Nheengatú/Keyboard

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Existing resources

  • Motorola Nheengatú layout. This is what I believe to be the only existing keyboard layout for Nheengatú. Motorola has developed it for Android systems and launched it in early 2021, which shows how slow the efforts to preserve the language are. I checked on my cellphone and it is very similar to a regular Portuguese keyboard, but it looks a bit simpler.

Justification

This keyboard layout for Nheengatú is based on a 2021 project by Motorola, in which the company has worked closely with speakers of the language. The layout is simple and it looks like it was inspired by the Portuguese keyboard design, a more dominant and widely layout of a language that shares the same orthography with Nheengatú.

Since speakers contributed to this layout, I assume this is one that fulfills their needs in a convenient manner when typing. However, I didn't understand why the Tilda "~" diacritic wasn't included in the first level of the keyboard layout. It is a very common symbol in the Nheengatú orthography that appears in most sentences, so locating it in the first level at an accessible position would give users more agility and ease. As such, I've implemented the Tilda diacritic at the same location it appears on the Portuguese layout.

Keyboard layout

"
'
◌̃
!
1

@
2

#
3

$
4

%
5

^
6

&
7

*
8

(
9

)
0

_
-

+
=

       
Q
q

W
w

E
e

R
r

T
t

Y
y

U
u

I
i

O
o

P
p

{
[

}
]

|
\

        
A
a

S
s

D
d

F
f

G
g

H
h

J
j

K
k

L
l

:
;

◌̃
◌́

           
Z
z

X
x

C
c
Ç
ç
V
v

B
b

N
n

M
m

<
,

>
.

?
/

(Dead keys are in green)

Access to keyboard layout code: https://github.swarthmore.edu/Ling073-sp22/ling073-yrl-keyboard.

License

This layout is licensed under the MIT License. Under copyright inclusion, any person may use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software.,