View source for Gentium

{{other uses|Gentium (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox font
| name = Gentium
| image = GentiumBlue.svg
| style = [[Serif]]
| classifications = [[Serif#Old-style|Old-style]]
| creator = Victor Gaultney
| creationdate = 2001
| releasedate = 2002-09-16 (Gentium 1.00)
| characters = 2,750+
| glyphs = 4,500+
| license = [[SIL Open Font License|Open Font License]]
| variations = Gentium Basic<br />Gentium Book Basic<br />Gentium Book Plus<br />Gentium Plus<br />Gentium Plus Compact<br />[all variants were unified in version 7]
| sample = [[Image:Gentium typeface sample.svg|240px|Gentium sample text|class=skin-invert-image]]
| website = {{url|https://software.sil.org/gentium/}}
| latest_release_version = 7.00
| latest_release_date = {{release date and age|2025|06|01}}
}}

'''Gentium''' ({{IPAc-en|'|dZ|E|n|t|i|@|m}}, from the [[Latin]] for "of the nations") is a [[Unicode]] serif [[typeface]] family designed by Victor Gaultney. Gentium fonts are [[free software|free]] and [[Open-source software|open source]] software, and are released under the [[SIL Open Font License]] (OFL), which permits modification and redistribution.<ref>{{Cite web |title=SIL Open Font License |url=https://openfontlicense.org/ |access-date=2025-01-31 |website=openfontlicense.org |language=en}}</ref> Gentium has nearly universal support for modern languages using the [[Latin alphabet|Latin]], [[Greek alphabet|Greek]], and [[Cyrillic]] scripts, as well as the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]] (IPA) and other phonetic notation, excepting mostly paleographic and medievalist characters. Gentium includes over 4,600 [[glyph]]s and advanced typographic features through [[OpenType]] and formerly [[Graphite (SIL)|Graphite]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=Gentium_Technical|title=Gentium Plus: Documentation and Support|date=2 October 2014|access-date=5 June 2011|archive-date=28 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161128113649/http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=Gentium_Technical|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Gentium was designed for use at 10 to 11 points. Wide [[counter (typography)|counters]] and low stroke contrast improve readability at small point sizes. Long ascenders allow diacritics stacking.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2014-10-02 |title=Home - Gentium—a Greek font with Latin and Cyrillic |url=https://software.sil.org/gentium/ |access-date=2025-01-31 |website=software.sil.org |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>https://software.sil.org/gentium/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2015/12/Gentium-RU-Specimen.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=July 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Byfield |first1=Bruce |title=Gentium: An award-winning font joins the free software world |url=https://www.linux.com/news/gentium-award-winning-font-joins-free-software-world/ |website=Linux.com |publisher=The Linux Foundation}}</ref>
In 2003, the Gentium font was awarded a Certificate of Excellence in Type Design from the [[Association Typographique Internationale]] (ATypI) as one of the best designs of the previous five years.<ref name=Byfield>{{cite news|url=http://www.linux.com/archive/articles/51461 |first=Bruce |last=Byfield |date=January 26, 2006 |title=Gentium: An award-winning font joins the free software world |work=Linux.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100113201158/http://www.linux.com/archive/articles/51461 |archive-date=January 13, 2010 }}</ref>

== History ==

The original release of ''Gentium'' defined roughly 1,500 [[glyph]]s covering almost all of the range of [[Latin alphabet|Latin]] characters used worldwide, as well as [[monotonic orthography|monotonic]] and [[polytonic orthography|polytonic Greek]], designed to flow in harmony with the Latin. 

===GentiumAlt===
Early releases of Gentium came with a variant called ''GentiumAlt'' ("Gentium Alternative"), which contained flatter [[diacritic]]s intended to improve the appearance of stacked diacritics, which might otherwise overstrike adjacent lines of text, as well as a glyph variant of the [[Greek_diacritics#Accents|Greek circumflex]] that resembled an [[inverted breve]]. These features are now handled as stylistic variants within the main font.

===Gentium Basic===
In November 2007, the Gentium Basic and Gentium Book Basic fonts were released, containing Gentium fonts in four faces: regular, italic, bold, and bold italic. Gentium Basic has the same [[weight (typography)|weight]] as the previous Gentium fonts, while Gentium Book Basic is set at a slightly heavier weight for use in publishing books at small point sizes, or under certain printing conditions.<ref name=basic>{{cite web|title=Gentium Basic Fonts|first=Victor|work=SIL.org|last=Gaultney|date=November 1, 2010|access-date=February 23, 2012|url=http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=Gentium_basic|archive-date=February 26, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120226105845/http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=Gentium_basic|url-status=dead}}</ref> While these fonts contain bold and bold italic variants, they do not contain the full range of glyphs, especially most Greek letters.

===Gentium Plus===
An updated version of the roman and italic fonts called ''Gentium Plus'', which includes the full extended Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic coverage, was released in November 2010. Gentium Plus variants containing an additional 3,800 glyphs, including Cyrillic and additional coverage of the IPA, were added in 2010 in a release called ''Gentium Plus''. Released shortly afterward was a variant called "Gentium Plus Compact", which has compact spacing for aesthetic reasons. Both Gentium Plus and Gentium Plus Compact include regular and italic variants of over 5500 glyphs.

After the initial release of the Gentium Plus fonts, the focus of the project shifted to completing bold and bold italic weights of the Gentium Plus family, as well as the creation of the '''Gentium Book Plus''' family with a slightly heavier weight that was useful at large type sizes.<ref name=FAQ>{{cite web|title=Gentium — FAQ|first=Victor|last=Gaultney|work=SIL.org|date=November 1, 2010|access-date=February 23, 2012|url=http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=Gentium_faq|archive-date=December 2, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161202193355/http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=Gentium_faq|url-status=dead}}</ref>

===Gentium 7===
Gentium version 7, released in June 2025, was a major update, unifying Gentium Plus, Gentium Basic and Gentium Book into a single set of fonts. The unified Gentium now has five font weights, with the Gentium Book regular and bold weights continued as Gentium medium and Gentium extra-bold. (Also available is semi-bold.) Kerning was expanded from Gentium Basic, primarily for IPA letters with hooks; it is expansive but applies to large sets of characters rather than to individual characters. The spacing of IPA tie bars was adjusted for ascenders and descenders – or the lack thereof – but in the case of the under-tie, this does not work with letters where diacritics tuck up behind the descender, namely ''p'', ''q'', ''y'' and letters with a retroflex hook<!-- and neither tie works with Greek IPA letters, at least as of v7,000 -->. The 9-pitch intonation contours were removed from the PUA. The line spacing was changed to be intermediate between those of Gentium Plus and Gentium Compact. The internal naming was also changed so that Gentium 6.2 and Gentium 7 could be installed on the same system, as converting a document from Gentium 6.2 to Gentium 7 would cause repagination due to the difference in line spacing and the introduction of kerning.<ref>[https://software.sil.org/gentium/release-7-000/  Gentium Release 7.000], 03 June 2025</ref>

==Character variants==
[[File:SIL font feature selection (Gentium).png|thumb|Gentium Book Plus font with 'a' and 'g' set to primer style]]
[[File:SIL font feature selection (Andika) 2.png|thumb|[[Andika (typeface)|Andika]] font with two features selected]]
Variant forms of many characters can be chosen in the word-processor. For example, for [[primer (textbook)|primer]]-style 'a' and 'g', append <code>ss01=1</code> to the name of the font in the font-selection window.<ref name=features/> (Features are appended with a colon and linked with an ampersand &ndash; see images at right.) 

Features that may be chosen include [[small capital]]s, primer-style 'a' and 'g', roman-style 'a' and 'g' in italic typeface, variant forms of capital 'Ŋ', large [[modifier letter apostrophe]] and [[saltillo (linguistics)|saltillo]], Vietnamese-style diacritics, Serbian-style italics (in Cyrillic), staveless [[tone letter]]s and [[old-style digit]]s. Small capitals, superscript and subscript are also available; they display better than HTML formatting and are distinct from the fractions triggered by the fraction slash U+2044.<ref name="features">{{Cite web |date=2015-09-17 |title=Font Features - Gentium |url=https://software.sil.org/gentium/features/ |access-date=2025-01-31 |website=software.sil.org |language=en-US}}</ref>

For version 6,2 and earlier, customized versions of the fonts that have these features preset can be created prior to download.<ref>[https://scripts.sil.org/ttw/fonts2go.cgi TypeTuner Web homepage]</ref>

== Open source development ==
The ongoing development of the font welcomes requests and contributions from its users.<ref name=status>{{cite web|title=Gentium — Project Status|first=Victor|work=SIL.org|last=Gaultney|date=November 1, 2010|access-date=February 23, 2012|url=http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=Gentium_status|archive-date=September 3, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100903132625/http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=Gentium_status|url-status=dead}}</ref>
Gentium was released under the [[Open Font License]] on November 28, 2005.  Older serif typefaces that support the same character inventory, and also released under the OFL, are [[Charis SIL]] and [[Doulos SIL]].

== See also ==
* [[Free software Unicode typefaces]]

== References ==

{{reflist |2}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Gentium (typeface)|Gentium}}
*[http://software.sil.org/gentium/ Gentium — a typeface for the nations]
*[http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=OFL SIL Open Font License (OFL)]
*Gentium for [[LaTeX]]: [https://ctan.org/pkg/gentium-tug package]
*[https://scripts.sil.org/ttw/fonts2go.cgi TypeTuner Web homepage]

{{Free and open-source typography}}

[[Category:Old style serif typefaces]]
[[Category:Free software Unicode typefaces]]
[[Category:Greek typefaces]]
[[Category:Typefaces and fonts introduced in 2001]]