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Syllabics Keyboards for Blackfoot

There are two types of Syllabics keyboards on this site:

  • One-key, one-character. With one keystroke, one syllabic character appears, be it a full syllabic: like ᒧ,ᔦ, and ᒐ, or a final: like ᐤ, ᐨ, or ᐦ. Combining symbols, e.g. the mid-dot ᐧ, are typed separately. 
  • Type in Roman. This follows the principle of typing finals and vowels separately. This is different from the first type of keyboard. To type ᖱ, simply use the 'i' key, and ᑫ is generated by the sequence 'p' + 'a'.

Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. The former takes some training to learn, but once your fingers know the keys, it’s certainly faster. The latter is simpler for the casual user, as the Roman orthography physically printed on the keyboard is a mnemonic device to remember the corresponding syllabic.

Keyman installation instructions

 

Note: These keyboards are for Unicode fonts only.

  • These Keyboards follow Unicode completely. Unicode contains all of the syllabics required for traditional Blackfoot, except for the raised =. However, there is a raised = in a non-Syllabics section of Unicode, I am using that mapping.

 

The keyboards provided on this site are used with Keyman from Tavultesoft. This program must be downloaded and installed before any of the keyboards will work on your computer. All keyboards (unless otherwise noted) on this site are designed to work with Unicode fonts, and as such, will only work with certain software (e.g. Windows XP, MS Word). Alan Wood has a list of Unicode friendly software.

Keyboard Maps and Keyboards
Keyboard Type Keyboard Map Download Keyboard Last Modified
One key, one character  
Traditional, type in Roman June 16, 2005
Home Previous Page Last Update: June 16, 2005