LL-L "Technica" 2007.10.28 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  28 October 2007 - Volume 01
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Technica" 2007.10.27 (09) [E]

> Mike Wintzer <k9mw at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.10.23 (05) [E]
>
> (Sorry for missing accents on this American keyboard.
>
> Reuben Epp replies:
>
> Perhaps I can help by informing that I am using an American
> keyboard for years on which I can form most foreign characters
> and their distinguishing marks by following instructions provided
> by the Internet on typing Foreign Language Characters. Please
> give this source a try!  It's no big deal, but it may help you with
> this small problem.

I have a cheating method which some might prefer, especially when typing
stuff where I'm not sure of the diacritics anyway.

Suppose I want to type "Milosevic" with its s-haček. I simply type
"milosevic" in at Google, and I get "Milošević" back from it somewhere
down the list.

Attempting to reconstruct Mike's phrase from Google, I get "Mallorquí
Si, Català No!", which I'm not entirely confident of because I don't
know the language!

It's OK for the odd quote: you need some confidence in being able to
check the result for yourself, but don't need to learn anything remotely
technical (though I usually paste into a plain text editor on the way,
to clean out any HTML dross).

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Technica

Mike,

I have been known to use Sandy's "cheating" methods at times, although he
didn't lead me on to it.

Most of the time, however, I use a "fudging" method.  I create "special"
text in my word-processing program (which happens to be MS Word -- yeah,
yeah! I know!) in which I use keyboard shortcuts for "special" characters,
use the insert symbol utility, or switch to other languages (including those
with non-Roman scripts).* I then copy the text and past it into my email
message. However, as Sandy mentions, this usually requires the intermediate
step of pasting and copying it in a plain text program (such as Notepad in
Windows) to clean it of the "dross" from your word-processing program (such
as font style and size).

As for IPA characters, I either type them by the insert symbol method or I
write them in SAMPA and then use an online converter (of which there are a
few).

It sounds like a lot of work, but it isn't once you have your routine down
and the required programs open.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

* In MS Windows you can load various languages for regular use which will
then always be shown correctly in all utilities and can be utilized in
word-processing. In MS Word, for instance, there are then little language
icons (EN, DE, NL, DA, FR, ES, PO, RU, JP, CH (= Chinese), HE, AR, KO, FA (=
Farsi), SA (= Sanskrit) in my case at the moment) at the bottom of the
screen. You use them to switch between languages, and it gives you various
choices within each, such as what kind of keyboard layout you want to use,
if Chinese is traditional or simplified with Bopomofo or Pinyin input, if
Japanese input and style is Katakana, Hiragana or Roman, and there are even
nifty utilities such as a drawing board in which your handwriting brings up
the desired Chinese or Korean character. Also, when I switch to Arabic,
Farsi and Hebrew, the typing direction automatically switches to
right-to-left (even when inserted into Western Language text), and in East
Asian languages I can even switch to the traditional vertical direction. In
MS Windows, you go to the control panel, then to "Languages" and then to
"Details" to choose and load your languages and the fonts they utilize. You
can also determine how things like dates are to be written in various
languages. In all cases you don't need a special keyboard. If you know the
usual keyboard layout for a given language you just type accordingly,
irrespective of what your physical keyboard says. If you don't know it, you
just bring up an electronic, on-screen keyboard that remains open on top of
your page and shows you the key configuration to use and alternatively lets
you hit its keys with your cursor. Many people aren't aware that their
systems have such utilities. You might want to poke around and scope it out
in your help menu.
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