There are projects that unfold over years, and then there are those that arrive in a sudden, focused burst of energy. Yapiri belongs to the second kind.

In the space of six weeks — forty-two intense, beautiful, sometimes exhausting days — an idea that had lived quietly in my mind for some time became a complete, usable writing system with its own font, keyboard, documentation, and digital home.

This is the story of those six weeks.

Week 1 — The Decision and the First Lines

Days 1–7 The moment arrived when I decided: it is time. I opened Inkscape and drew the first tentative shapes for the vowels. I had been thinking about the phonology of Kokborok for a long time — the six vowels, the consonants, the tones. Now it was time to give them form.

Those first days were pure exploration. I drew, erased, redrew. I wanted something modern yet rooted, clean enough for digital use but carrying the quiet dignity of our language. By the end of the first week I had rough versions of the core vowels and about half the consonants.

Week 2 — Finding the Visual Language

Days 8–14 The script began to develop its own personality. I established consistent stroke weight, terminal shapes, and proportions. I started thinking not just about individual letters but about how they would sit together as words. The first complete alphabet draft emerged.

This was also the week I began seriously studying FontForge. Importing SVGs, learning how to set side bearings, understanding Unicode Private Use Area mapping. Every evening I would generate a test font and type sample words to see how the glyphs behaved together.

Week 3 — The Font Comes Alive

Days 15–21 The most technically demanding week. I completed all 25 consonants and the diacritics (high tone and reduplication mark). I spent long hours in FontForge adjusting metrics, fixing curves, and generating clean TTF files. By the end of this week I had a working font that could be installed and used in Word and other applications.

The first time I typed a full sentence in Yapiri and saw it render correctly on my screen, I sat in silence for a long time. It was no longer just an idea.

Week 4 — The Keyboard and Touch Input

Days 22–28 A script without an easy way to type it is incomplete. I opened Keyman Developer and began designing the layout. I wanted it to feel natural for Kokborok speakers — consonants and vowels grouped logically by sound family. I built both desktop and Android touch layouts, added Latin hints for learners, and created the first .kmp package.

By the end of week four, anyone could install the font and keyboard and start writing in Yapiri on their phone or computer.

Week 5 — Documentation and the Website

Days 29–35 The project needed a home. I began building yapiriscript.com — designing the visual language, writing the first pages (About, Script, Download), creating the primer and reference chart. I also wrote the initial blog posts and prepared the social media presence. The site went live toward the end of this week.

At this point the project stopped being something private. It became something the community could see, download, and interact with.

Week 6 — Refinement and Release

Days 36–42 The final polish. I fixed remaining glyph issues, improved the keyboard based on early feedback, added the poem competition section, refined the website, and prepared the full set of resources. On the forty-second day I stepped back and realized: Yapiri was no longer a work in progress. It was a living script ready to be used.

What Made It Possible

Six weeks is an unusually short time to create a complete writing system. Several things made it possible:

Honest note Those six weeks were not easy. There were moments of frustration with FontForge, nights when glyphs refused to behave, and days when I questioned whether I was doing justice to the language. But the momentum carried me through.

What Those Six Weeks Mean

They were not just about creating a font and a keyboard. They were about proving something important: that a member of our community, working with open tools and focused intention, can create something lasting and beautiful for our language.

Yapiri is still young. It will continue to grow and improve for years. But those first six weeks gave it life, form, and a way to be used immediately. That foundation matters.

Every time someone downloads the font, installs the keyboard, or writes their first word in Yapiri, they are continuing the work that began in those intense forty-two days.

A Personal Reflection

Looking back, I am grateful for the intensity of those weeks. They taught me that when vision, skill, and purpose align, remarkable things can happen quickly. They also taught me the value of releasing something imperfect but real, rather than waiting for perfection that may never come.

Yapiri was born in six weeks. It will grow for generations.

That is the story of how our script found its first footprints.