L | IL | |
I ZWJ M | IM | |
I ZWJ M ZWJ A | IMA | |
I ZWJ M ZWJ A ZWJ E | IMAE | |
I ZWJ M ZWJ E | IME | |
I ZWJ N | IN | |
I ZWJ N ZWJ E | INE | |
I ZWJ N ZWJ T | INT | |
I ZWJ O | IO | |
I ZWJ R | IR | |
I ZWJ T | IT | |
I ZWJ T ZWJ E | ITE | |
I ZWJ V | IV | |
K ZWJ L | KL | |
L ZWJ A ZWJ V | LAV | |
L ZWJ E | LE | |
L ZWJ I | LI | |
L ZWJ ZWJ I | LI | |
L ZWJ L | LL | |
L ZWJ X | LX | |
M ZWJ A | MA | |
M ZWJ ZWJ A | MA | |
M ZWJ ZWJ ZWJ A | MA | |
M ZWJ A ZWJ E | MAE | |
M ZWJ A ZWJ R | MAR | |
M ZWJ A ZWJ T | MAT | |
M ZWJ A ZWJ X ZWJ I ZWJ M | MAXIM | |
M ZWJ B | MB | |
M ZWJ E | ME | |
M ZWJ I | MI | |
M ZWJ ZWJ I | MI | |
M ZWJ M | MM | |
M ZWJ N | MN | |
M ZWJ N ZWJ I | MNI | |
M ZWJ N ZWJ I ZWJ B | MNIB | |
M ZWJ P | MP | |
N ZWJ A | NA | |
N ZWJ ZWJ A | NA | |
N ZWJ A ZWJ E | NAE | |
N ZWJ A ZWJ T | NAT | |
N ZWJ A ZWJ T ZWJ I | NATI | |
N ZWJ D | ND | |
N ZWJ E | NE | |
N ZWJ F | NF | |
N ZWJ I | NI | |
N ZWJ ZWJ I | NI | |
N ZWJ I ZWJ N | NIN | |
N ZWJ I ZWJ ZWJ N | NIN | |
N ZWJ K | NK | |
N ZWJ N | NN | |
N ZWJ N ZWJ I | NNI | |
N ZWJ N ZWJ ZWJ I | NNI | |
N ZWJ T | NT | |
N ZWJ ZWJ T | NT | |
N ZWJ ZWJ ZWJ T | NT | |
N ZWJ T ZWJ E | NTE | |
N ZWJ T ZWJ H | NTH | |
N ZWJ T ZWJ I | NTI | |
O ZWJ C | OC | |
O ZWJ E | OE | |
O ZWJ G | OG | |
O ZWJ N | ON | |
O ZWJ R | OR | |
O ZWJ T | OT | |
Q ZWJ V | QV | |
O ZWJ V | OV | |
P ZWJ E | PE | |
P ZWJ H | PH | |
P ZWJ H ZWJ I | PHI | |
P ZWJ H ZWJ R | PHR | |
P ZWJ I | PI | |
P ZWJ L | PL | |
P ZWJ R | PR | |
P ZWJ T | PT | |
P ZWJ ZWJ T | PT | |
R ZWJ A | RA | |
R ZWJ D | RD | |
R ZWJ E | RE | |
R ZWJ ZWJ E | RE | |
R ZWJ H | RH | |
R ZWJ I | RI | |
R ZWJ R | RR | |
R ZWJ V | RV | |
S ZWJ E | SE | |
T ZWJ A | TA | |
T ZWJ E | TE | |
T ZWJ ZWJ E | TE | |
T ZWJ F | TF | |
T ZWJ H | TH | |
T ZWJ H ZWJ E | THE | |
T ZWJ H ZWJ I | THI | |
T ZWJ I | TI | |
T ZWJ R | TR | |
T ZWJ ZWJ R | TR | |
T ZWJ V ZWJ S | TVS | |
V ZWJ A | VA | |
V ZWJ A ZWJ E | VAE | |
V ZWJ A ZWJ L | VAL | |
V ZWJ A ZWJ L ZWJ E | VALE | |
V ZWJ B | VB | |
V ZWJ E | VE | |
V ZWJ F | VF | |
V ZWJ I | VI | |
V ZWJ I ZWJ V | VIV | |
V ZWJ L | VL | |
V ZWJ M | VM | |
V ZWJ ZWJ M | VM | |
V ZWJ N | VN | |
V ZWJ N ZWJ T | VNT | |
V ZWJ P | VP | |
V ZWJ R | VR | |
V ZWJ S | VS | |
V ZWJ ZWJ S | VS | |
V ZWJ T | VT | |
V ZWJ V | VV | |
V ZWJ X | VX | |
X ZWJ A | XA | |
X ZWJ V | XV | |
X ZWJ X | XX | |
X ZWJ X ZWJ X | XXX | |
Ʌ ZWJ E | ɅE | |
Ꟶ ZWJ E | ꟵE | Also F030 |
Ꟶ ZWJ I | ꟵI | Also F031 |
Ꟶ ZWJ R | ꟵR | Also F032 |
Tombstone of Tadia Vallaunius and Tadius Exuperatus (RIB 369)
Image credit: Verdun Howells (@ServiliusPulex) on Twitter
Transcription of above tombstone using BabelStone Roman (24 points)
Latvian uses a comma-shaped glyph for L/l and N/n with combining cedilla (U+0327), whereas Marshallese uses a cedilla glyph for these letters. Despite several attempts to provide a mechanism to support both Latvian and Marshallese usage in Unicode (see for example WG2 N4456), there is currently no standardzed mechanism for supporting both Latvian and Marshallese usage in a single font. BabelStone Roman supports both Latvian and Marshallese usage by using the Combining Grapheme Joiner (CGJ) character (U+034F) before the combining cedilla to display it as a cedilla glyph, as shown in the table below.
Latvian | Marshallese | ||
---|---|---|---|
Sequence | Result | Sequence | Result |
L Cedilla | Ļ | L CGJ Cedilla | L͏̧ |
N Cedilla | Ņ | N CGJ Cedilla | N͏̧ |
l Cedilla | ļ | l CGJ Cedilla | l͏̧ |
n Cedilla | ņ | n CGJ Cedilla | n͏̧ |
BabelStone Roman supports a number of unofficial variation sequences for the characters listed in the table below. The character plus VS1 (U+FE00) produces the same glyph as for the character by itself, whereas the character plus VS2 (U+FE01) produces the variant glyph form shown. Please note that none of these variation sequences are defined in the Unicode Standard, and they will not work for any other font.
Code Point | Character | Character Name | + VS1 | +VS2 | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
A764 | Ꝥ | Latin Capital Letter Thorn with Stroke | Ꝥ︀ | Ꝥ︁ | See WG2 N4836 |
A765 | ꝥ | Latin Small Letter Thorn with Stroke | ꝥ︀ | ꝥ︁ | |
1019C | 𐆜 | Ascia Symbol | 𐆜︀ | 𐆜︁ | See WG2 N5038 |
101A0 | 𐆠 | Greek Symbol Tau Rho | 𐆠︀ | 𐆠︁ | See WG2 N5040 |
Version | Date | Coverage | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
8.000 | 2015-02-08 | 33 blocks, 1,834 characters | First public release. Supports Unicode 8.0. |
8.001 | 2015-02-08 | 34 blocks, 2,022 characters | Added 188 characters. Increased size of superscript and subscript letters and digits. |
8.002 | 2015-05-04 | 35 blocks, 2,080 characters | Added 58 characters. Increased inter-letter spacing. |
8.003 | 2015-11-22 | 35 blocks, 2,080 characters | Add support for tone contours. |
9.000 | 2016-05-16 | 35 blocks, 2,081 characters | Add 1 character for Unicode 9.0. |
9.002 | 2016-09-29 | 35 blocks, 2,081 characters | Add additional precomposed glyphs. |
9.005 | 2016-12-08 | 36 blocks, 2,101 characters | Various changes and additions. |
9.006 | 2018-02-28 | 36 blocks, 2,105 characters | Various changes and additions. |
13.000 | 2020-03-08 | 45 blocks, 2,971 characters | Additions to support all Latin letters in Unicode 13.0. Addition of 200+ ligatures. |
13.001 | 2020-03-25 | 45 blocks, 2,971 characters | Several glyph fixes, and adjusted vertical position for all modifier letters. |
13.002 | 2020-07-05 | 45 blocks, 2,971 characters | Fixed glyph errors for 'm' with tilde and 'm' with candrabindu (glyphs were swapped). |
13.004 | 2020-10-19 | 46 blocks, 2,980 characters | Various. |
13.005 | 2020-11-03 | 47 blocks, 2,981 characters | Multiocular ꙮ Special ꙮ Edition! |
13.006 | 2020-12-06 | 47 blocks, 2,981 characters | Letter spacing, kerning, and ligature fixes. |
14.000 | 2021-11-08 | 49 blocks, 3,011 characters | Added 13 Latin Extended-D additions for Unicode 14.0, and a few Latin Extended-F and G additions for Unicode 14.0. Corrected glyph shape of U+A66E Cyrillic Letter Multiocular O to follow the manuscript evidence. |
14.001 | 2022-02-17 | 49 blocks, 3,011 characters | Added additional Roman ligatures. |
BabelStone Roman is licensed under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, which means you are free to use it for personal or commercial purposes, and to redistribute it by itself or as part of a free or commercial software package, just as long as you do not sell the font on its own. The license also allows you to modify the font in any way you like, as long as the modified font does not use "BabelStone" in its name. Please read the license for details.
For use on your computer or mobile device please download and install the TTF file by clicking on "Download BabelStone Roman" below. The WOFF and WOFF2 files are for web hosting use only, and are not required by most users.
If you find this font useful, please consider making a small donation to help support the continued development of BabelStone fonts by clicking on the PayPal link below: