Re Cyrillic, there isn't quite a direct transliteration from US_en latin letters to the phonetics of Cyrillic. I learned to pronounce Cyrillic when I was in college and used to correspond in hand-written pseudo-Russian with my dad. It was all in English, but spelled phonetically with Cyrillic characters which was fun, but there were some gymnastics involved in using a Cyrillic character that made the weird English sounds I was aiming for. It probably also amused the people steaming open the mail.
Re nordic, I studied Swedish for a few years, half-heartedly (the one phrase I really mastered was: "Jag förstår inte"). That's going to be at least similar to Norwegian. In Swedish, there are literally just three extra letters: å, ä, and ö. From consulting wikipedia, Norwegian also has three extra letters: æ, ø and å. Learning how to produce the three extra letters with the compose key shouldn't be too onerous (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key#Common_compose_combinations). Finnish looks similar (mostly Swedish with a few extra for borrow words from other languages, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_orthography ). On Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 11:48 PM Simon McGrath <simon5026406...@gmail.com> wrote: > If your goal is simply transliteration I think it would be more apt to > memorize the pronunciation of each Cyrillic character than to learn to > type it on a keyboard in a way that substitutes a partially- > correspondent English letter for each Russian letter. > > I'm a bit confused at your hangup about 2-byte unicode vs ASCII, since > I was under the impression that an ordinary computer will properly > transform the incoming keyboard data into unicode. The keyboard input > is not ascii, and this is the data my computer receives when I press > the a key: > > 00000000: 307a 5b63 0000 0000 7137 0d00 0000 0000 0z[c....q7...... > 00000010: 0400 0400 1e00 0000 307a 5b63 0000 0000 ........0z[c.... > 00000020: 7137 0d00 0000 0000 0100 1e00 0100 0000 q7.............. > 00000030: 307a 5b63 0000 0000 7137 0d00 0000 0000 0z[c....q7...... > > -Simon > > On Thu, 2022-10-27 at 23:16 -0700, Keith Lofstrom wrote: > > On Mon, Oct 24, 2022 at 08:19:00PM -0700, Keith Lofstrom wrote: > > > I hope to purchase native "Nordic" and "Cyrillic/Russian" > > > USB keyboards. > > > > > > I exchange emails with Swedish and Finnish writers, and > > > recently a Berlin author writing a Russian language book. > > > Multinational geekiness for a monolingual American. > > > > > > Google translate is often helpful, and I can cut and paste > > > from that, but sometimes I need to type the special letters > > > in these languages; remembering and typing the digraphs is > > > a pain. > > > > ------ > > > > For all of you cheerfully answering the wrong question, > > not about KEYBOARDS, I thought I would repeat it, above. > > > > I will clarify a bit - > > > > Lately I've encountered MANY pages of photocopied Russian > > and Cyrillic, some sent by my respondents, some with the > > name Кит Лофстром in them, and I want to suss out roughly > > what they are before I select a few for professional > > translation, the $$$ kind. > > > > Or use the impose-on-my-Russian-speaking-friends kind of > > translation. A keyboard with "native" Cyrillic key-caps > > would be helpful for visually transcribing a few lines of > > text ... with trial-and-error for the characters that > > are so smudged that they will require a few guesses. > > > > Ditto for Swedish and Finnish. > > > > I can indeed chord a US-English keyboard, SLOWLY > > generating alt-alphabet characters as some respondents > > suggest, but my time is worth more than that. I could > > even read a table and type the ISO hexadecimal, wasting > > even more time. > > > > But I am working too many hours as it is, and if I am > > willing to spend spend $17,000 for a new roof next week, > > I can spend $50-$100 on an alternate alphabet keyboard > > if that saves me many hours. > > > > As the list conversation drifted off into the weeds, I > > punted and ordered a Nordic keyboard for $40 yesterday. > > But ... it may not generate two-byte Unicode, or it may > > not signal its "Nordic-ness" to the computer. Perhaps I > > wasted my money, along a two week wait for the delivery > > time from Europe. > > > > But if that Nordic keyboard can be made to work the way > > I want, generating Nordic characters from Nordic-topped > > key clicks, in parallel with a US-ASCII keyboard generating > > US-ASCII characters, I will try punting again, and order > > a more-costly Cyrillic keyboard, and wait even longer for > > that to be delivered, perhaps purchased from some dodgy > > central European vendor who also buys baby-killing gas > > for the P-twit in the East. > > > > ---- > > > > Or perhaps ... someone can answer the question about two > > keyboards at once with different character sets. I know I > > can connect two US-ASCII USB keyboards into one computer, > > and type the US-ASCII letters from either keyboard. > > > > What happens if I pair US-ASCII with "Euro", perhaps with > > two different logins? > > > > If that won't work on one computer, perhaps I could plug > > two keyboards into two different computers, re-configure > > the Other computer for "native" Swedish or Finnish or > > Cyrillic, and ssh the result to the US-ASCII computer. > > > > But Linux is multilingual, and its originator is a > > Swedish-speaking Finn. WWLD? What Would Linus Do? > > > > Keith > > > >
