From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Thu Jun 05 2003 - 12:10:45 EDT
From: "Azzedine Ait Khelifa" <Azzedine.Aitkhelifa@club-internet.fr>
To: <unicode@unicode.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2003 4:55 PM
Subject: Tamazight/berber language : How to send mail, write word documents ....
> Hello all,
>
> I need help about tamazight(berber) language.
>
> All letters of tamazght alphabet are into "arial Unicode" (see the tab
> below)
> My question is easy (and certanely a stupid question), how i can send
> mail, write word document using "Arial Unicode MS" font ?
>
> At this time, I know that I should use UTF8 encoding.
>
> But how to tape each letter ????
This is not really a Unicode question, but something related to input methods, i.e. the localization of your OS software.
May be you could find help on MSDN newsgroup to find or develop such input method for your Windows system, so that you can select this method on a French keyboard (which already has the spacing ring, and can support easily a remapping of the dead key used for circumflex or diaeresis, so that it will instead return a caron on c and g letters, or a dot below on h, r, s, t, z letters, or a Latin epsilon on a (could also be mapped to AltGr+A), or a Latin gamma letter (could also be mapped to AltGr+G).
There are probably some existing standard for keyboard mappings, promoted by UNESCO and published in a ISO standard.
Without such input method, the simplest way is to compose your text in a editor that allows automatic search&replace operations, using the Charmap tool to cut and paste the character you need in the replace box. In that case, use your substituting letter sequences that can be entered easily from your current keyboard.
However the interesting part of your question for discussion in this list is:
- Which Unicode character should be used to encode the spacing ring? (may conflict with the degree sign, or a upscript small letter O)
- Should you use a Greek Gamma or a Latin Gamma, and a Greek epsilon?
Your table also displays only the lowercase letters. It would be interesting to show the associated uppercase letters.
Also some facsimile of handwritten script on paper or artistic compositions (on walls, plates, ceramic, ...)...
It would help you to decide if your alphabet table was a simplification or convention used in a specific book, or is effectively the commonly used form that matches the astract character definitions.
-- Philippe.
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