Munsee/Keyboard

Existing Resources

• (On-screen) Keyboard layout for Lunáapeewi-hulŭniixsuwáakan (Munsee) by KeymanHelp. Free and open source.

• Keyboard Layout from LanguageGeek Copyright 2007 Chris Harvey.

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

Ŭ
ŭ

Ë
ë

"
'

           

Z
z

X
x

C
c

V
v

B
b

N
n

M
m

;
,

<

:
.

>

?
/

The following are dead keys:

Justification

Due to the geographic proximity and intertwined linguistic history of Munsee and Unami, we decided to make an integrated keyboard that could support typing in both languages. Since Munsee and Unami are primarily spoken in North America, we felt it would be most practical to base our keyboard on the US English keyboard as well as the Munsee and Unami keyboards by LanguageGeek. In addition, Munsee only has one fluent speaker (Dianne Snake) as of 2022, further justifying our decision to make this resource as accessible as possible.

• We decided to leave all English alphabet keys, despite 'q' not being used in Munsee. This allows users to switch seamlessly between English and Munsee/Unami.

• Since our primary focus is Munsee, we decided to replace the colon/semicolon key with the breve-accented "u," which frequently occurs in Munsee. We then decided to make the diaresis-accented "e" the alt-gr option for this key, which is compatible with Unami.

• In order to keep the semicolon and colon still accessible, we moved these characters to the 'shift' form of the comma and period keys. To accommodate this change, we moved the angle brackets to the alt-gr position.

• Several accents are important in Munsee and Unami. For Munsee, the acute and grave accents occur frequently, and for Unami, the diaresis and grave accents are common. Thus we

Installation Instructions

1. Clone the keyboard layout from the repository linked above by copying the ssh url and pasting it on the command line after git clone
2. Copy the layout file into ~/.m17n.d/
   1. To do this, type in cp umu.mim ~/.m17n.d into the command line.
3. Go to IBUS settings, select the English (US, alt., intl.)
   1. This allows the altgr layer to be accessed
4. Add/Enable the new Munsee layout through IBUS
   1. You may need restart IBUS so that the new layout appears
   2. You can search for the Munsee layout by name, ISO code umu, or under 'other'

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.