Panchanan - A project for digitalisation of first Bengali typeface created by Panchanan Karmakar

mitradranirban
mitradranirban Posts: 48
in History of Typography

Panchanan Karmakar (Mallick) (died c. 1804) was an Indian Bengali inventor, born at Tribeni, Hooghly, Bengal Presidency, British India. He assisted Sir Charles Wilkins in creating the first Bangla typeface in 1778. It was used for printing A Grammar of Bengali Language by Nathaniel Brassey Halhed.

Later in 1799 he left East India Company Press and joined Missionary Press in Serampore, where along with Bengali he also developed type in 14 languages, including Arabic, Persian, Marathi, Telegu, Burmese and Chinese. He made the Serampore Missionary press the largest multiscript foundry in Asia in early 19th Century. He also trained the next generation of punch-cutters, pioneering the typographic legacy in India.

I created a open source project for creating a OpenType version  of the world's first Bangla Typeface - as a  tribute to Panchanan Karmakar .


The font file is available at its website and source is available at  our github page 


Things I learned while working on this project

- When I use Bengali opaque conjuncts (like ka-ta  ) along with alternate transparent conjuncts  (like  ) , and vertically stacked conjuncts like ma-pa  as well as horizontal or “half form – full form” conjuncts like  in the same typeface, it is not an aberration, or 21st Century simplification , but a part of almost 250 year old Typographic legacy of Bengali script.

- Some letters like nna  and la  have exchanged there shapes with time, and can be confusing to modern day Bengali reader.

- Some conjuncts were so different looking, that I would not have been able to decipher them unless roman transliteration was accompanying them.

Examples include ja-nya  ( ), ka-ukaar ( ) , ma-ukaar ( ) , ta-ya( ) , ha-ya ( ).

- That like Arabic, some Bengali conjuncts like ssa-ukaar had a separate initial and final form .

I have deliberately not included western punctuation like comma, semicolon, etc as they were introduced for Bengali text only in 1855 by Iswarchandra Vidyasagar.

I do not know where this typeface will be useful. I hope it will stimulate newer designs in Bengali typographic scenario, which is  boringly dominated by descendants and copies of a single typeface for almost 50 years.

 


Comments

  • Kalapi Gajjar-Bordawekar
    Kalapi Gajjar-Bordawekar Posts: 14
    Love it! Thanks for sharing :-)
  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,148
    edited March 11
    I wish you well in your project. It's aim is clearly praiseworthy: to breathe new life into Bengali typography by giving it an additional organically authentic source to draw from.
    To let others see directly within this thread what you are talking about, here are the consonants in the Bengali script as shown in the source you are drawing from:
    and here they are from a later Bengali grammar, presumably in the typical style:
    While the font you've created may not be of too much practical use itself, given that some of the letter forms are not recognizable to modern readers, that is of little moment as long as it achieves your primary goal of stimulating new typeface design.
    Out of curiosity, I also did a web search though, and encountered a site offering '1000 free Bengali fonts', and it seemed that there were a number of typefaces for Bengali already in existence that were at least superficially different.

    On further reflection, though, there is one shocking thing about the situation you describe. It seems to me that your project would not have been necessary had Bengali typeface designers done one of the most basic things when designing new typefaces: specifically, if they had used their own handwriting as a source of inspiration!
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,349
    edited March 11
    organically authentic source ... their own handwriting
    You are assuming a lot of things about the Wilkins type in these statements: that it is somehow more organically authentic than later Bangla types, and that it is based on Bangla handwriting. It is in fact an idiosyncratic type apparently directed by Wilkins—whose knowledge of Devanagari was much better than his knowledge of Bangla—, and quite probably based on his handwriting. Some of the conjunct forms that occur in the Wilkins type are not attested in the formal manuscript styles from which typography organically derives book types; they may represent a kind of shorthand convention in less formal writing, or simply be invented by Wilkins.

    It is later Bangla types, including those cut by Pañcānana for other printers, that actually follow the conventional forms of Bangla manuscript hands. All this is discussed in detail in Fiona Ross’ The Printed Bengali Character and its evolution.

    I am enjoying @mitradranirban’s project, but the first reduction of many writing systems to type is often idiosyncratic and clumsy, and we should be able to acknowledge that while still finding interesting things to explore in its shapes.
  • mitradranirban
    mitradranirban Posts: 48
    edited March 11
    As indicated by Dr Ross in her research, CW Winkins' typeface has no resemblance to any Handwritten Bengali Manuscript in his possession. So where did he get this particular shape of letterform for his typeface? 
    It is to be noted that though Panchanan belonged to Karmakar or Blacksmith community, however his ancestors specialised in engraving characters in metalic sword handle and shields in various scripts like Bengali, Persian, Devanagari etc. Due to their proficiency in their craft, his family was bestowed with honorific title of Mallick by Mughal rulers. CW Wilkins' design resemble shapes of Bengali letter typically generated during metal engraving. So it is highly probable that the design is based on Bengali characters engraved on swords or shields by Panchanan Karmakar or his ancestors.
    My purpose is to stimulate interest in the works of Panchanan Karmakar, who despite being a pioneer in typographic legacy not only of Bengali but also other Indic as well as Arabic and Persian scripts, has been relegated to mere footnote in history of typography. 
  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,148
    John Hudson said:
    You are assuming a lot of things about the Wilkins type in these statements: that it is somehow more organically authentic than later Bangla types, and that it is based on Bangla handwriting.

    I was not aware that it was an attempt to create a type for Bengali by someone who was not a native speaker, since the initial post credited someone from India rather than Britain.
    However, I must still dispute one thing. I wasn't claiming that it was more authentic than later types; I merely mistakenly believed it to be as authentic as them. Also, I didn't say anything about the basis of any existing typeface for Bengali, merely that another source of inspiration could be handwriting, by which I include handprint or lettering.

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