Katakana カタカナ

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Balanced Rating: 8.85
Average Rating: 9.75
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by williamsharkey

See also Mask of Katakana by OsyenVyeter.

17 9265

This is a work in progress to produce a font capable of printing common katakana characters from Japanese. Because Katakana are usually romanized to two English letters, IE "ka","se","te" I made a "subtractive font". When one types the letter "k", the characters for "ka","ki","ku","ke", and "ko" appear. Then, when one types a vowel, a,e,i,o or u, a mask is applied that blocks out opposing vowel combinations. For the Katakana representing a i u e or o, just type the capital vowel.
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Created on 4th August 2010. Last edited on 4th August 2010.
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Creative Commons
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9 Comments

That's certainly an inspired technique, cleverly done. Fontstruct directly supports katakana though if you weren't aware, you can change sets at the bottom left, though this font would still be useful to have.

Comment by nazlfrag 4th august 2010

nazlfrag- Thanks for pointing that out, I was not aware of alternate sets.

Comment by williamsharkey 4th august 2010

Does typing a capital N give you syllabic n?

Comment by Bismuth 29th december 2010

Devilishly clever! :-) 10/10

Comment by riccard0 15th january 2012

Wow.

Comment by Agent Demonic Ladybug 16th january 2012

Bismuth: No, the capital N is not in there yet.

You will notice other parts missing, like the B's, H's, F's, P,s, etc.

I was distracted from completing this, it stands as a proof of concept. This pattern has the ability to represent most of the Katakana, any exceptions can be handled though some creativity.

I encourage those who have an interest in this to open up a chart of Katakana, open up the font, and complete it.

Comment by williamsharkey 16th january 2012