BabelStone Fonts

BabelStone Tibetan

Description

BabelStone Tibetan is a Unicode Tibetan font. It is a modification and extension of the Jomolhari font. Jomolhari is a Bhutanese style calligraphic uchen Tibetan script font developed in Bhutan by Christopher J. Fynn, and licensed under the SIL Open Font License (OFL). I would like to express my immense gratitude to Chris for designing such a beautiful font, and releasing it under a free license that allows me to modify it and release it under the BabelStone brand.

BabelStone Tibetan is based on Jomolhari Version alpha 0.003c 2006, which is quite old, and so does not include sixteen characters added to the Tibetan block in Unicode versions 5.1 (2008), 5.2 (2009) and 6.0 (2010). BabelStone Tibetan adds support for these sixteen characters, and also extends the font to cover many additional stack clusters, including non-standard clusters that are used for writing Tibetan shorthand contractions and some unusual clusters that were used for transcribing Tangut. If there are any stack clusters you need that BabelStone Tibetan does not currently support, please let me know by email or on twitter, and I will endeavour to promptly add them to the font.

Sample

Start of the Mulamadhyamakakarika by Nagarjuna

The text of the above image rendered with BabelStone Tibetan:

༄༅། །དབུ་མ་རྩ་བའི་ཚིག་ལེའུར་བྱས་པ་ཤེས་རབ་ཅེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ། །

༄༅། །རྒྱ་གར་སྐད་དུ། །པྲ་ཛྙཱ་ནཱ་མ་མཱུ་ལ་མ་དྷྱཱ་མ་ཀ་ཀཱ་རི་ཀ །བོད་སྐད་དུ། །དབུ་མ་རྩ་བའི་ཚིག་ལེའུར་བྱས་པ་ཤེས་རབ་ཅེས་བྱ་བ། །འཇམ་དཔལ་གཞོན་ནུར་གྱུར་པ་

ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ། །གང་གིས་རྟེན་ཅིང་འབྲེལ་པར་འབྱུང༌། །འགག་པ་མེད་པ་སྐྱེ་མེད་པ། །ཆད་པ་མེད་པ་རྟག་མེད་པ། །འོང་བ་མེད་པ་འགྲོ་མེད་པ། །ཐ་དད་དོན་མིན་དོན་གཅིག་མིན། །

སྤྲོས་པ་ཉེར་ཞི་ཞི་བསྟན་པ། །རྫོགས་པའི་སངས་རྒྱས་སྨྲ་རྣམས་ཀྱི། །དམ་པ་དེ་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ། །བདག་ལས་མ་ཡིན་གཞན་ལས་མིན། །གཉིས་ལས་མ་ཡིན་རྒྱུ་མེད་མིན། །དངོས་པོ་གང་

Characters

Issues

• BabelStone Tibetan has support for all Tibetan shorthand contractions listed on this page. However, under Windows 10 stacks with two vowel signs (typically gigu and shabkyu) do not display correctly if a vowel above precedes a vowel below (i.e. in Unicode normalized form). This is a bug in the Universal Shaping Engine, and the problem does not occur with the HarfBuzz text shaping engine. The workaround is to ensure that any sequence of vowel above (gigu, drengbu, naro) and vowel below (shabkyu) starts with the vowel below.
• The advance widths of some stacks are inconsistent, and may result in interference with the following glyph. I intend to improve advance widths and interglyph spacing in a future release of the font, but in the meantime if you notice any sequences that are particuarly poor please let me know, and I will fix them straight away.

Version History

Download

BabelStone Tibetan 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. The WOFF and WOFF2 files are for web use only, and are not required by most users.

BabelStone Tibetan has an extremely large line height in order to allow for very high and deep stacks found in some religious texts. BabelStone Tibetan Slim is almost exactly the same as BabelStone Tibetan, but has a small line height; it is suitable for ordinary modern Tibetan text, but some stacks for Sanskrit may be cropped at the top and/or bottom.

BabelStone Fonts