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Cool free IPA fonts to download

Page history last edited by PBworks 15 years, 11 months ago

Cool free IPA fonts

 

For instructions on installing fonts, go to How to install fonts

 

Here are links to fonts that you can download for free

 

Junicode is fast becoming a favorite for linguists because it has an extremely complete character set. It has the entire IPA, including diacriticals (spacing and combining), plus basic upper- and lowercase for other alphabets (Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, etc.), and even typesetting niceties like f-ligatures, bullet-numbers, true small caps, and so on. Junicode is extremely good for medievalists, as it has things like the thorn, vowels with macron (long marks), and even all three sets of runes. If you work on Old English or other varieties of old Germanic languages the Junicode font is the one you need. 

     Although Junicode has many exemplary features it was designed with a small type size. If you write a document with it in 10-pts the characters will appear a little small (smaller than Times at 10 pts). The solution is to set your term paper at 12 -12.5 pts or so.

     The file you will download from the link is a compressed zip file that contains the regular, bold, italic and bold-italic fonts. When you unzip it the individual font files will appear.  Download Junicode

 

Thryomanes is another font that contains a complete set of IPA characters. Thryomanes is especially useful for classical Latin, Greek and Cyrillic. Some also find it very attractive. The file you will download from the link is a compressed zip file that contains the regular, italic, bold and bold-italic fonts. When you unzip it the individual fonts will appear. The link is to an FTP site, so it will just start the download instead of taking you to a web page first.  Download Thryomanes

 

Free Serif, Free Mono and Free Sans are also free fonts that have a complete character set for IPA. They also have italic, bold and bold-italic versions, although some of the less common characters are missing in the bold and italic. When you download it get the freefont.zip file unless you know how to untar a tar.gz file. When you unzip it you will find Free Sans and Free Mono as well. The Free Sans  makes good headers in your paper, and the Free Mono may be useful if you are trying to send e-mail with Microsoft software. Free Serif, Free Mono and Free Sans are sometimes installed by default in some Linux distributions, but the fonts are free regardless of what operating system you use.  Download Free Serif and others

 

Dialekt Uni is another serif font that has a complete set of characters for IPA. It also has special characters for Scandinavian dialects as well as characters for Central European languages. It comes in regular, italic, bold and bold-italic versions. Download Dialekt Uni

 

Code2000 is another font that has a complete list of all IPA characters. It has over 60,000 characters, including characters needed for a lot of non-Indo-European languages. Unlike the rest of the fonts on this page it is shareware, which means that you can try it for free but are on an honor system to pay the developer if you decide to keep it. However, the developer is asking only $5, and even takes PayPal.  Download Code2000

 

Gentium, Doulos, Charis and Encore are IPA fonts from the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). Some linguists have issues with SIL for religious or political reasons, but we aren't going to go into that here. Their fonts are of excellent quality and are free. They are also the most popular among linguists. For example, although the Gentium font lacks bold and bold-italic, we are especially taken with its attractive design. But then de gustibus non disputandum est (look it up - you're a linguist!). If you want the most popular font on this page, get SIL Doulos. SIL also offers many free fonts for specific languages.  Download SIL Fonts

 

IPAPhon is a sans-serif font (looks like Arial or Helvetica) that has a very complete set of characters. We recommend using the Windows truetype version, which works on Mac these days as well as Windows and Linux.  Download IPAPhon

 

DejaVu is another sans-serif font with a very complete set of characters. It comes in TrueType and OpenType formats, and there are also versions for different weights besides the standard regular and bold.  Download DejaVu

 

LanguageGeek.com is maintained by the Indigenous Language Institute, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of indigenous languages world wide and their continued vitality and relevance into the future. LanguageGeek.com has specialty fonts for all kinds of American Indian languages as well as some African languages. They cover syllabaries for Cree, Ojibway, Naskapi, Inuktitut, Dakelh, Blackfoot and Dene, plus fonts for Cherokee, Iroquoian and American Indian languages that we have never even heard of. Most of their fonts are free, and most also contain a complete set of IPA characters. Check out the Full Aboriginal Unicode Fonts for extensive IPA coverage in addition to the more specialized syllabaries etc. Get them from  http://www.languagegeek.com/font/fontdownload.html.

 

Klingon is also available as a free download, just in case you're sick of your Ling homework and want to take a quick vacation a few parsecs from earth. You can get it here.  Download Klingon

 

 

Non-free fonts

OK, we said "free" fonts in the name of this page, but some people have money they feel they need to spend. If that's you, a better idea would be just to send it to us. But in case you're determined to pay money for fonts, here are links to some that you can buy.

 

Linguist's Software has several fonts with IPA characters. We think the IPAKiel font is especially attractive. They also have many fonts for specific languages. Go to Linguist's Software.  Linguist's Software

 

Adobe is one of the biggest names in commercial computer fonts. Sadly, Adobe sees little profit in the linguistics market and has created only three fonts with IPA characters: Times Phonetic, Stone Sans Phonetic and Stone Serif Phonetic. Moreover, each has most of the common IPA characters, but not all. The Stone fonts are attractive, but the Times font is, well, Times. To find them go to this Adobe link and type "IPA" in the search box.  Adobe fonts

 

Really, just send your money to us, 'k?

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