The BabelStone complex of websites is a treasure trove for aficionados of historical and non-Latin typography. The author, Andrew West, is a published expert on Chinese and other Asian scripts. Here’s a quick overview of his major online productions:
- The main BabelStone weblog features incredibly comprehensive articles on historical writing and art, e.g. The Rules for Long S or 72 Views of the Tower of Babel.
- Two free utilities, the character map BabelMap and the text editor BabelPad, can handle all the intricacies of the latest Unicode version. Among the wonders shown by BabelMap is the new Capital Letter Sharp S.
- The free BabelStone Fonts support various runic, Asian, and fictional scripts (e.g. the Goblin alphabet from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Father Christmas Letters). The separate BabelStone Fonts weblog provides background information and update notices.