An Innovative Indigenous Neography Featuring a Sleek and Modern Writing System for Kokborok
"Footsteps becoming footprints" across time — a living indigenous neography born from the Tiprasa people of Tripura
ya·pi·ri /jəˈpiri/ — footsteps to footprints, traces we leave behind
The Story
Kokborok is one of the oldest languages of Northeast India, spoken by over a million Tiprasa people across Tripura and beyond. It carries centuries of oral tradition, song, and story — yet has long lacked a writing system truly shaped by its own phonology.
Yapiri was created to change that. Designed from first principles around the sounds and rhythms of Kokborok, it is a Phonemic Alphabet — a script where each symbol represents exactly one unique sound of the language. The inventory spans 25 consonants, 6 vowels, 10 numerals, 5 punctuation marks, and two combining diacritics: a high tone mark and a reduplication mark. Every glyph was drawn with both visual elegance and linguistic precision in mind.
The name yapiri — meaning "footprints" in Kokborok — reflects what all writing truly is: traces of a living voice, preserved across time. The Kokborok word yapiri literally means "footsteps" — rendered here as "footprints" to capture its deeper metaphor: not just movement, but the marks that movement leaves behind.
+ 1 global symbol — the hyphen (‐) — included for typographic completeness alongside the 48 core Kokborok characters.
A space for the winning poem of the Yapiri Script Poem Competition — written or translated into Yapiri by the Tiprasa community
Placeholder poem · Yapiri Script Poem Competition · Winner to be announced
Resources
Download the Yapiri TTF font file for use in word processors, design software, and web projects. Go to
Download Font Installation Guide →Type Yapiri natively on desktop and Android. Yapiri glyphs on every key, phoneme-organised layout. Requires Keyman software download for desktop & mobile. Visit Keyman keyboard website.
Download .kmp Installation Guide →The full technical specification — glyph inventory, Unicode PUA mapping, OpenType features, and design rationale.
Read the SpecA complete beginner's guide — vowels, consonants, numerals, diacritics, writing rules, and your first Kokborok words. Printable as PDF.
Open PrimerQuick-reference chart of all 48+1 Yapiri characters with romanization, IPA values, and codepoints at a glance. Printable as PDF.
View ChartNo download required. Use the interactive on-screen keyboard to compose and copy Yapiri text into any application.
Open KeyboardFor the Tiprasa People
Yapiri was created by a member of the Tiprasa community, for the Tiprasa community — shaped by the rhythms of Kokborok.
If you speak, teach, write, or love Kokborok, this script belongs to you. Come join the journey.
yapiri — footprintsConnect With Us