Re: CONLANG Digest - 1 Nov 2000

Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> 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.
Yeah, syllabries can pose problems, but I'd probably deal with it
similarly if I was in that situation.

> > 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.
e for me looks like a backwards 3 - i and t would look similar without
crossing or dotting. I usually leave the dots of my "i"s and "j"s, but I
usually cross my "t"s - not always, though.

--
Robert