BabelStone Fonts

BabelStone Roman

Description

BabelStone Roman is a Unicode serif font covering the Latin script. 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 16.0 (released 10 September 2024), and covers all 1,487 Latin script characters defined in Unicode 16.0. Kerning is not ideal, and needs to be improved in a future version.

OpenType Features

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>	Oldstyle Figures <onum>	Replaces default (lining style) digits 0–9 with oldstyle digits.
Latin <latn>	Default <dflt>	Proportional Figures <pnum>	Replaces default (fixed width) digits 0–9 with proportional width digits.
Latin <latn>	Default <dflt>	Standard Ligatures <liga>	Applies standard ligatures (ff, fi, fl, ffi, ffl).
Latin <latn>	Default <dflt>	Historical Ligatures <hlig>	Applies historical ligatures (ch, ct, st, ſb, ſh, ſi, ſk, ſl, ſſ, ſſi, ſſl, ſt).
Latin <latn>	Icelandic <ISL>	Localized Forms <locl>	Applies Old Norse forms for capital and lowercase Thorn with Stroke (A764 and A765).

Character Repertoire

BabelStone Roman includes a total of 3,134 Unicode characters, including all 1,487 Latin script characters defined in Unicode 16.0.

Unicode Block	Range	Coverage	Notes
Basic Latin	0000..007F	97 out of 128 characters
Latin-1 Supplement	0080..00FF	96 out of 128 characters
Latin Extended-A	0100..017F	128 out of 128 characters
Latin Extended-B	0180..024F	208 out of 208 characters
IPA Extensions	0250..02AF	96 out of 96 characters
Spacing Modifier Letters	02B0..02FF	80 out of 80 characters
Combining Diacritical Marks	0300..036F	108 out of 112 characters
Greek and Coptic	0370..03FF	40 out of 135 characters
Cyrillic	0400..04FF	4 out of 256 characters	Letters used for tones in old Zhuang orthography
Georgian	10A0..10FF	1 out of 88 characters	Georgian Paragraph Separator
Combining Diacritical Marks Extended	1AB0..1AFF	31 out of 31 characters
Phonetic Extensions	1D00..1D7F	126 out of 128 characters
Phonetic Extensions Supplement	1D80..1DBF	64 out of 64 characters
Combining Diacritical Marks Supplement	1DC0..1DFF	64 out of 64 characters
Latin Extended Additional	1E00..1EFF	256 out of 256 characters
General Punctuation	2000..206F	101 out of 111 characters
Superscripts and Subscripts	2070..209F	42 out of 42 characters
Currency Symbols	20A0..20CF	32 out of 32 characters
Combining Diacritical Marks for Symbols	20D0..20FF	7 out of 33 characters
Letterlike Symbols	2100..214F	32 out of 80 characters
Number Forms	2150..218F	60 out of 60 characters
Arrows	2190..21FF	19 out of 112 characters
Mathematical Operators	2200..22FF	40 out of 256 characters
Miscellaneous Technical	2300..23FF	29 out of 256 characters
Control Pictures	2400..243F	1 out of 39 characters
Geometric Shapes	25A0..25FF	4 out of 96 characters
Miscellaneous Symbols	2600..26FF	45 out of 256 characters
Dingbats	2700..27BF	6 out of 192 characters
Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-A	27C0..27EF	4 out of 48 characters
Miscellaneous Symbols and Arrows	2B00..2BFF	4 out of 253 characters
Latin Extended-C	2C60..2C7F	32 out of 32 characters
Supplemental Punctuation	2E00..2E7F	83 out of 83 characters
Cyrillic Extended-B	A640..A69F	1 out of 96 characters	Cyrillic Letter Multiocular O
Modifier Tone Letters	A700..A71F	32 out of 32 characters
Latin Extended-D	A720..A7FF	199 out of 199 characters
Latin Extended-E	AB30..AB6F	60 out of 60 characters
Private Use Area	E000..F8FF	402 out of 6,400 characters	E021..E0FF: Mirrored clones of 0021..0FF E121..E1FF: Rotated clones of 0021..0FF F002..F032: Various Latin letter variants and ligatures
Alphabetic Presentation Forms	FB00..FB4F	7 out of 58 characters
Combining Half Marks	FE20..FE2F	4 out of 16 characters
Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms	FF00..FFEF	103 out of 225 characters
Specials	FFF0..FFFF	1 out of 5 characters
Ancient Symbols	10190..109CF	14 out of 14 characters
Latin Extended-F	10780..107BF	57 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	37 out of 37 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 118 characters
Symbols for Legacy Computing	1FB00..1FBFF	10 out of 212 characters	Segmented digits for 0..9

Ligatures

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)

Transcription of the tombstone of Tadia Vallaunius and Tadius Exuperatus (RIB 369) using BabelStone Roman at 24 points

Combining Cedilla for Latvian and Marshallese

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

Variation Sequences

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	See WG2 N4836
1019C	𐆜	Ascia Symbol	𐆜︀	𐆜︁	See WG2 N5038
101A0	𐆠	Greek Symbol Tau Rho	𐆠︀	𐆠︁	See WG2 N5040

Version History

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.
15.000	2022-09-21	49 blocks, 3,123 characters	Added all remaining Latin letters and combing diacritical marks for Unicode 14.0 and 15.0. Added liga and hlig OpenType tables to support standard and historical ligattures; added onum and pnum OpenType tables to support old style and proportional figures; added mark and mkmk OpenType tables to support dynamic positioning of diacritical marks. Some glyph corrections and modifications.
15.001	2022-11-13	49 blocks, 3,123 characters	Glyph corrections for U+A798 and U+AB5A.
15.003	2023-06-22	49 blocks, 3,128 characters	Additional PUA characters at F023...F027.
16.000	2024-05-21	49 blocks, 3,134 characters	Six additional letters in Latin Extended-D added in Unicode 16.0.

Download

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.

Download BabelStone Roman [WOFF, WOFF2] v. 16.000 (2024-05-21)

BabelStone Fonts