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Show HN: A modern way to type in African languages

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Re: Show HN: A modern way to type in African languages

#14

Post by andsoitis »

School-Cotton wrote: post #9
azernik wrote: post #2

Comment on the documentation/README more than anything - I couldn't find anywhere a list of specific languages supported. That's a pretty important data point for any speaker of an African language hoping to use this IME. If the library supports only Amhari and Ge'ez (the only two languages mentioned specifically) it's extremely important to a Wolof or Swahili speaker to know that when evaluating if the IME is in a u…

Isn’t Swahili compatible with ASCII (just like English)? Why would you need a special IME to write it?

Yes, Swahili is now written using the Latin script.

Re: Show HN: A modern way to type in African languages

#15

Post by beAbU »

It's interesting, having grown up in Africa, and lived there almost 35 years, reading, writing and speaking an African language, being surrounfed by at least 10 other African languages and seeing them written, that I have never ever in my entire life encountered this writing system.

I think the product is a great technological achievement, but...

I would warn against the generalisation of "African" in this context. It does not tell the full picture, and simplifies the rather complex and very ancient reality that is language on the continent of Africa.

Re: Show HN: A modern way to type in African languages

#17

Post by firefoxd »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #4

Apart from Ethiopia, are there any places where they don't use either Latin or Arabic scripts in everyday life? There are technically a whole bunch of alphabets of course but they aren't used much afaik. Maybe the Tuareg script? Is that used by people in North Africa beyond bilingual signs?

There is Adlam for Fulani [1]. Widely spoken in west Africa. However, I'm still trying to familiarize myself with the writing system. The word for "yes" in fulani does not translate in writing. The best way I can write it is HIiiII. Imagine the lowercase i goes down in tone. Then the last two uppercase i shoots up. I don't know if any writing system supports this.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adlam_script

Re: Show HN: A modern way to type in African languages

#18

Post by ppseafield »

avodonosov wrote: post #8

Similar to other commenters, I am curious to know what is the problem with african languages? Can't you just make a button for each character in the alphabet? (The readme mentions it is a phonetic-based input method, so I assume African languages use alphabets, not some logograms, right?) What is common for African languages that allows solving the problem for all of them together in one software package? (How meanin…

Ge'ez and its adaptations are abugidas, which means one symbol is a full syllable. For Amharic there are over 200 individual symbols. [0] That would be a big keyboard! It does seem that most in-use languages in Africa are alphabets or abjads, which could be adapted to keyboards. [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ge%CA%BDez_script#Ge%CA%BDez_w...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing_systems_of_Africa

Re: Show HN: A modern way to type in African languages

#20

Post by pythonbrad »

beAbU wrote: post #15

It's interesting, having grown up in Africa, and lived there almost 35 years, reading, writing and speaking an African language, being surrounfed by at least 10 other African languages and seeing them written, that I have never ever in my entire life encountered this writing system. I think the product is a great technological achievement, but... I would warn against the generalisation of "African" in this context. I…

Thanks for your feedback, i will take it in account.
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