in #ISO639 bbc stands for Toba #Batak

Artefacts of many "indigenous" cultures only exist in museums. The cultured people who created them have died or dwindled into non-existence and their descendants often do not know their history, their culture.

When the language still exists... it may be that the script is no longer in use because it is replaced by another. Even when the text is transcribed and then transliterated, the terminology and the associated understanding may be lost.

We have a request for a Wikipedia in Toba Batak. This is only one of the languages that is written or used to be written in the Batak script. The characters of the script have been defined in Unicode and the only font available is freeware and does not feature what you expect of a modern font according to the author.

The author of the existing font, a professor in Hawaii, is happy to work with us to establish a fully functional freely licensed font, a keyboard map and possibly a transcription engine from and to the Latin script.

Many of the objects in the Dutch and other western museums are valued far higher then the cost of the creation of a font for the Batak script. Once a script is available it becomes possible to transcribe all the texts that exists in museums and archives and this in turn will allow us to glimpse of the Batak cultures as they survive in its literature.
Thanks,
       GerardM