Nepal Bhasa is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken primarily by Newars, native to the valley of Kathmandu, Nepal. For my Honors Research and Creative Project, I decided to redesign Rañjanā script, which is one of the nine writing systems of Nepal Bhasa. Rañjanā script was chosen for the purpose of my project over all the other writing systems of Nepal Bhasa because it is the most elaborate and easily recognized among them. Since most people do not know how to read Rañjanā Script, my goal was to create a practical, legible typeface. I took some inspiration from the widely used Devanagari script as well. For this project, I focused on the 36 consonants and some vowels, ignoring the numerals, and vowel diacritics of the language.

Garamond, Gill Sans

Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Indesign

Discuss the endangered status of Nepal Bhasa and argue that updating it would increase its use and in doing so save it from extinction, preserving a community’s culture and history