Sylfaen is a multi-script

serif In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ...

font family designed by John Hudson and W. Ross Mills of Tiro Typeworks, and Geraldine Wade of

Monotype Typography Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc., founded as Lanston Monotype Machine Company in 1887 in Philadelphia by Tolbert Lanston, is an American (historically Anglo-American) company that specializes in digital typesetting and typeface design for use with ...

. The name is a

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...

word meaning

foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

. In 1997, Tiro was hired by

Microsoft Typography Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

to consult on the production of support materials for

OpenType OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark ...

font development. Part of this project was producing a multi-script font used for displaying

glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...

s in Microsoft's cancelled Web Resource for International Typography (WRIT) database, which was a tool for establishing character and glyph requirements for given languages, geographical areas or scripts (or combinations thereof). The project included support for

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioners A ...

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, Armenian, Georgian, and Ge'ez (Ethiopian) characters. Latin glyphs were designed by John Hudson, and the first script developed for Sylfaen. Cyrillic glyphs were designed by John Hudson. The design was reviewed by Maxim Zhukov, typographic coordinator for the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

. Greek glyphs were designed by Geraldine Wade, based on the Latin glyphs, with consultation from Gerry Leonidas. Only the glyphs used in

monotonic orthography Greek orthography has used a variety of diacritics starting in the Hellenistic period. The more complex polytonic orthography ( el, πολυτονικό σύστημα γραφής, translit=polytonikó sýstīma grafī́s), which includes fiv ...

are available. Armenian glyphs were designed by Geraldine Wade, under the guidance of Armenian type designer Manvel Shmavonyan, and his Russian colleague Vladimir Yefimov at

ParaType In zoology and botany, a paratype is a specimen of an organism that helps define what the scientific name of a species and other taxon actually represents, but it is not the holotype (and in botany is also neither an isotype nor a syntype). O ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. It includes 'classical caps', which are based on the tall capitals in Armenian manuscript. Georgian glyphs include

khutsuri The Georgian scripts are the three writing systems used to write the Georgian language: Asomtavruli, Nuskhuri and Mkhedruli. Although the systems differ in appearance, their letters share the same names and alphabetical order and are written hor ...

and

mkhedruli The Georgian scripts are the three writing systems used to write the Georgian language: Asomtavruli, Nuskhuri and Mkhedruli. Although the systems differ in appearance, their letters share the same names and alphabetical order and are written hor ...

letters. The development of the Georgian script came to a halt when Georgian type designer Anton Dumbadze was fatally struck by a car before being able to finish the design. As a result the font is incomplete. Ethiopic glyphs were designed by Geraldine Wade. The font shipped with

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was offici ...

and XP only include a subset of the original designs. In particular, IPA, Polytonic Greek, Ethiopic glyphs are missing. It supports

WGL4 Windows Glyph List 4, or more commonly WGL4 for short, also known as the ''Pan-European character set'', is a character repertoire on Microsoft operating systems comprising 657 Unicode characters, two of them private use. Its purpose is to provide ...

Armenian script The Armenian alphabet ( hy, Հայոց գրեր, ' or , ') is an alphabetic writing system used to write Armenian. It was developed around 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and ecclesiastical leader. The system originally had ...

, and the minuscules of the

Georgian alphabet The Georgian scripts are the three writing systems used to write the Georgian language: Asomtavruli, Nuskhuri and Mkhedruli. Although the systems differ in appearance, their letters share the same names and alphabetical order and are written ...

. OpenType features include small caps, glyph substitution.

Nyala

In 2003–04, John Hudson completely re-drew the Sylfaen Ethiopic glyphs from the original Sylfaen, regularising them and making them suited to a wider range of publishing needs. This re-design was released by Microsoft in

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

, under the name

Nyala The lowland nyala or simply nyala (''Tragelaphus angasii'') is a spiral-horned antelope native to southern Africa. It is a species of the family Bovidae and genus ''Tragelaphus'', previously placed in genus ''Nyala''. It was first described in ...

. The font name was named for the

mountain nyala The mountain nyala (Amharic: የተራራ ኒዮላ) (''Tragelaphus buxtoni'') or balbok is an antelope found in high altitude woodland in a small part of central Ethiopia. It is a monotypic species (without any identified subspecies) first de ...

(''Tragelaphus buxtoni''), a species of great African antelope native to the highlands of

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

. Latin glyphs were designed to harmonize with the Ethiopic glyphs to facilitate the typesetting of texts including un-transliterated foreign names, technical terms, etc. The Ethiopic characters were based on initial drawings by Geraldine Wade.

Awards

Sylfaen Cyrillic received an award at Kyrillitsa '99 in the text category as well as The Golden Buki Prize for an 'outstanding contribution to the development of Cyrillic typography and international typographic communications'.U&lc Online Issue: 25.4.1: The Winners
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References

External links

contains Sylfaen
Microsoft typography: SylfaenMicrosoft typography: Nyala
{{Microsoft Windows Typefaces Windows XP typefaces Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1998 Typefaces designed by John Hudson