Re: [PLUG] Nordic, Russian keyboards TAKE TWO

[Ali Corbin]

On Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 11:21 PM Keith Lofstrom  wrote:

> 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.
>
> Sorry, I didn't realize that you were starting with images.
The quickest way to input the text would probably be to run the image
through tesseract, specifying the language it's in.  I've found it does a
pretty good job.  (You might still have to fix the smudges, but it might
even be able to figure those out from its dictionary.)

Re: [PLUG] Nordic, Russian keyboards TAKE TWO

[Russell Senior]

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 
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:
>
> : 307a 5b63   7137 0d00    0z[cq7..
> 0010: 0400 0400 1e00  307a 5b63    0z[c
> 0020: 7137 0d00   0100 1e00 0100   q7..
> 0030: 307a 5b63   7137 0d00    0z[cq7..
>
> -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.
> >
> > 

Re: [PLUG] Nordic, Russian keyboards TAKE TWO

[Simon McGrath]

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:

: 307a 5b63   7137 0d00    0z[cq7..
0010: 0400 0400 1e00  307a 5b63    0z[c
0020: 7137 0d00   0100 1e00 0100   q7..
0030: 307a 5b63   7137 0d00    0z[cq7..

-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
> 

Re: [PLUG] Nordic, Russian keyboards

[John Jason Jordan]

On Tue, 25 Oct 2022 23:29:00 -0400
Tomas Kuchta  dijo:

>May I ask - what the . is Compose key? Is that Apple computer
>keyboard thing?
>
>I don't think I have ever seen/used keyboard with it. Perhaps, I am
>lucky??

It's a setting that you can add to most desktop environments. In Xfce
it's under Settings > Keyboard > Layout. This is also where you can set
up keyboards for other languages / countries. I don't know where other
desktop environments might had hidden the setting, but it's probably
somewhere similar. It's probably also accessible from the command line,
but I have no ken of that/.

Re: [PLUG] Nordic, Russian keyboards

[wes]

On Tue, Oct 25, 2022 at 8:29 PM Tomas Kuchta 
wrote:

>
> May I ask - what the . is Compose key? Is that Apple computer keyboard
> thing?
>
>
the wiki article was literally linked 2 messages before the one you quoted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key

-wes

Re: [PLUG] Nordic, Russian keyboards

[Russell Senior]

On Tue, Oct 25, 2022 at 8:29 PM Tomas Kuchta 
wrote:

> May I ask - what the . is Compose key? Is that Apple computer keyboard
> thing?
>
> I don't think I have ever seen/used keyboard with it. Perhaps, I am lucky??
>

You can assign a key (at least in Gnome land) to be the Compose key. I tend
to use the Right Alt key, which is otherwise not used much. I mostly use it
for reporting temperatures in °C or °F, but sometimes to talk about paté.

Re: [PLUG] Nordic, Russian keyboards

[Tomas Kuchta]

On Tue, Oct 25, 2022, 11:29 Galen Seitz  wrote:

>
> Huh.  I didn't know that the Compose key could be used in that way.  I
> always use it as a separate keystroke, not as a shift-like modifier.  I
> just tried it here and it works as you described.  I wonder if this
> works due to key rollover support.  Anyway, all of the following work,
> at least for me on my CentOS 7 xfce desktop.
>
> Compose held, ', a  ->  á
> Compose held, a, '  ->  á
> Compose, ', a   ->  á
> Compose, a, '   ->  á
> .


May I ask - what the . is Compose key? Is that Apple computer keyboard
thing?

I don't think I have ever seen/used keyboard with it. Perhaps, I am lucky??

Thanks, T

>

Re: [PLUG] Nordic, Russian keyboards

[John Jason Jordan]

On Tue, 25 Oct 2022 08:29:05 -0700
Galen Seitz  dijo:

>On 10/24/22 22:05, John Jason Jordan wrote:
>...
>> I could do the same thing for any other language that requires
>> completely non-Latin characters. But I also sometimes write in
>> Spanish, French and German, and for those I just use the Compose key
>> rather than switch to a completely different keyboard. When I
>> enabled the Compose key I assigned it to the Windows key, otherwise
>> useless on Ubuntu. If I want (e.g.) an ä I hold down the Windows
>> key, type a double quote, then the a, and the process gives me an ä.
>> All I have to remember is that a double quote gives me an umlaut, a
>> single quote gives me an acute accent, a back quote produces an
>> accent grave, and an > gives an accent circumflex. There are lots
>> more possibilities, and I have memorized the sequences for a few
>> more, like ß, !, ¿, etc.  
>
>I just tried it here and it works as you described.  I wonder if this 
>works due to key rollover support. 

I wasn't sure sure what 'key rollover' meant, but the Wikipedia
article explained it. Thanks for the link.

While I have long used the Compose key, I should have mentioned that
when you enable it (turned off in Xubuntu by default) you discover that
it has disabled continuous entry of characters. That is, normally, if
you hold a key down, it enters the character repeatedly until you
release the key. That does not work for me, and it stopped working
right after I enabled the Compose key. I poked around trying to find a
way to get it working again, but failed. I just live without continuous
character insertion.

>I should have read the wikipedia article first.  Entering the 
>diacritical first allows for the use of more than one diacritical.  It 
>sounds like the Compose key may or may not be a modifier key.  It is 
>system or configuration dependent.

I knew that you can enter multiple diacritics, and occasionally I have
done so, because we need that now and then with IPA. The problem is
that in IPA the rules say that you can enter the diacritic above or
below the character, and the usual practice that I see when reading
academic journal articles is to put the 'ordinary' diacritic (as used in
many languages) above, and the special diacritic used only by linguists
below the character. Although rare, I have even seen three diacritics
on a character. However, I have never figured out how the Compose key
decides where to put the diacritic. 

I also always assumed that the Compose key works by selecting a
character that has the diacritics that the user has entered, but if the
font being used in the text does not contain that character, then it
enters the character from another installed font that does have the
required character, if available and, if not available it just enters
an empty space. This is very rare for me, because my workhorse font for
academic papers is Junicode, which has not only complete IPA
characters, but also characters for most major languages, plus
full combining diacritics. 

And if I need some diacritic(s) that are unavailable with the Compose
key, combining diacritics rescue me. To use them I just enter them with
Ctrl-Shift-u + hex code number. The only problem with combining
diacritics is that they have a uniform side bearing, which creates a
diacritic which is slightly off center when applied to m, w, or i, l.
In a full-fledged word processor or Scribus I can manually adjust the
position of the diacritic, but not here: e.g., a syllabic m comes out
m̩ because Claws Mail lacks entry for sophisticated typography.

Thanks again for the Wikipedia link. The article cleared up a few
questions for me.

Re: [PLUG] Nordic, Russian keyboards

[Galen Seitz]

On 10/24/22 22:05, John Jason Jordan wrote:
...

I could do the same thing for any other language that requires
completely non-Latin characters. But I also sometimes write in Spanish,
French and German, and for those I just use the Compose key rather than
switch to a completely different keyboard. When I enabled the Compose
key I assigned it to the Windows key, otherwise useless on Ubuntu. If I
want (e.g.) an ä I hold down the Windows key, type a double quote, then
the a, and the process gives me an ä. All I have to remember is that a
double quote gives me an umlaut, a single quote gives me an acute
accent, a back quote produces an accent grave, and an > gives an accent
circumflex. There are lots more possibilities, and I have memorized the
sequences for a few more, like ß, !, ¿, etc.


Huh.  I didn't know that the Compose key could be used in that way.  I 
always use it as a separate keystroke, not as a shift-like modifier.  I 
just tried it here and it works as you described.  I wonder if this 
works due to key rollover support.  Anyway, all of the following work, 
at least for me on my CentOS 7 xfce desktop.


Compose held, ', a  ->  á
Compose held, a, '  ->  á
Compose, ', a   ->  á
Compose, a, '   ->  á

...

I should have read the wikipedia article first.  Entering the 
diacritical first allows for the use of more than one diacritical.  It 
sounds like the Compose key may or may not be a modifier key.  It is 
system or configuration dependent.




galen
--
Galen Seitz
gal...@seitzassoc.com

Re: [PLUG] Nordic, Russian keyboards

[Russell Senior]

The Bezoid seems to have this:


https://www.amazon.com/Keyboard-Russian-English-Cyrillic-Characters/dp/B00I1KJ7XC/

On Mon, Oct 24, 2022 at 8:24 PM 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.
>
> I can plug multiple USB keyboards into a desktop or laptop.
> If a Nordic or Cyrillic keyboard emits two-byte unicode,
> I can probably spell words that "look right" in these other
> languages.  But I'm not sure.
>
> Does anyone on the plug list have experience using multiple
> keyboards and alternate character sets?  Suggested vendors
> for those keyboards?  Helpful Linux tools for linguistic
> cripples?
>
> Keith
>
> --
> Keith Lofstrom  kei...@keithl.com
>

Re: [PLUG] Nordic, Russian keyboards

[John Jason Jordan]

On Mon, 24 Oct 2022 20:57:13 -0700
Ali Corbin  dijo:

>On Mon, Oct 24, 2022 at 8:24 PM Keith Lofstrom 
>wrote: .
>
>> Does anyone on the plug list have experience using multiple
>> keyboards and alternate character sets?  Suggested vendors
>> for those keyboards?  Helpful Linux tools for linguistic
>> cripples?

>I regularly switch back and forth between Latin, Cyrillic, and
>(ancient)  Greek.  But I simply switch the layouts, using a single physical
>keyboard for each.  Which takes some memorization.  Since I never
>learned to touch-type in Russian, I can use a phonetic Cyrillic
>keyboard and mostly press the Latin key that sounds like the Cyrillic
>one.  I do have to memorize where the extra letters are, or bring up
>an image of the keyboard layout, or even bring up the character map
>and click the letters into the paste buffer.

That's pretty much how I do it for Ancient Greek (polytonic), although I
also often use Onboard, which came with Xubuntu. Onboard gives you an
on-screen keyboard so you can click on characters. I assigned
Shift-Ctrl-Alt to switch between normal US English keyboard and Ancient
Greek. When I'm in Ancient Greek the Onboard keys change to Greek, or I
can just use the keyboard on my Thinkpad, in which case I have to
remember which keys give me which Ancient Greek characters.

I could do the same thing for any other language that requires
completely non-Latin characters. But I also sometimes write in Spanish,
French and German, and for those I just use the Compose key rather than
switch to a completely different keyboard. When I enabled the Compose
key I assigned it to the Windows key, otherwise useless on Ubuntu. If I
want (e.g.) an ä I hold down the Windows key, type a double quote, then
the a, and the process gives me an ä. All I have to remember is that a
double quote gives me an umlaut, a single quote gives me an acute
accent, a back quote produces an accent grave, and an > gives an accent
circumflex. There are lots more possibilities, and I have memorized the
sequences for a few more, like ß, !, ¿, etc.

I also frequently need IPA characters. I could install a special
keyboard for them, but over years of using them I find it's faster just
to use Ctrl-Shift-u + Unicode hex number. The thing is that IPA
characters are needed just as a single character inserted into a paper
that is otherwise completely in English. Over the years I've memorized
the most frequently used ones, and I made a little popup message tool
that displays them when I need one that I haven't memorized. That is,
the popup is created by gxmessage, (in the repos) which I call with a
little bash script that also loads the text file that contains the data
to be displayed.

The nice thing about my setup is that I need no extra physical
keyboards. I can do everything quickly and easily with the US English
keyboard that Lenovo built into my current Thinkpad. And if I travel I
need bring no extra baggage in order to have everything available.

Re: [PLUG] Nordic, Russian keyboards

[Tomas Kuchta]

On Tue, Oct 25, 2022, 00:57 Tomas Kuchta 
wrote:

>
> I also switch the keyboard layout while looking at the appropriate country
> key layout print out placed above the keyboard. After a while, I do not
> need to look at it much.
>
> All that said, I admit, I am getting lazier about it over the time; and
> simply use ascii characters skipping the diacritic. I still use Cyrillic
> layout from time to time, mostly to show off. People are pretty comfortable
> with English... So we use it as common language.
> .
>

 And there is of course another option  I have a friend pretty good
at using midi keyboard to type ...

>

Re: [PLUG] Nordic, Russian keyboards

[Tomas Kuchta]

On Mon, Oct 24, 2022, 23:57 Ali Corbin  wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 24, 2022 at 8:24 PM Keith Lofstrom  wrote:
> .
>
> > Does anyone on the plug list have experience using multiple
> > keyboards and alternate character sets?  Suggested vendors
> > for those keyboards?  Helpful Linux tools for linguistic
> > cripples?
> >
> > I regularly switch back and forth between Latin, Cyrillic, and (ancient)
> Greek.  But I simply switch the layouts, using a single physical keyboard
> for each.  Which takes some memorization.  Since I never learned to
> touch-type in Russian, I can use a phonetic Cyrillic keyboard and mostly
> press the Latin key that sounds like the Cyrillic one.  I do have to
> memorize where the extra letters are, or bring up an image of the keyboard
> layout, or even bring up the character map and click the letters into the
> paste buffer.
>

I also switch the keyboard layout while looking at the appropriate country
key layout print out placed above the keyboard. After a while, I do not
need to look at it much.

All that said, I admit, I am getting lazier about it over the time; and
simply use ascii characters skipping the diacritic. I still use Cyrillic
layout from time to time, mostly to show off. People are pretty comfortable
with English... So we use it as common language.

-T

>

Re: [PLUG] Nordic, Russian keyboards

[Robert Kopp]

I often use a phonetic Russian keyboard. You should be able to select keyboards 
in many languages in Linux for free. Phonetic keyboards vary somewhat, so you 
should probably choose the one that suits you best and stick with it. You may 
have to use stickies on the keys, since physical keyboards made that way might 
be difficult to find. 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android 
 
  On Mon, Oct 24, 2022 at 8:57 PM, Ali Corbin wrote:   On 
Mon, Oct 24, 2022 at 8:24 PM Keith Lofstrom  wrote:
.

> Does anyone on the plug list have experience using multiple
> keyboards and alternate character sets?  Suggested vendors
> for those keyboards?  Helpful Linux tools for linguistic
> cripples?
>
> I regularly switch back and forth between Latin, Cyrillic, and (ancient)
Greek.  But I simply switch the layouts, using a single physical keyboard
for each.  Which takes some memorization.  Since I never learned to
touch-type in Russian, I can use a phonetic Cyrillic keyboard and mostly
press the Latin key that sounds like the Cyrillic one.  I do have to
memorize where the extra letters are, or bring up an image of the keyboard
layout, or even bring up the character map and click the letters into the
paste buffer.
  

Re: [PLUG] Nordic, Russian keyboards

[Ali Corbin]

On Mon, Oct 24, 2022 at 8:24 PM Keith Lofstrom  wrote:
.

> Does anyone on the plug list have experience using multiple
> keyboards and alternate character sets?  Suggested vendors
> for those keyboards?  Helpful Linux tools for linguistic
> cripples?
>
> I regularly switch back and forth between Latin, Cyrillic, and (ancient)
Greek.  But I simply switch the layouts, using a single physical keyboard
for each.  Which takes some memorization.  Since I never learned to
touch-type in Russian, I can use a phonetic Cyrillic keyboard and mostly
press the Latin key that sounds like the Cyrillic one.  I do have to
memorize where the extra letters are, or bring up an image of the keyboard
layout, or even bring up the character map and click the letters into the
paste buffer.