Level 1

8 points

Devanagari & Transliteration

I'm looking for a Devanagari font that maps exactly the same it's
Transliterated counterpart. So if you type the letter 'a' or 'kha' it
will come out as 'a' or 'kha' in either Devanagari or
Transliteration. Therefore it would also correctly change over from
one to the other if you highlight text and change font. On top of
that if I learned to map out one font I would not need to learn the
other. Anyone know of any such thing?

For any one of you out there who are looking for the same thing I do know of a company that is working on this and claims to have one available within a month or so, if things are on schedule. Again for those of us who are even more particular it will map with Dvorak for a nominal fee.

Other than that if you have some general Sanskrit fonts in Devanagari or Transliteration that you can share that would be appreciated.

powerbook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Oct 19, 2006 8:38 AM

45 replies

YOGAforALL Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 27, 2006 11:18 AM in response to Rothrock

"ṛ" is permitted to be pronounced as "ri" and even sometimes as "ru" but this is only a permission and is accepted in the rules of Sanskrit purely for those who cannot pronounce "ṛ" because it's pronounciation is rather difficult. "ṛ" is a vowel and must be pronounced a such otherwise the accepted variations listed above can be used.

"ṛ" is never ever used to represent "ri" or "ra" or any other combination that would make "ṛ" a consenent. It stands by itself as a vowel. These other substitutions discussed above are for pronunciation only.

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,258 points

Oct 27, 2006 11:32 AM in response to YOGAforALL

I downloaded it and put it in my
users/library/keylayouts folder and can't yet find
it, perhaps I need to reboot.

You have to login/logout for any new keylayout to appear.

Also I am in the apple store at Short Pump and the
pro & I couldn't figure out how to use the Ukelele
program. We are totally stumped.

Does it launch, so you have Ukelele in the menu bar? Normally you also get a dialogue box titled New Keyboard Layout where you need to choose one of three options. Otherwise you just go File > New.

YOGAforALL Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 27, 2006 11:49 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Yes we have gone that far and chose new layout. We could drag characters into the keyboard but they appeared with a weird symbol always the same weird symbol. So the procare guy double clicked on a character and it appeared on the key layout but then it wouldn't work anymore. Hmm. I'll reboot, now.

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,258 points

Oct 27, 2006 12:00 PM in response to YOGAforALL

We
could drag characters into the keyboard but they
appeared with a weird symbol always the same weird
symbol.

What Unicode range of the Character Palette were you dragging from? The weird symbol sounds like you might be dragging from the Private use area. Such characters are not defined (unless your font is specified, which a keylayout cannot do), so you get a generic symbol instead.

YOGAforALL Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 27, 2006 12:12 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Can't get Ukelele to do anything other than start up with a blank layout. I see that the Dvorak Devanagari was made with Ukelele. I found only one problem with it so far but otherwise I like it very much. I will remap the problem. The "a" key only types "ा" in upper and lower case. It should type "अ" in lower case although this letter can be found in the "v" key (one to the right of the "m" in Qwerty.) However for proper Dvorak it should be at the "a" key which is the same place in Qwerty and Dvorak. One of the only efficiently placed keys in the Qwerty system.

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,258 points

Oct 27, 2006 1:07 PM in response to YOGAforALL

FO21 UTF8: EF 80 A1 to FOFF UTF8: EF 83 BF

These are in the Private Use Area of Unicode. All characters here are undefined, and what would appear at any codepoint depends entirely on the font being used. Since you can't select a specific font for a keyboard layout file, you will only get the generic PUA icon in Ukelele.

After the layout is completed and installed, you might be able to select the font you want in Keyboard Viewer and have the keys appear correctly (I haven't tried it).

For output that is intended for electronic processing and distribution, one would normally try to avoid having codepoints in the PUA in a text, since there is no telling what will be displayed at the other end, unless the recipient has installed and selected the same font you used to create the text.

Rothrock

Level 4

1,467 points

Oct 27, 2006 4:14 PM in response to YOGAforALL

Cool. I'm glad that is at least close to working out for you. I've also got ा for both upper and lower case on the a key. Which is kind of as I would expect. Since there is no matra for "short a" it really should be blank for regular a. All the other vowels are mapped like this – at least in the Devanagari QWERTY input method.

I can get the complete forms of the vowels either with option-a and shift-option-a or with w and shift-w – probably the equivalent of what you are seeing on your "v" key.

But if you have the complete forms of "a" and "aa" on the "v" key, where is व? I'm guessing on the "w"?

YOGAforALL Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 27, 2006 4:54 PM in response to Rothrock

Right, I figured that out - about the a key. I saw that all the other vowels map similiar. But anyway the अ is used so much I would like to map an extra one in the place where you say should be blank. Anyway not a big deal, this mapping can be easily used.

Ok, I made a mistake and switched the v and w keys. You see I don't have the Dvorak marked on my keypad. I touch type which is very convenient for many reasons one of them being when I type on someone elses computer or in an email cafe. Of course not having to look down at the keys is enough of a reason.

So I went back to the apple store tonight because when I leave Richmond today it will be awhile before I see another apple store. Chris helped me again and this time it worked. We took those same unicode charaters and put them into Ukelele. After mapping the home row I decided to quit and go. Then I reopened and those funny charaters replaced the nice letters we had there with diacritics. So what happened? How do I get around this? Can I map a transliteration font? I thought this was going to be the answer. I also saw the possibility of mapping a Devanagari font that types the same way but this is sorta complicated I thought lets give it a chance. They work so differently that once I get to mapping I may find it to me too big to really do.

YOGAforALL Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 27, 2006 5:00 PM in response to Rothrock

Oh yeah, before I drive back into the mountains... how do I remap the 'return' key to be in the place of (swap) the 'fn' key? I have always, I mean always wanted to do this. Even more so when I first began using a computer in 1997 I would often hit the 'return' key by accident and send pages off etc. Anyway it's not in a good place for me. I think maybe I good do even better if I swap the 'return' with the 'delete' key because the 'delete' key is the most often used key. 😉 Well it was when I first started typing in 1997. I still use it alot, but to hit the 'return' by accident is more painful than any other miss.

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,258 points

Oct 27, 2006 5:25 PM in response to YOGAforALL

Oh yeah, before I drive back into the mountains...
how do I remap the 'return' key to be in the place of
(swap) the 'fn' key?

I don't know. Ukelele and similar utilities are for characters, not for functions.

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,258 points

Oct 27, 2006 6:10 PM in response to YOGAforALL

Chris helped me again and
this time it worked. We took those same unicode
charaters and put them into Ukelele. After mapping
the home row I decided to quit and go. Then I
reopened and those funny charaters replaced the nice
letters we had there with diacritics. So what
happened?

I explained the problems of trying to put Private Use Area characters into Ukelele above. At best you might get the right stuff to show up after you install the layout and select the font you are using in Keyboard Viewer.

How do I get around this?

By using characters from the defined Unicode ranges instead of the undefined Private Use Area which is apparently being used by one of your fonts. Everything you need for transliteration is in the normal Latin and combining diacritic blocks. You might even be able to just copy/paste from the list below into the form you get when you double-click on a Ukelele key (works from TextEdit, not sure about Safari).

a ā i ī u ū ṛ ṝ ḷ ḹ
e ai o au
ṃ ḥ
k kh g gh ṅ
c ch j jh ñ
ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ
t th d dh n
p ph b bh m
y r l v
ś ṣ s h

Can I map a
transliteration font?
the answer. I also saw the possibility of mapping a
Devanagari font

I'm not sure what you mean by this exactly. In a Unicode system fonts follow an agreed international standard and are essentially all the same. What you "map" are the Unicode characters required for a script to the keys in the layout.

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,258 points

Oct 28, 2006 8:02 AM in response to YOGAforALL

Can I map a
transliteration font?

PS If there are characters you need for transliteration which are not included in this list, let us know what they are exactly, and I will find them for you in Unicode so you do not need to mess with the Private Use Area, or at least can minimize it.

a ā i ī u ū ṛ ṝ ḷ ḹ
e ai o au
ṃ ḥ
k kh g gh ṅ
c ch j jh ñ
ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ
t th d dh n
p ph b bh m
y r l v
ś ṣ s h

YOGAforALL Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 31, 2006 7:48 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Flagestaff, I love that place. Camped out in the mountains nearby.

I think this is working. Would you please send me the UPPER CASE? We use this for proper names and beginning of sentances etc so that it is more comfortable for English users.

YOGAforALL Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 31, 2006 8:02 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

So I'm making this now. I will need the upper case as I requested. How will I make use of this? Will I load it into the "input" for "international" as I did with the Dvorak Devanagari so that it will simply remap all the other fonts? Will I only be able to use this with the few transliteration fonts that I already have or will it work with most ordinary fonts?

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,258 points

Oct 31, 2006 8:32 AM in response to YOGAforALL

How will I make use of this? Will I load
it into the "input" for "international" as I did with
the Dvorak Devanagari so that it will simply remap
all the other fonts? Will I only be able to use this
with the few transliteration fonts that I already
have or will it work with most ordinary fonts?

Yes, you install it just like the Dvorak Devanagari.

Both of these keyboards map the necessary Unicode codepoints to your keys and will work with fonts that follow the international Unicode standards. For Devanagari you need additional ordering and ligature features and there is only one font at present -- Devanagari MT that comes with OS X. For transliteration you should be able to use a number of fonts, including Lucida Grande with OS X and some of the following:

Everson Mono Unicode
Junicode
Charis SIL
Gentium
Doulos SIL
Titus Cyberbit
Cardo

How well they work for your particular purpose can only be determined by experiment.

Fonts that cannot be used are those with non-Unicode formats, such as CX+ or XDVNG.

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Devanagari & Transliteration