Durlav Gogoi

Guwahati, Oct. 8: A person here is working to make the Assamese Unicode font widely acceptable in the publishing industry of the state by developing a new attractive font.

Durlav Gogoi, 38, said lack of an attractive font is what discourages publishers from using the Unicode font and they go for traditional non-Unicode ways of writing. This ultimately creates a bottleneck in easy accessibility to the wide array of information about the state in this age of information technology.

Almost all publishing houses in the state use the non-Unicode system of writing. Unlike English and other languages, Assamese newspapers and magazines are currently published after making an image file of the contents. It becomes difficult to retrieve information by searching them on the Internet despite the fact that almost all of them have Internet editions.

This is what has deprived the language from the opportunity of having a rich online repository of information. Talking to The Telegraph, Gogoi said he had been working for the past three months to make the new Assamese Unicode font, which will be similar to the fonts that have been found wide acceptability in the publishing industry.

He said he was also trying to plug the other loopholes associated with a few present Unicode fonts.

The step assumes significance considering the ongoing efforts by the Assamese community to get a separate slot for the Assamese script in the Unicode consortium. Wider use of the Assamese Unicode script will create awareness among people about the significance of Unicode scripts, especially at a time when people are increasingly becoming associated with the Internet.

It will also give a push to the demand for a separate slot for Assamese script in the Unicode consortium.

“When I tried to find out why Unicode font was yet to get acceptability by the publishers, I realised that there was no font that could attract them. The appearance of a printed page is a crucial factor in the publishing industry. There are only two Assamese Unicode fonts available now with many limitations. That is why I felt the need of an error-free and attractive font,” Gogoi said.

He is one of those who have been actively working to mount pressure on the government to get a separate slot for Assamese script in the Unicode consortium.

Recently, he and four others submitted a memorandum to Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi informing him about the misrepresentation/non-representation of the Assamese script at various international forums.

“Almost 50 per cent work of designing the font has been done. To complete the remaining work, I will engage a graphic designer. Making a font is a complex and time-consuming work. The state government should take up the task,” he added.

He has earlier single-handedly developed a digital Assamese dictionary, Xohoj Xandhan Axomiya Abhidhan or Easy Searching Assamese Dictionary, which is seen by many as a valuable contribution to the Assamese language.