Consonant Keymap (0.2)

Vowel and Stop Keymap (0.2)

For more general info and discussion check

* Sinhala Font 0.1
* Sinhala Blogging 0.0

This is an update to the Sinhala Font. Changed the name to ekottu cause ‘indica’ doesn’t spell anything in the font. ekottu pretty much spells kottu, kotuhtu really. This post has the latest download and details on the specific additions and problems. One general problem is standardization. I’ve always thought that Sinhala was a very elegant language cause it follows such simple and powerful phonetic rules. Almost all the consonants attach to their vowels in the same way, but ‘ruh’ and ‘kuh’ and a few more are weird. This font forces them to behave in a standard way, but I dunno if I should add the special behavior. There is room for it, on the letter ‘W’ maybe. Since there’s room I guess I’ll add as many exceptions as possible. By the way, all the input is appreciated, vital in fact.

Download ekottu font

*Additions*

# Changed font name to ekottu (to make some sense when written in the font)
# ‘ru’ vowel sound, on the ‘R’ key
# Made ‘dhu’ dominant on the ‘D’ key
# Made ‘thu’ dominant on the ‘T’ key
# Rearranged dominance order on the ‘N’ key
# B and C mapped to wrong characters, fixed
# Added a new vowel sound to the ‘L’ key

*Known Problems*

When I say know I mean _I don’t know_ and if you have any ideas or more problems I’d appreciate hearing them.

# Missing two Guh characters, the nasal and supernasal. Where do they go?
# ‘kuh’ does not behave exceptionally. Follows standard vowel attachment rules
# ‘ruh’ does not behave exceptionally
# ‘thuh’ does not behave exceptionally
# ‘muh’ and other consonants use the standard stop, not the exception
# Missing that circle looking n sound in ‘lanka’. Dunno where to put it, ‘N’ is full.
# No number or punctuation marks

*General Problems*

The thing looks unpronouncable when it degrades. This is cause Sinhala vowels come with the vowel ‘uh’ as a default, but in English it looks like, er, Welsh. I could stick a dummy æ character in there, but that’s work for the writer. Also, the combuva (e) is written before the consonant, but the sound comes after. A font doesn”t really have if/else conditionals so can’t do much without software.

jnTa vimuk’Ti eprmueÑ’ viera’Dy

Referring to what Thimal says about freeing up normal punctuation is right. I’ve mapped the flag to the single apostrophe ( ‘ ) – still a punctuation mark, I know. It’s better cause it degrades to English really well. The problem is that on the International Keyboard it doesn’t appear instantly. You have to hit SPACE or the next key. Problem? I like this setup cause it degrade well – the single quote looks like the flag.

The font looks small. All Sinhala fonts seem to, I guess our characters are more internally complex. I can’t figure out how to default the font to a bigger size, so I just turn it up to 20 or whatever to type.

Also, the International Keyboard is annoying. Every application you open, you have to set the Language Bar to International. It’s right on the taskbar, so not that bad. I don’t think Sinhala has an option, cause Danes and French and all use this.

Getting input from Amma, but anything from testers would be appreciated.

Posted on Tuesday, May 10th, 2005 in General, Sri Lanka, Tech.