Charis SIL is a Unicode-based font family that supports the wide range of languages that use the Latin and Cyrillic scripts. It is specially designed to make long texts pleasant and easy to read, even in less than ideal reproduction and display environments. This optimized design provides high readability at low resolutions, but is also clean and clear on the latest high-resolution devices.
Since its initial release in 1997, Charis has sought to provide an extended Latin font for the thousands of languages that use Latin script. The word “extended” in this case refers to the many variations of the original 26 ABCs in either uppercase or lowercase form. These become separate letters in their own right. They might have a hook added to a letter’s stem, or a diacritic (accent mark) above or below the letter, or perhaps have been rotated 180°.
Charis also has broad support for Cyrillic, including several regional variations. This historic script is used to write over 160 languages. With an inventory of more than 3900 individual glyphs, Charis provides comprehensive support for both of these widely used scripts.
Whether using Latin or Cyrillic script, some language communities write certain letters differently from how people in other areas write them. Charis includes alternate shapes for several letters in both scripts. See the font features page to see the different options. And for more information on how to access OpenType features in specific environments and applications, see Using Font Features.
