ShiShan
This font family is no longer supported. The Shimenkan family of fonts provides better support for the Miao (Pollard) script.
About
ShiShan is a family of Unicode fonts for the Miao (Pollard) script. This script is extremely common in northeast Yunnan and northwest Guizhou. It is also used by some Yi and Lisu groups, and historically was used by other, smaller language communities in China.
Font in Development
Computer systems do not currently completely support the Miao (Pollard) script. For that reason we don’t feel confident releasing ShiShan as a final product. However, we believe the font is useful in its present state, thus we are releasing it as a “Font in Development”. See below for contact information.
About the names
The fonts and keyboards are available for download below (following license information). The 3-letter IDs which match the Ethnologue codes refer to specific orthographies. From left to right the headings list: Transcript of Chinese (transcription of autonym) – English meaning of Chinese – Chinese. These names are not specific enough to identify a single dialect. For example, there are about a dozen Bai Yi dialects with almost no mutual intelligibility, most of which do not use this script. The Dong Lisu (Lipo) dialect is officially classified as either Lisu or Yi depending on strong cultural factors related to where they live.
Da Hua Miao (Ahmao) – Big Flowery Miao – 大花苗
Ethnologue: [hmd]
Alternate names: A-Hmao, Big Flowery Miao, Da Hua Bei Miao, Da Hua Miao, Diandongbei Miao, FloweryMiao, Great Flowery Tribe, Hua Miao, Hwa Miao, Northeastern Dian Miao, Northeastern Yunnan Miao, Ta HwaMiao
Location: Eastern Guizhou and all of northeast Yunnan to Chuxiong.
Dong Lisu (Lipo) – Eastern Lisu – 东傈族
Ethnologue: [lpo]
Alternate names: Central Lisu, Dayao, Eastern Lisu, Lolongo
Dialects: Eastern Lipo, Western Lipo
Location: From Luquan scattered northeast to Sichuan and Guizhou, northwest to Panzhihua in Sichuan, west to Chuxiong and near Lijiang. The majority dialect around Yuanmou.
Bai Yi – White Yi – 白彝
Ethnologue: [ycl]
Alternate names: Bai Yi, Central Yi, Gaoshanzu, Hei Yi, Lolopho, Lulupu, Luolu
Dialects: Nanhua Lolopo, Shuangbai Lolopo, Yao’an Lolopo
Location: Wuding and Luquan south to Kunming, mostly eastward. Not intelligible with identically named dialects around Chuxiong and Qujing, or south of Kunming.
Gan Yi – Dry Yi – 干彝
Ethnologue: [yig]
Alternate names: Eastern Yi
Dialects: Bijie, Dafang, Qian Xi
Location: Wuding and Luquan area toward Kunming. Not intelligible with identically named dialects south or east of Kunming.
Hei Yi – Black Yi – 黑彝
Ethnologue: [ywq]
Alternate names: Black Yi, Dian Dongbei Yi, Hei Yi, Nasu, Wu-Lu Yi
Dialects: Luquan Naso, Wuding Naisu
Location: Northwest Yunnan from around Kunming into Sichuan and Guizhou. Centered around Luquan.
About the fonts
There are several examples of glyph variations between fonts. These variants are just style differences in the way particular letters are drawn, but are very important to particular groups. Each of these fonts contains all the variant glyphs, but they default to the correct local style. Best results will come from using the correct font. The fonts have been designed to be able to represent all the different styles if your software can use Language Selectors. OpenType or Graphite is required to use these fonts.
System Requirements
As of 2011, most software which claims to be Unicode compliant, in fact does not work with scripts in the Supplemental Multilingual Plane (SMP). The Miao script is in the SMP. These fonts have been tested and found to work with Windows 7, Office 2010 Word, MS Internet Explorer 9, Firefox version 4, Open Office version 3.2.1 (earlier releases will not work), Ubuntu Linux, and Adobe Reader 9.
Downloads
License
These fonts are licensed under the SIL Open Font License (OFL) Some glyphs taken and modified under the OFL from PollardTsu, Copyright (c) 2000-2007 by David Morse, and from Doulos SIL 4.100, Copyright (c) 2003-2005, SIL International.
Fonts
| ShiShan HMD 1.100 | for all platforms | |
| ShiShan LPO 1.100 | for all platforms | |
| ShiShan YCL 1.100 | for all platforms | |
| ShiShan YIG 1.100 | for all platforms | |
| ShiShan YWQ 1.100 | for all platforms |
TECkit Mappings
Conversion tables are included below for each set of fonts. These tables map the Legacy font encoded data to Unicode. The maps can be used with TECkit.
| Miao2 Legacy-Unicode mapping 1.0 | for all platforms | |
| Lipo1, Lipo2, Lipo3 Legacy-Unicode mapping 1.0 | for all platforms | |
| GanYi1 Legacy-Unicode mapping 1.0 | for all platforms | |
| blkyi3 Legacy-Unicode mapping 1.0 | for all platforms | |
| BaiYi Legacy-Unicode mapping 1.0 | for all platforms |