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Figure 1. Representation of additional Cyrillic characters
in accordance with the Unicode Standard
We collaborate with the Unicode Consortium and a number of specialised
agencies of Russian entities responsible for the issues of national languages
to monitor the current linguistic situation. To provide feedback we created a
special page on our site www.fonts.ru/public, representing all titular languages
of the RF subjects and their characters.
As a rule, regional laws on languages require duplicating texts and inscriptions
in national languages in official documents, on road signs, signboards, etc. In
addition, even without special legislation literature in national language should
exist, in particular, textbooks and dictionaries. Therefore, major requirements
for a national font are multilinguality, i.e., ability to support character sets of
national alphabets, and accessibility. These are indispensable conditions for
tackling a wide range of national fonts’ issues.
In order to solve these problems efficiently within regions professional
communities and local authorities should cooperate to settle the national
characters set and forms of these characters.
The elaboration of regional language laws, cooperation with local institutions
and authorities, as well as public debates in the media are essential in this regard.
Free/libre fonts are those included in operating systems or put on the Web for
free access. Existing national fonts do not meet certain requirements. Fonts
put on the Internet for public access are usually of very poor quality both in
terms of design and technical execution. Those few fonts with an extended set
of characters included with Windows, support only a very limited number of
Cyrillic-based languages.
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