Alternate keyboards for Other Writing Systems

Due to the frustrations of not being able to touch-type in either any of the languages using the Cyrillic script, Farsi, and Thai (as well as the annoyance of having to switch between various national keyboards to access various glyphs unified in the Unicode Cyrillic range), I've created non-standard/national keyboards (loosely) based on academic transliteration/romanization.

These keyboards are designed for non-national academics who want access to or need to input not only in various non-latinate scripts (i.e. Cyrillic = Turkic languages like Uzbek, Kazak, Kyrgyz, etc.; Slavic languages: Russian, Belorussian, Ukranian, Serbian, etc.; Caucasian languages: Adyghe, Circassian, etc.; Uralic languages: Komi, etc.), but also in latinate scripts with diacritics (as well as IPA) and are not comfortable with using any of the national standardized keyboards, or are tired of switching back and forth between keyboard layouts.

To preview the key correspondences, please click on the keychart pdfs.
These keyboards make ready use of dead-key strategies for encoding beyond the limitations of the QWERTY keyboard.
(I have not included any graphic representations of the keybords yet, due to the complexity of certain glyph keyings.)

Language/script Keycharts Package Recommended font
(if not provided already by the OS)		 Notes/Comments:
US/Latinate - diacritics/extended ASCii pdf zip Everson Mono Unicode, Gentium, etc. This keyboard encodes the majority of the Unicode Latin ranges Basic (U0000), Latin-1 Supplement (U0080), Latin Extended-A (U0100), Latin Extended-B (U0180).

The keyboard does not include IPA extensions, nor does it include some of the more.. "esoteric"... glyphs used in either Amerind or African scripts.
Note: Bug fixed (2004.10.19) - colon (:) would return double-quotation (") instead (fine for deadkeying, but annoying when you wanted a colon)... fixed. If anyone wants a keyboard that encodes these excluded glyphs, please contact me.
US/Latinate - IPA pdf zip Everson Mono Unicode, Gentium, STEDTU, etc. New!

This keyboard encodes the Unicode (IPA Extension range. The keyboard will also include the IPA-based glyphs in the Spacing Modifer Letters range, but will not include the actual Spacing Modifier Letters (due to an overload of deadkeying and my brain frying) or (since word-processing macros like Uniqoder take care of that).
re: fonting - I really prefer the look and relatively comprehensive coverage of SIL's Gentium font, but it still lacks the support for certain recently added IPA glyphs, which Everson Mono Unicode and STEDTU have made sure to encode.
Cyrillic (pan-Cyrillic) pdf zip Everson Mono Unicode This keyboard encodes the majority of the Unicode Cyrillic and Cyrillic Supplementary ranges.

Glyphs not covered are Glagolithic and OCS glyphs, since the Unicode coverage is still not quite complete. 2004/05/28: key assignments updated to reduce number of deadkeys as well as make assignments a tad more consistent/structured.
Arabic (basic) pdf zip ~ At present (2004/05/27), a unified Arabic range keyboard is still in the works. Upon completion, it will subsume both the Farsi and Arabic keyboards, but both Farsi and Arabic keyboards will still be available, in order to allow for region specific encoding.
Farsi pdf zip ~ cf. Arabic
Devanagari pdf zip ~ Quick and dirty keying to more readily match a QWERTY keyboard than the INSCRIPT usually found on the XP system. This keying will probably be the basis for the rest of the other Indic keyboards to come.
Tamil pdf zip ~ NEW

Keying modeled on the Devanagari keyboard... Keycharts show Unicode "cognates".
Thai pdf zip ~ version 2.0
(re-arranged to allow for less obvious dead-keyage, i.e. -า "aa" [a:] = "a+a" / "A", ผ "ph" [ph] = "p+h" / "P", etc.)
Lao pdf zip cf. comments. In the works!

Dead-key mapping mirrors that of RomThai - "Reserved" spaces in the Unicode Lao range are unassigned, in spite of actual correlates, as seen in Jason Glavy's JG Lao Old Arial and JG Lao Oldface.
Armenian pdf zip ~ relatively straightforward...
Greek pdf zip Titus In the works!

This is for both Modern and Classical Greek/Coptic, incorporating the two Unicode ranges: Greek and Extended Greek.


These keyboards were created using Microsoft's Keyboard Layout Creator, which means that these keyboards will be native for WinXP/Win2000.

The software and documentation are all copywrited by the author and are to be considered as "freeware" for those wanting to use these keyboards, especially fellow academics. However, donations are always appreciated.



If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me by e-mail.