Non-standard 8-bit fonts still in use

I was surprised to learn of continued reference to and presumably use of
8-bit fonts modified two decades ago for the extended Latin alphabets of
Malian languages, and wondered if anyone has similar observations in
other countries. Or if there have been any recent studies of adoption of
Unicode fonts in the place of local 8-bit fonts for extended Latin (or
non-Latin) in local language computing.

At various times in the past I have encountered the idea that local
languages with extended alphabets in Africa require special fonts (that
region being my main geographic area of experience with multilingual
computing), but assumed that this notion was fading away.

See my recent blog post for a quick and by no means complete discussion
about this topic, which of course has to do with more than just the
fonts themselves:
http://niamey.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-secret-life-of-bambara-arial.html

TIA for any feedback.

Don Osborn
Received on Thu Oct 15 2015 - 19:23:58 CDT