Difference between revisions of "Central Kurdish/Keyboard"
(→Justification) |
(→Languages) |
||
| Line 41: | Line 41: | ||
* Pragmatically, there already exists a Sorani keyboard layout for MacOS, and because of the requirements of this assignment, I need to add extra functionality. | * Pragmatically, there already exists a Sorani keyboard layout for MacOS, and because of the requirements of this assignment, I need to add extra functionality. | ||
| − | * Most | + | * Most Kurdish layouts are bilingual because one can contain the entire Arabic script by just adding 14 letters and with few usability sacrifices. |
* Of the layouts mentioned above, none of them are truly bilingual in the sense that they fully support the Arabic script. They contain all Arabic ''letters'', but the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_diacritics#Harakat_(short_vowel_marks) harakats] (which are diacritics that make up most vowel sounds) are not included. In this multilingual layout, OPTION will pave way to the Arabic harakats and tanweens, placed according to the [https://www.branah.com/arabic Branah Arabic layout]. | * Of the layouts mentioned above, none of them are truly bilingual in the sense that they fully support the Arabic script. They contain all Arabic ''letters'', but the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_diacritics#Harakat_(short_vowel_marks) harakats] (which are diacritics that make up most vowel sounds) are not included. In this multilingual layout, OPTION will pave way to the Arabic harakats and tanweens, placed according to the [https://www.branah.com/arabic Branah Arabic layout]. | ||
* The Persian alphabet is fully contained in the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_alphabets#/media/File:Venn_diagram_showing_Kurdish,_Persian_and_Arabic_letters.svg venn diagram] of the Arabic and Kurdish scripts. So any bilingual Kurdish keyboard also doubles up as a Farsi one. All that is missing are the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Arabic_numerals#Numerals Persian/Urdu numerals]. In this design, OPTION will let the user access a second list of numbers. | * The Persian alphabet is fully contained in the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_alphabets#/media/File:Venn_diagram_showing_Kurdish,_Persian_and_Arabic_letters.svg venn diagram] of the Arabic and Kurdish scripts. So any bilingual Kurdish keyboard also doubles up as a Farsi one. All that is missing are the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Arabic_numerals#Numerals Persian/Urdu numerals]. In this design, OPTION will let the user access a second list of numbers. | ||
Revision as of 16:38, 27 February 2021
The Persian-based orthography for Sorani has 33 letters. It has most of these in common with Farsi and Arabic scripts, which are two dominant languages in most regions where Sorani is spoken. There are an additional 14 letters in Arabic that do not exist in the Sorani script; adding these letters gives us a Sorani keyboard that can double up as an Arabic one (as well as a Farsi one).
A 47-letter keyboard seems daunting. The good news is: neither Sorani nor Arabic orthographies have uppercase forms, so just using shift we can type 52 letters. Second, the additional Arabic letters look similar to corresponding Sorani letters, so in terms of user experience it will be intuitive where each additional letter goes.
Because of these two points, most currently-existing layouts developed for Sorani also contain the remaining Arabic letters. Having a keyboard that can function well for both Sorani and Arabic is incredibly useful in Iraqi Kurdistan given the overlap between the two language communities. These layouts are not without their problems, though, so for this lab I will try to develop a better version of an Arabo-Sorani keyboard. More ambitiously, I will try to take this a step further and see if it is possible to implement a usable Farso-Arabo-Sorani keyboard.
Existing Resources
Sorani layout designs have somewhat converged to employing the QWERTY phonetic layout and adding in a flurry of non-Kurdish Arabic letters. However, they all come with subtle differences:
- Though all use Shift + another key for diacritic letters, the mapping of these letters varies, and some employ other ways alongside Shift to type diacritic letters.
- Some keyboards use parentheses that I call flipped, i.e. when you press the bracket/parentheses key on the right, instead of getting a bracket that opens to the left like you would in an LTR script, you get one opening to the right.
- Different layouts have different quotation marks: while most have the Latin "" marks, a few do not have the French « » symbols (Guillemets) or have them as secondary to the Latin ones (accessible via AltGR, for instance), even though the Kurdish (and Farsi) scripts primarily use them.
Below is a list of Kurdish keyboards and where they stand in terms of the 3 key variances:
| Layout Name | OS | Based on | Bilingual? | Diacritic Letters | {} [] <> | Quotation Marks | Other Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Branah | Online | QWERTY | Yes | Shift + key | Flipped | Latin only | Characters aesthetically look more Kurdish; the letter for 'h' is displayed as هـ while maintaining the functionality of the Arabic ه. Interesting idea to pursue (changing markup of a couple letters without changing output), though not sure how to implement it in Ukelele. |
| ٣+١ كیبۆرد | iOS | QWERTY | Yes | Shift + key | Not flipped | French & Latin | For the few keys that do not have an alternate Shift option, Shift + key gives the key itself (so Shift + 'ه' would give 'ه' instead of nothing). This seems more user-friendly; if they press a desired letter while accidentally having Shift down, it won't print nothing. |
| Lexilogos | Online | QWERTY? | No | ڵ ڕ are "rr" "ll," غ is 'G'+apostrophe. Shift is employed more sparingly | Flipped | Latin only | Shift+key confusingly prints Latin letters half the time. Use of apostrophe and other combined diacritics might make it more intuitive to someone used to the Latin script for Sorani. |
| MacOS ckb | MacOS | QWERTY | No | Shift+key for normal letter | Not flipped | Latin & French | Designed purely for Sorani. Upside is letter placement is more intuitive, but I cannot base mine on this because I want a multilingual design. |
| Unified Keyboard | Unknown | Arabic | Yes | Shift+key | Not flipped | Latin only | Better for someone who already knows how to type in Arabic. Article is also a useful resource that helped me in keyboard design. |
Justification
Languages
I decided on a multilingual layout that supports Kurdish, Farsi, and Arabic for 3 main reasons:
- Pragmatically, there already exists a Sorani keyboard layout for MacOS, and because of the requirements of this assignment, I need to add extra functionality.
- Most Kurdish layouts are bilingual because one can contain the entire Arabic script by just adding 14 letters and with few usability sacrifices.
- Of the layouts mentioned above, none of them are truly bilingual in the sense that they fully support the Arabic script. They contain all Arabic letters, but the harakats (which are diacritics that make up most vowel sounds) are not included. In this multilingual layout, OPTION will pave way to the Arabic harakats and tanweens, placed according to the Branah Arabic layout.
- The Persian alphabet is fully contained in the venn diagram of the Arabic and Kurdish scripts. So any bilingual Kurdish keyboard also doubles up as a Farsi one. All that is missing are the Persian/Urdu numerals. In this design, OPTION will let the user access a second list of numbers.
