Having worked in the field of education translation for the past decade, I have witnessed the rise of multilingual technology in leaps and bounds. Gone are the days when bilingual parents would handwrite informative memos and translate parent newsletters for ESL communities. Instead, school districts work hand-in-hand with professional native speaking translators who specialize in cross-cultural communication, English Language Learning (ELL) education and cutting edge technology.
One component of this technology is working with foreign language fonts. At the most basic level, fonts are stylized typefaces of an alphabet, character set or script. In order to print a document correctly, the fonts used within the document need to be installed on your computer. Most computers already come equipped with “system fonts” which are commonly used fonts including those of the more popular languages like Chinese or German.
However, historically, many languages of limited diffusion such as Armenian, Khmer/Cambodian or Urdu have not been as widely accommodated in the world of multilingual fonts. You may require very unique fonts that need to be purchased when working with these languages in conjunction with certain programs or even require a language specific operating system. In order to avert any surprises at the end of an education translation project, I highly recommend proactively discussing any font requirements that you may have with your Language Service Provider (LSP). Your LSP should also be able to advise you on the best fonts to be used for a project and also provide you with a printable Portable Document Format (PDF) that has embedded fonts within the document.
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Maggie
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