Re: CONLANG Digest - 1 Nov 2000

Robert Hailman wrote:
> In Ajuk, the keyboard would be somewhat similar to our own - you just do
> away with "q", "w", "y", "x", & "c", and probably switch the places of r
> & i, or something like that. For foreign compliance, though, those 5
> letters would probably be off to the sides, typed by the pinky. Also, I
> might even consider having an "ij" key.
Course, for me, I'd have to make a completely new design, since they use
a syllabry.  Fortunately, there are only 31 basic characters, and a
number of diacritics, so there wouldn't be too many extra keys.  Hmmm,
31 basic characters, 12 numerals, 9 diacritics, that's a total of 52
keys, a bit too many for a normal keyboard.  On the other hand, perhaps
something analogous to the shift key could be used, in fact, that would
allow for a normal keyboard to be remapped, each of the 26 letters would
represent two different characters or diacritics.  Possibility:
voiceless stops alternate with voiced stops via shift key (e.g.,
pi+shift key becomes bi), m-series and n-series alternate, l-series and
null-consonant alternate (li+shift -> i); then keys for -L, and then the
diacritics: gemination, long-vowel, -f, -v, -s, -z, -n, stress,
fricative - 25 keys used in all.  The upper row would be the numerals
(12 of them).  There's little, if any, punctuation, so many of the keys
would remain unused.

> I leave dot's off of "i"s and "j"s in my handwriting, it's faster that
> way. That's my excuse, yours is better.
I always dot them and cross my t's, makes them easier to see.
Especially the way I write, without the dot, i could be mistaken for e.

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God gave teeth; God will give bread - Lithuanian proverb
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