Panchanan Karmakar | |
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পঞ্চানন কর্মকার | |
Born | |
Died | 1804 |
Panchanan Karmakar (Mallick) (died c. 1804) was an Indian Bengali inventor, born at Tribeni, Hooghly, Bengal Presidency, British India, [1] hailed from Serampore. He assisted Charles Wilkins in creating the first the Bangla type. [2] His wooden Bengali alphabet and typeface had been used until Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar proposed a simplified version. [3] Apart from Bangla, Karmakar developed type in 14 languages, including Arabic, Persian, Marathi, Telugu, Burmese and Chinese. [2]
Karmakar was born in Tribeni. [4] His ancestors were calligraphers; they inscribed names and decorations on copper plates, weapons, metal pots, etc. [2]
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. [2] Under the supervision of English typographer Charles Wilkins, Karmakar [5] created the first Bengali typeface for printing. [6]
In 1779, Karmakar moved to Kolkata to work for Wilkins' new printing press. [2] in Chinsurah, Hooghly. In 1801, he developed a typeface for British missionary William Carey's Bangla translation of the New Testament. [7] In 1803, Karmakar developed a set of Devnagari script, the first Nagari type to be developed in India. [2]
charles wilkins.