At 4:23 PM +0200 5/10/01, Marco Cimarosti wrote:
>Mati Allouche wrote:
[snip]
> > [...]
> > First of all, I would prompt Mati to find a different term
>> than "Keyboard Language", e.g. "Keyboard Layout" or
>> "Keyboard Locale". [...]
>>
>> <Mati> I have no doubt that my terminology can be improved. "Keyboard
>> layout" is my preference among Marco's suggestions.
Seconded.
>Maybe
>> others want to cast their votes? </Mati>
Indeed.
>I hope you won't curse me now... In the meanwhile, Jony Rosenne nearly
>convinced me that "keyboard language" is a proper and well-understood term
>in the realm of bilingual keyboards...
Even if it is well-understood in that realm, it is improper.
>Maybe you could keep both terms: "keyboard layout" (or "locale", or
>"driver") for the fact that you have, say, a Hebrew keyboard installed, and
>"keyboard language" (or "mode", or "alphabet") for the fact that your Hebrew
>keyboard is currently switched in "English mode" or in "Hebrew mode".
>
>Oh! I feel I'm adding confusion over confusion!
It isn't you. The confusion is already out there.
Regardless of current usage, "keyboard language" is a dreadful term,
and I suggest you stick with "keyboard layout" and identify the
layout by something other than a language it is associated with.
"QWERTY" identifies a large class of layouts that differ in numerous
details while sharing the arrangement of keys for letters, numbers,
and some other symbols. To be more specific, one can refer to a
standard or a particular product, such as US Alternate Standard
Keyboard (Dvorak) or 101-key PC US keyboard.
The principal reason it is dreadful to speak of "language" is that
many languages, including English, have multiple layouts with
different user communities. In English we have QWERTY and ASK-Dvorak
(',.pyfgcrl), and within QWERTY, variations for UK, Canada, and other
countries, and for various computers and terminals. I know of four
major classes of Cyrillic Russian keyboard layouts. We have had
extensive discussions on this list about the requirements for
Polytonic Greek and Farsi keyboards and the currently available
options. There are layouts called "transliteration keyboards"
attached to certain scripts and languages for the use of foreigners,
especially Murkns. Those I have seen place letters according to their
pronunciations relative to US QWERTY, although nothing prevents this
concept from being applied to Cyrillic and other scripts. I have seen
transliteration layouts mapped to QWERTY from Greek and various South
Asian scripts and languages. I'm sure there are other examples.
A second reason why "keyboard language" is a dreadful term is that
CJK IMEs provide multiple layouts to be used together for the same
script and language. If I am typing Chinese in Cangjie, I can switch
between half-width and full-width, or between Cangjie and Latin
QWERTY, without changing language. If I am typing Japanese , I can
switch between romaji (full or half width), hiragana, katakana, and
kanji conversion from either romaji or hiragana. Switching layouts is
not needed as frequently for Korean hangeul, but Korean IMEs also
provide half- and full-width variants, and hanja conversion. I have
no idea of the detailed requirements for a Vietnamese chu nom IME,
but I would expect to see QWERTY and AZERTY options and character
conversion.
That brings me to the third reason not to use "keyboard language".
Some layouts are used for multiple languages. There are differences
in detail between French AZERTY and Vietnamese AZERTY, but that is
primarily in application of accents, not in arrangement of keys. Many
languages have no language-specific layouts, and are typed in generic
Latin or Cyrillic layouts.
A fourth problem is languages written in more than one script, such
as Hindi/Urdu, Serbo-Croatian, Pali, Mongolian, Malay/Indonesian,
Azeri, Tajik, Uzbek, and so on. Historically, we can add Turkish
(Arabic/Latin), Swahili (Arabic/Latin), Egyptian
(hieratic/demotic/Coptic), and Mayan (Mayan/Latin).
In sum, we should consider that any language can be written in any
script on a wide range of keyboard layouts, and treat language and
layout as orthogonal concepts.
There are many other examples of these concepts. I have a
screen-saver of a prayer wheel bearing a Sanskrit mantra written in
the Tibetan alphabet. Sanskrit written in Chinese characters is in
everyday use in many countries. Not just Sanskrit words in Chinese
texts, but entire dharanis in Sanskrit written entirely in Chinese
characters, and read out every day by large numbers of Buddhists.
--Edward Cherlin, Spamfighter <http://www.cauce.org> "It isn't what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you know for certain that just ain't so."--Mark Twain, Josh Billings, Edwin Howard Armstrong, Will Rogers, Satchel Paige (after Thomas Jefferson)
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