Using the FirstVoices Kwa wala Keyboard The keyboard described here has been designed for the Kwa wala language, so that all of the special characters required by the language can be easily typed on your PC or Mac. It is hoped that this keyboard system will encourage the use of the language on computers, both for print and web publishing, as well as internet correspondence and emails. The Kwa wala language requires a number of characters which are not avail-able on the standard English keyboard, but these letters do have standard Unicode values. Unicode is a numbering system by which computers index writing systems. To accommodate Kwa wala s extra letters, some of the standard keys have been given new values, or modified so that they also function as accent keys. The accompanying Keyboard Map explains what additions have been made. To type these characters, you must install a keyboard driver a program which reorganises how your physical keyboard works as well as a Unicode font. Please follow the installation instructions below to set up your computer to type in Kwa wala. For some Unicode characters to appear at all, you must be using Windows NT/2000/XP or Mac 10.2 Jaguar or 10.3 Panther. Earlier PC and Mac operating systems do not support Unicode technology sufficiently. Installing Unicode Fonts Please see the welcome page at www.firstvoices.com for a list of Unicode font recommendations. Windows installation procedure (XP) Click on Start > Control Panel on the taskbar at the bottom left of your desktop. Select Fonts from the Control Panel. From the drop-down menus, choose File > Install New Font. Find the Unicode font you wish to instal in the folder or drive where the font file is located. Highlight the font and click OK. The font should now be available in any Windows application. Mac installation procedure New fonts must be installed in the Fonts folder, inside the Library folder on your hard drive. 1
Installing the Windows Kwa wala Keyboard 1.To write the Kwa wala language on your Windows computer, you need to install the Kwa wala FirstVoices Keyman keyboard software. This program reassigns the values of the keys on your keyboard, so that the special characters and accents used in the language can be typed. This Kwa wala keyboard software is available for global distribution under a special licensing agreement between FirstVoices and Tavultesoft, the creators of Keyman Software. Follow the instructions below to install the Kwa wala FirstVoices Keyman keyboard on your PC. 2.The Kwa wala keyboard is installed using the file: kwakwala.exe (Keyman executable) assuming you do not already have a different FirstVoices Keyman keyboard installed on your system. The following is an installation walk through: Screen 1) Tavultesoft Keyman Setup. Click Install. Screen 2) Welcome. Click Next. Screen 3) License. First make sure the Accept this license box is checked, and then click Next. Screen 4) Installation Directory. Unless you wish the Keyman files to be located in some specific directory, accept the default and click Next. Screen 5) Setup Complete. Two check boxes are on this screen: the first, Start Keyman Immediately is self explanatory, the second, Start Keyman with Windows means that every time you turn on your computer, Keyman and the Kwa wala keyboard will load automatically. 3.If you have a FirstVoices Keyman keyboard already installed on your computer, contact FirstVoices for a copy of the file kwakwala.kmp. 4.If you have the standard Tavultesoft version of Keyman (i.e. not FirstVoices Keyman), you may still install the FirstVoices Kwa wala keyboard. Note that there will now be two separate versions of Keyman on your computer; one will not interfere with the other, however you may only be running one version at a time. A FirstVoices keyboard cannot be installed onto the standard version of Keyman. 5.The keyboards can be turned on and off at will by either left clicking the icon and choosing the Kwa wala keyboard or No Keyman Keyboard (which will revert to English or whatever language keyboard is the default on your machine). You can also set up hotkeys to switch between keyboards more quickly. This can be done on the Keyman configuration box, which can be accessed by right clicking the icon. 2
Installing the Mac Kwa wala Keyboard The following instructions are for Macs using the 10.2 Jaguar and 10.3 Panther operating systems only: 1. Double click the Hard Drive icon, then open the Library folder. 2. Drag the file kwakwala.keylayout into the Keyboard Layouts folder. Save and quit all of the applications currently running, as the keyboard will not be available until the next time you run a given program. To be sure, a reboot of the system will make the keyboard accessible. 3. Open your computer s System Preferences. Under the Personal header, click on the International icon and select Input Menu. In the list of flags, find Kwa wala beside a keyboard icon. Check the button beside the Kwa wala keyboard icon. Kwa wala Keyboard Assignments The following keys have been given additional duties so that they may type special letters. The apostrophe key ' when typed before a letter produces an apostrophe (ejective) accent. ʼ m > ʼ w > ʼ Y > Y The equals key = when typed before a letter produces an underline accent. = a > = g > A = X > The accents for the letter can be typed in either order: = k or = k. 3
Unicode and the Kwa wala language What is Unicode? Unicode is neither a font nor a keyboard. It is instead a map or chart of (what will one day be) all of the characters, letters, symbols, punctuation marks, etc. necessary for writing all of the world's languages past and present. The keyboard follows the standard Unicode encoding. Each character (i.e. letter, number, punctuation, etc.) has been given a number. Thus the letter capital S is coded 53, and the numeral 9 is 39. These codes are standard across the internet, no matter what type of computer or operating system you may be using. If you have ever tried typing in a non-english language, you may recall memorising a set of numbers that signify accented letters. So that alt-130 is é, and alt-160 is á. This numbering system is called ASCII, which has been with us since the DOS days. A later mapping called ANSI, expanded on ASCII giving us capital versions of the accented letters Á Ó, and a few extra glyphs for western European languages. Unicode expands the repertoire of characters, providing enough space for at least 96,382 different symbols. Like the above two systems, each character is given a number, so that the glottal stop ʔ is 660, and the slashed-l ł is 322. Note that all Unicode numbers are hexadecimal, meaning that one counts by 16 s not 10 s, not a problem as users really don t need to know the mapping numbers anyway. So, although not totally comprehensive, Unicode covers most of the world s writing systems. Most importantly, the mapping is consistent, so that any user anywhere on any computer has the same encoding as everyone else. Which computers can use Unicode? Basically, as far as Windows goes, only NT, 2000, and XP take advantage of Unicode. In these operating systems, it is possible to read, type, print, etc. using Unicode mappings, providing of course that you have the appropriate font and keyboard drivers. The 95, 98, me Windows versions do allow users to view Unicode, with up to date web browsers. For the purposes of this keyboard, Mac users should be running 10.2 Jaguar and 10.3 Panther operating systems. 4
Unicode Limitations First, Unicode is simply a map, it is not a font, nor is it software that you can install on your computer. Programs, applications, and operating systems are either Unicode-friendly or not (or somewhere in between). If you have just bought a new computer running Windows XP for example, some of the characters used by your language may still be unavailable as you have not installed a font which contains all of the required symbols. A select few fonts do contain the full spectrum of letters used for Kwa wala: such as languagegeek s Aboriginal (Serif and Sans), Arial MS Unicode, and Titus Cyberbit. Second, Unicode is inconsistent with regards to which symbols get unique codes, and which do not. All of the accented letters of the European languages have their own code (e.g. Ő is 0150), but First Nations languages letters, like have to be made up from two codes, 70 (p) and 0313 (combining apostrophe). In some cases, such as w, notice that the accent may not be placed very well. Depending on the font, this may produce an unattractive look. This is because the combining apostrophe character was not specifically designed to go atop the p, instead the same apostrophe is to be used over every letter: e.g. m and Q. This factor is hugely important for languages using an underlined g, A. In most if not all Unicode fonts, the underline gets lost inside the base of the g (e.g. g ), rendering it virtually identical to the plain g. Finally, Unicode is not complete. Several languages have yet to be encoded, and others are only partially complete. The natural languages which are not yet encoded will be added presently, as research determines which glyphs are necessary. In the rare cases where a First Nation s language uses letters which are not in Unicode, the following choice was made. Where a language has a character: e.g. ktunaxa s double-barred l,, which looks similar to one used by a different language: the Khoisan letter ǂ, the latter has been substituted. If, on the other hand, there is no graphically matching Unicode character, one has to go outside the Unicode standard. How can I make those accented characters look better? It is not the expressed purpose of Unicode to ensure attractive typography, it is simply an organisational system of the orthographies of the world s languages. There are a few options open to those who desire professional looking documents. 5
It would be possible to make a special encoding for every special letter in the language that either is absent from Unicode or has an accent that needs to be positioned correctly. This system has the advantage that, when using a font designed for your language, every character will appear exactly as it should: attractive and legible. The disadvantage here is a lack of standardisation. Other people using a different font will not necessarily be able to read your document, email, or web-page. This method works well however, if just before printing your document, you replace all of the standard Unicode accent-combinations with pre-combined letters from a special font using a small program written for your word processor or database. The document you are currently reading has been produced using this method, using the Aboriginal Serif font. If your computer has software that employs OpenType fonts, you can get around the problem of non-standard encodings. By using an OpenType font, the software will automatically visually position the accent properly. Yet it will not change the Unicode value of the character. For example, the letter Q using an OpenType font and appropriate software will look like Ê. For this to work, you must be using a specially designed font, such as those found at www.languagegeek.com. Furthermore, if your OpenType document is being read by someone without similar fonts or other software, they will not see a row of empty boxes. Instead, the standard Q will appear, not too pretty, but readable. Unfortunately, OpenType software is both rare and very expensive at the moment, hopefully this kind of technology will be more widely available soon. 6