Munegascu, une police de caractères monégasques née au CSM
La page du site Internet du Comité National des Traditions Monégasques où l'on peut télécharger la nouvelle police de caractères. © Comité National des Traditions Monégasques
Une des pages du site internet du CSM traduites en monégasque par les élèves de Mme Sylvie Leporati. © CSM
As everyone knows, the written form of the Monegasque language includes very specific characters featuring a so-called vertical “tonic” accent, which does not exist in any Latin character set.
The website of the Centre Scientifique de Monaco is widely visited by both the general public and scientists from around the world seeking information about our work. As with any research institution, our website is written in French, with a tab leading to an English version. However, as a Monegasque institute, it felt natural to also offer a Monegasque language version of our website. To achieve this, we collaborated with the students of Ms. Sylvie Leporati, a Monegasque language teacher in the Principality’s schools. Through workshops and visits, the students, under their teacher’s supervision, wrote short texts presenting the many and diverse activities of the CSM.
However, when integrating these texts into the website interface, the issue of tonic accents became apparent: although a Monegasque font existed, it was not legally usable and therefore could not be used on official websites. After consulting our website developer, Mr. Ivan Arkhanguelsky (now founder of KaliDirectory, a platform dedicated to the visibility of businesses in Monaco), he advised that a new typeface adapted to the Monegasque language needed to be created—one that could be used across all media and be free of rights.
As this work did not fall within the CSM’s scope, we turned to the National Committee of Monegasque Traditions, which kindly agreed to oversee the development of this typeface. Mr. Ivan Arkhanguelsky, acting as project manager, drafted the specifications for the font and coordinated the various areas of expertise required for its development, taking into account both technical and cultural specificities. SOGEDA (Société pour la Gestion des Droits d'Auteur), whom we warmly thank, financed the project. This typeface, designed by typographer Bruno Bernard, is now available for everyone to download from the website of the National Committee of Monegasque Traditions:
https://www.traditions-monaco.com/actualite/telechargez-la-nouvelle-police-munegascu
This typeface can be legally installed on all word processing software and graphic design tools. The Monegasque language is now entering the digital world…
In the media:
TVMonaco report – News broadcast of September 18, 2024 (from 07'32")
Monaco Matin article – Thursday, September 12, 2024
For more information, please contact:
Prof. Denis Allemand