Any way to type IAST (Indic in transliteration) in iOS?

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Level 2

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Any way to type IAST (Indic in transliteration) in iOS?

IAST (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration) is the standard method used by scholars to write Sanskrit and other Indic languages in Latin script. As Sanskrit has more phonemes than the 26-letter Latin alphabet can cover, IAST makes use of a number of diacritics to precisely represent e.g. short and long vowels (a, ā) and different versions of consonants (d, ḍ, t, ṭ). Numerous Sanskrit words are commonly written in English without these diacritics, but serious students prefer to write them with, e.g. "samsara" is actually saṁsāra. (The ṁ represents a nasalization of the first syllable, which in this case is pronounced like the French word sans; there has never been an "m" sound in the Sanskrit word saṁsāra.)

In MacOS, these diacritics can be added using the option key with the ABC extended keyboard, but of course there is no option key in iOS, and while some of the modified letters (like vowels with macrons, ā etc.) are available by pressing & holding the letter, others (such as the dot-under consonants ḍ, ṭ, etc.) are missing. I understand the latest versions of iOS allow installation of third-party keyboards; I looked in the App Store, but didn't see anything that looked like it would allow entry of these special diacritics. Most common fonts include these IAST letters, so text copied into iOS displays correctly; but I've found no way to enter such text in iOS. Does anybody know if there is a way of typing the IAST diacritics in iOS?

iPad Air Wi-Fi, iOS 10.2.1

Posted on Mar 30, 2017 6:52 PM

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Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

121,914 points

Mar 30, 2017 7:20 PM in response to HandyMac

Try the Keyman app, Eurolatin 2 keyboard

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Answer 2

HandyMac Author

Level 2

490 points

Mar 31, 2017 7:40 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Hi Tom, thanks for the tip, looks like it does what I need. Yes, it does seem to be missing the characters with 2 diacritics – just ṝ and ḹ I believe, very rarely used (I think ḹ appears in only one word in Sanskrit); I've never needed them. Mostly I'm just entering an occasional word in Pali (a.k.a. Pāḷi, the language of the Buddhist scriptures). In macOS, these two letters can't be entered with the ABC Extended keyboard, but ISKCON offers a special keyboard for easy entry of IAST transliteration (as well as a downloadable PDF with some other options, dated but looks useful).

While I was looking through iOS's keyboards, I found one named "Hinglish" and took a look; at first it seemed perfect, including all the needed letters (and none not needed), but then I saw that it does not have ṁ or ṃ, only m̐. Don't understand the logic there. Anyway, Keyman's keyboard works fine in my text editor.

Thanks again,

Andrew Main

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

121,914 points

Mar 31, 2017 12:45 PM in response to HandyMac

HandyMac wrote:

In macOS, these two letters can't be entered with the ABC Extended keyboard

Actually they can be made. You can always add diacritics by typing option - shift and the appropriate key after the base character. So you can make ḷ or ṛ via the option - x deadkey, and then add the macron via option - shift - a. ḹ ṝ

But that ISKCON keyboard looks easier.

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Answer 4

HandyMac Author

Level 2

490 points

Mar 31, 2017 12:45 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thanks again, I didn't know that; fine for occasional use. The ISKCON keyboard looks easier indeed for heavier use, though it's not quite clear which of the two pictures he's talking about. However, when I tried to download the “DiacWinUnicode.keylayout” I got an error page. Below that, though, there is a downloadable PDF (“Transliterated Text in Mac OS X.pdf”) that offers several alternatives, including the EasyUnicode keyboard pictured at the top of the page, of which the DiacWinUnicode keyboard looks to be a stripped-down version.

The link in the PDF for EasyUnicode went to a blank page (Safari didn't say why, but Chrome told me the site didn't respond), so I did a search for EasyUnicode, and eventually found it at the Pali Text Society. Seems to work fine. (It doesn't include the ring-below letters, but the dead key option-1 allows adding a ring below any letter, or adding any of a whole keyboard worth of diacritics.)

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