Can an alphabet preserve a culture?

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Published Apr 19, 2023

The language of the Fulani people of West Africa, known as Pulaar, is spoken by over 40 million people, but for most of history, the language had no alphabet. Determined to preserve their native language since they were children, the Barry brothers created ADLaM, a handwritten alphabet for their people.

Yet the need remained to digitize the alphabet so it could be used to communicate in the modern digital world, empowering the Fulani people to conduct business, connect through social media and find information in their own language.

Though the brothers had developed early versions of the digital typeface, for the Fulani community to fully adopt and embrace it, the alphabet needed to be optimized and made more widely available in digital spaces. In partnership with the brothers and a group of expert typeface designers we created a revised version of the alphabet that was easier to read and write. Importantly, the new typeface was updated to include new letter forms that take into account how the alphabet has naturally evolved within the Fulani community.

Microsoft has now integrated the redesigned alphabet across their global platforms. The revised version of the alphabet is now available to download on unlocked.microsoft.com as the ADLaM Display font and will be deployed natively across the Microsoft 365 suite of programs, desktop and mobile.

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Category: Software

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