Designing a font for the Mwangwego script

As a designer, the letterforms are also interesting as I see some subtle abstract representations of nature in some letterforms. If a script exists only in historical documents, engravings, and inscriptions, it is all too easy to assume it is no longer in use, and the culture that created it has also been lost. He started his act of creation in 1979; after innumerable modifications and revisions, he considered the script finished and ready for unveiling twenty-four years later, in 2003. Mwangwego was not without qualifications as a linguist, speaking and writing Chewa, Tumbuka, Kyangonde, English, French and Portuguese.

In 1977, on a trip to Paris, France, he realised how various non-Latin writing systems were used around the world. Reflecting on his knowledge that the languages of Malawi, particularly, Chichewa and Kyandonde, have words that mean “to write”, he postulated that the languages of Malawi could have had writing systems of their own languages. Summarized, everyone in the world should be able to use their own language on phones and computers. The Unicode Consortium helps make that possible by standardizing the world’s writing systems…and emoji.

These came in the form of additional diacritics placed before the syllable character, which can range from a horizontal line to represent labialisation, to two dots indication aspiration. This month’s designer is Tapiwanashe S. Garikayi, who is based in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. He designs fonts for indigenous African scripts, using African motifs and colors from outside the realm of conventional type. In particular he has been working with the Mwangwego script, created for Malawian languages such as Chichewa and Kyandonde by Nolence Mwangwego, just across the border in Malawi. Born in 1951 in Zambia, then Northern Rhodesia, Mwangwego visited Paris in 1977, where he discovered the existence of other, non-Latin writing systems.

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In fact, searching up references on many of these writing system websites have returned a result that the domain for Mwangwego’s main website was now Mwangwego script on sale. While the creator is still active on Twitter, he does seem to still be resolved in promoting his writing system into Malawian schools. The project for the Mwangwego alphabet started soon after, in 1979, and the first edition was finalised on 7 April 1997. Modifications, simplifications, and further refinements were made during this period, most likely to make it easier to teach, learn, or perhaps reading and writing, or discerning between similar-looking characters.

Our mission is to play an active role in preserving endangered cultures by using their writing systems to create artwork and educational materials. The story behind the creation of the script, the why, is also something I believe & resonate with; the Latin alphabet used to write Bantu languages does not accurately represent the unique qualities of our languages. A melange of all this is the driving factor of my interest in the script. As a designer, I strive to develop work that speaks to both me and others about the beauty (runako) that exists in Afrikan societies.

What we probably know now is that, both Chichewa and Kyandonde are Bantu languages, which could have adopted similar writing systems as languages like Swahili, which could very likely be the Arabic script, but that is just a speculation. After all, it’s not only a matter of taking visual inspiration but philosophical inspiration as well. At the moment I’m in the process of creating a font for the Mwangwego script. The process has been fairly smooth since the inventor is still alive so getting source material for the for research and letter-form construction guidance are not limiting factors. When completed, the font can be used for educational purposes and in promoting the script.

General Script, Language, and Culture Resources

Others are clearly the work of a single imagination, a single advocate. Such a script is Mwangwego, the product of a lifetime’s labour by Nolence Moses Mwangwego of Malawi. Some scripts are like the pebbles in a stream, worn into their shapes over centuries by the collective action of millions of users.

Mwangwego script, is one of the writing systems not yet encoded into the Unicode standard, meaning it can’t be displayed on computers, smartphones & the World Wide Web, as shown above. The purpose of this font is to enable people, mainly educators, designers, and linguists, to create teaching, documentation & awareness material to keep the writing system alive in the digital age. These will also be helpful submissions to accelerate the Unicode encoding process, functionality then is important considering the target group mentioned earlier.

• After all, it’s not only a matter of taking visual inspiration but philosophical inspiration as well.
• Getting inspiration from all this, I breathe life into the designs (especially typefaces) so that Afrikan ideas, innovation and lifestyle are visible.
• The ‘rlig’ (Required Ligatures) OpenType feature replaces a sequence of glyphs with a single glyph.
• It is one level of achievement to create a new, consistent and workable writing system; to get it adopted is an entirely different challenge.

The first person to learn the script was Mwandipa Chimaliro;1 ten other students that year learned the script as well who went on to teach others.1 In 2007 the Mwangwego Club was formed whose membership is open to those that have learned the script. The structure of the Mwangwego script helped establish the method I used to create a functional font. The script is an abugida, vowels are added to the base characters (consonants) which have an inherent vowel ‘a’ to form syllables. Spacing consonant modifiers & diacritics are also used to extend the consonants. This is how far I’ve managed to go, the base consonants & syllables can be accurately displayed while utilizing the Latin character code-points however, there are still more consonant onsets formed by adding non-spacing modifiers and diacritics.

When designing fonts supporting writing systems (popularly referred to as alphabets, though most are not) that are not yet encoded into Unicode, one tends to use unconventional methods to get things working. Here is an unorthodox method I personally applied during the process of creating a font for the Mwangwego script. It is one level of achievement to create a new, consistent and workable writing system; to get it adopted is an entirely different challenge. After the script was launched, the anticipated government support did not materialize, so Mwangwego began teaching it himself, putting on lectures and exhibitions. The origins of Mwangwego trace back to linguist Mr Nolence Moses Mwangwego, born in Zambia to Malawian parents.