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ABD YORUBA KEYBOARD  - Behind the Scenes

The ABD Yoruba keyboard layout was made using the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator. ABD Yoruba is based on Microsoft's English (United States) keyboard layout.

There are different ways of representing each Yoruba character. Code points for different Yoruba characters were entered on the relevant keys, using Unicode Code Charts as a reference. I tried to make the Yoruba keyboard layout very easy to use, without compromising the conventional use of the English keyboard. I decided to leave the English keyboard layout pretty much intact (only changed the Tilde key a little bit - for ALL tonal signs), and then use the Right Alt key for basically all Yoruba characters, so users wouldn't have to remember lots of different key strokes/combinations. As you saw, I also placed variations of each character very close to the (English) character, in order to make usage as intuitive as possible.

Dead key combinations are used to put signs/diacritics (do, mi, ~)  on top of vowels, using a single key - The tilde key.  So, pressing a dead key once, followed by the vowel, will mark the vowel with the sign. e.g. pressing the tilde key followed by u will produce ù; pressing Shift + Tilde key followed by e will produce é, and pressing Alt + Tilde key  followed by a will produce ã. As an alternative, users may also use only the Right Alt key for all combinations - e.g. Right Alt + each of q,w,e,r,t will produce ẹ̀,ẹ́,ẹ,è,é respectively.

Pressing a dead key followed by the space bar, or pressing a dead key twice, will produce the actual diacritic ( the ASCII character). E.g. pressing the Tilde Key followed by space bar gives" `";  pressing the  tilde key twice will give "``" , and pressing Right Alt + Tilde twice will give "~~"

Examples of Code Points used

U+0060 = grave accent = do sign (`)

U+00B4 = acute accent = mi sign(´)

U+00F2 = lower case o with do sign = ò

U+00C1 = capital A with mi sign = Á

U+1EB9= lower case dotted e =   ẹ

U+1E62 = upper case dotted S = Ṣ

U+ 00FA = lower case u with mi sign = ú

The Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator is available to all Windows 2000 & up users for free. You can install it on your computer if you really want to play around with your own keyboard layout. It's actually not very difficult. See the Reference Page (Next) for links to  the Unicode Code Charts and the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator.

If you have any suggestions on how this can be improved, or if you just have any comments in general, please email me at:  bomi@africanportal.net

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Last Updated: Nov. 7th, 2004