MYANMAR companies are promoting greater interest in the country
by increasing the number of on-line encyclopaedia entries and
expanding the Myanmar fonts in which they are written.
Many entries on Myanmar history and places of interest in Wikipedia,
the free on-line encyclopaedia, are written in non-Myanmar languages,
primarily English. Now a local IT company is developing Unicode
fonts for use in a Myanmar version, while another will hold a
‘Myanmar Wiki User Seminar’ on July 5 in Yangon to
broaden exposure of the online encyclopaedia and to introduce
its Myanmar version (http://www.my.wikipedia.org).
Myanmar-based Technomation studios is working with the Irish
company Ever Type to develop a Myanmar Unicode font known as Anawrahta
to be used for Myanmar-related articles in Wikipedia.
Ko Htoo Myint Naung, the chief executive officer of the company,
said the invention of the new Unicode font started last August
and about 40 percent of the development had been completed so
far.
“The new Unicode font not only includes the Myanmar language,
but also other ethnic languages that are accepted by Unicode Consortium.
At present, Shan, Mon and Kayin font types will be included in
this Unicode font,” he said.
“We could complete the development of the font by the
last week of August when we get confirmation from the Unicode
Consortium’s meeting to be held in Hong Kong at that time,”
Ko Htoo Myint Naung said.
The present font used in the Myanmar version of Wikipedia is
Padauk, which was written according to the Unicode 4.1 standard,
and there are about 197 articles related to famous persons, places
and topics in the Myanmar version – not many compared with
those of neighbouring countries.
The Wiki user seminar, organised by Solveware Solution, will
be held at Room 205 at Myanmar Info-Tech building in Hlaing township
from 9 to 11am and is open to all.
U Ngwe Tun, the managing director of Solveware, said they wanted
to expand the use of Myanmar Wikipedia and were looking for volunteers
to contribute articles and advise on technical issues.
