No one bears witness for the witness
Los tiempos de nuestra lengua
TYPOGRAPHIC FONTS
TYPOGRAPHIC FONTS (DOWNLOAD)
ABOUT THE TYPOGRAPHIC FONTS USED
In this project, the word is not only heard or translated: it is also drawn. The typographic fonts that accompany this website have been conceived as visual extensions.
The Ngiba fonts were created from various handwritten alphabets by different members of the Ngiba community, and they not only graphically represent the language but also embody the memory and transmission that occurs between generations.
These fonts do not seek uniformity or typographic perfection: their strength lies in the living gesture, in the way each letter holds the intimate history of the person who wrote it and the language that sustains it.
This section will grow over time. New typographic fonts will be added, arising from collaborative processes with community members or in conversation with other languages and experiences.
Visitors to the site will be able to download these fonts for free, as part of the commitment to share the knowledge, beauty, and resistance that these graphic forms embody.
The fonts here are not mere reading tools: they are part of the testimonial fabric of the site. They make visible that every language carries a way of seeing and writing the world, and that every translation is also a negotiation between ways of inhabiting language. In this sense, each stroke, each letter, is also an act of memory, a way to keep the language alive when words begin to become scarce in the voice.
Ngiba Typographic Compendium
This set of typographic fonts is part of the expanded archive Los tiempos de nuestra lengua (The Times of Our Language). They are alphabets designed based on the Ngiba writing system developed collectively, grounded in phonological and aesthetic criteria that arise from the community.
These fonts serve both as a tool and a gesture: they aim to enable an autonomous form of writing that respects the sounds, rhythms, and particularities of Western Ngiba.
Usage and Distribution
The compendium is freely available for download for community, educational, artistic, and non-profit research projects. Please cite the source as follows:
Matamoros Ascención, Ulises (coord.). Ngiba Typographic Compendium, part of the project Los tiempos de nuestra lengua. Santa Inés Ahuatempan, 2025. Available at: [www.lostiemposdenuestralengua.com/tipografias]
Recommended Credits:
Typographic design and coordination: Ulises Matamoros Ascención
In collaboration with Ngiba speakers from San António Tierra Colorada and San António Tierra Negra
