How does typing in non-latin alphabets work? Is it a struggle?

How does typing in non-latin alphabets work? Is it a struggle?

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>a dedicated key for the Chinese flag emoji
mental

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I assume Cyrillic is easy since it's pretty close to the latin alphabet?

Well, I guess so. I have no problems with it

Pretty comfy desu

comfy

How does it work with Chinese? Don't you have to combine characters? Wouldn't that take a long time to write anything?

yes. i wish russia finally adopted latin letters. cyrillic letters are ugly and useless nowadays

Those are phonetic symbols, just type in the word phonetically and then select the appropriate character from the dropdown menu

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Don't, we should have never gotten rid of runes

>wanting a tszhschshzzchtshschzh meme language

We have mixed-alphabet keyboards. It's not a struggle at all.

Why do the letters have stuff around them?

Actually, latin alphabet fits slavic languages pretty well, just Poland managed to fuck it up

It's a family of characters in each space, each starting with t,k,s,n,h and ending depending on which way you swipe it, clockwise:u,e,o,i and center a.

I feel so smart when I type on this

So it's a bit like those old phones where you had ABC under 1, DEF under 2, etc

Comfy 2bh

no problemo

1/2

I have experience with a number of non-Latin keyboards, some for languages I speak and some for languages I don't. Here's a little overview:

• Perso-Arabic: shape-based layouts and phonetic layouts exist. Shape-based layouts organize letters by similar shape; phonetic layouts match letters to the letters on a QWERTY layout as closely as possible. Shape-based layouts are more common.

• Armenian: two major layouts exist, both more or less phonetic (QWERTY-based).

• Cyrillic: phonetic and original Cyrillic layouts exist, the most common being ЙЦУКEH for Russian.

• Brahmic scripts (Devanāgarī, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, and other scripts used in India): most offer a choice between a phonetic layout or InScript, a standardized layout that works for numerous scripts. InScript layouts have the vowels on the left and consonants on the right, arranged in a pretty logical way (e.g. 'ga' is above 'ka', and holding Shift changes them to 'gha' and 'kha'). Notable exceptions where the standard layout diverges from InScript include Tamil and Sinhala. Additionally, some more sophisticated phonetic input methods exist that allow you to type in a transliteration scheme like ITRANS and have the input converted to your preferred script.

• Chinese: a variety of options exist. Some of the more popular layouts assign character 'pieces' to the keys, where you press a sequence of keys to put together a character. Another popular system assigns individual strokes to keys to create codes for each character that way. Still others are phonetic layouts based on either pinyin (romanization) or zhuyin, a native Chinese system of phonetic transcription. Some input methods even offer the option to 'draw' characters on a trackpad.

2/2

• Georgian: a standard layout exists based on the one used on typewriters, as well as a phonetic layout.

• Greek: phonetic layout is standard.

• Hebrew: phonetic or original Hebrew layout, like Cyrillic.

• Japanese: you can choose to type in romanization or with a special kana layout directly. The kana layout is faster, since romanization requires you to press two keys per mora, but it's much less commonly used. In either case, after typing the phonetic representation of a word, phrase, or sentence, the computer attempts to match your input to the correct written representation, which may involve a combination of kanji, hiragana, and katakana. If it's wrong, you can choose the part that was converted incorrectly and have it display other alternates so you can correct it. Most input methods will 'learn' the words and phrases you use frequently, and these will be suggested first.

• Korean: phonetic or original Korean layouts. The most common Korean layout is often referred to as the 'two-set layout', with the keyboard divided into vowels on one side and consonants on the other. An alternative 'three-set layout' exists with two sets of consonant keys, one for initial consonants and another for final consonants.

• Thai: two original Thai layouts, or phonetic input (uncommon). The Kedmanee layout is the most common of the original Thai layouts. Similar to the Dvorak keyboard for English, Thai also has a more efficient layout called Pattajoti/Pattachote, but it's not as commonly used or supported.

If your PC is shit then you may have problems because it freezes everytime you attempt to convert what you just typed.

>so many different languages
Just why?
Fuck off, Cyrillic is perfect for Slavic languages.

not that big of a difference to me

nobody uses these phonetic layouts

Here's my relationship with the scripts I've posted:

• Perso-Arabic: I can read it half-decently by guessing at vowels, don't speak anything that uses it.
• Armenian: passing interest, don't speak it, can't read it without a chart in front of me.
• Cyrillic: I speak Russian and have studied Old Church Slavonic. I own two books in Church Slavonic.
• Brahmic scripts: interest in Eastern spirituality (Hinduism, Buddhism). I can read Devanāgarī, not fluent in anything that uses it.
• Chinese: passing interest, I can write the characters decently.
• Georgian: passing interest, can't read without a chart.
• Greek: I can read Greek and enjoy Greek music, so it's helpful to read song lyrics.
• Hebrew: passing interest in the script. It's pretty, and I'm pretty…bad at reading it without a chart.
• Japanese: not fluent, I know enough to order off a menu in Japanese. Give zero fucks about anime, plenty of fucks to give about Japanese green tea and traditional music though.
• Korean: I can read Korean. Don't speak it, recognize the names of Korean foods I like.
• Thai: passing interest, can't read it without a chart but it looks kinda cool.

Yeah, AFAIK they're mostly used by non-native Hebrew speakers, and scholars of Biblical Hebrew, who need layouts with easily accessible niqqud and te'amim.

>I speak Russuia and have studied Church Slavonic
Nice. Have you attended any courses?
>Eastern spirituality
Ahahah.
Although why can't you pick something concrete and work on it?

Yes. My degree is in Russian.
>Although why can't you pick something concrete and work on it?
I can. Most of the languages I speak just use the Latin alphabet, that's all. Going to find the time to pick up another sometime soon though.

Wow. What uni have you finished? Have you been to Russia? Planning to do so?
>Russian
As a translator or a philologist?

>What have you finished

UCLA; no; yes, eventually. The thing about having giant oceans on either side of your country is that traveling outside your own continent is expensive, heh.
>As a translator or a philologist?
The courses covered the language, Russian literature in English translation, and Russian literature in Russian; taking courses in both is required. I got to take a special class one of the department professors held specifically on translating Russian to English, but that was the extent of the formal training in translation. I had done translation work in other languages before studying Russian, though, and recently I got a contract to translate a Russian novel into English for a few thousand dollars.

That sounds very nice.
>a Russian novel
What is the title btw?