Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Dene Syllabics Keyboards

It's been a long time since I updated the Dene Syllabics keyboard layouts. Well, I've gotten around to it today. There are two keyboard layouts up on the page: NWT Dene and Sayisi Dene.

NWT Dene 

This follows the old Catholic Syllabics tradition and is notable in that it indicates:
  • Nasalization with a raised ˋ
  • Aspirated K and the fricative X with a raised ᑦ
  • Some ejective consonants with a raised ˈ 
Because the above diacritics are written at the top-line, the finals (syllable-final consonant characters) should be written mid-line so as not to cause confusion.
  • Nasalization ˋ is distinguished from final K ᐠ
  • Aspirated K and X ᑦ is distinguished from final M ᒼ
  • Ejective ˈ is distinguished from final B ᑊ
There are no fonts out there that I've seen which can indicate these distinctions - except for the Dene-specific Languagegeek fonts, so if you're writing Dene syllabics, you might want to check out

Sayisi Dene

This follows the old Anglican Syllabics tradition and is notable in that it:
  • Differentiates the vowels U and O
  • Has unique characters for the TL CH/SH clusters
  • Can indicate more voicing distinctions
Traditionally, most finals (syllable-final consonant characters) are written on the base line, and there aren't any fonts that can manage this, except the Languagegeek fonts

Dakelh

Dakelh isn't ready yet, but I look forward to working on it soon.

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