Native name পঞ্চানন কর্মকার | Died 1804 | |
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Panchanan karmakar the forgotten pionner
Panchanan Karmakar (died c. 1804) was an Indian Bengali inventor. He invented the Bangla font. His wooden Bengali alphabet and typeface had been used until Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar proposed a simplified version in 1780. Apart from Bangla, Karmakar developed type in 14 languages, including Arabic, Persian, Marathi, Telegu, Burmese and Chinese.
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Early life and career
Karmakar was born in Triveni village in Hooghly district. His ancestors were calligraphers; they inscribed names and decorations on copper plates, weapons, metal pots, etc.
Andrews, a Christian missionary, had a printing press at Hughli. In order to print Nathaniel Brassey Halhed's A Grammar of the Bengal Language, he needed a Bangla type. Under the supervision of English typographer Charles Wilkins, Karmakar created the first Bengali typeface for printing.
In 1779, Karmakar moved to Kolkata to work for Wilkins' new printing press. In 1801, he developed a typeface for British missionary William Carey's Bangla translation of the New Testament. In 1803, Karmakar developed a set of Devnagari script, the first Nagari type to be developed in India.