WRITING YOUR OWN ROSETTA STONE.

Peer Wandel Hansen has created a number of virtual keyboards:

Do you want to write the letters and scripts from around the world, then pick from the list below. The message you write can be included in Web-documents and Email without using Graphics or extras. Use the “keyboard” at the bottom of these pages and copy’n’paste the HTML codes to your Email or HTML program. Try my Multi Language Virtual Keyboard where I remap your US-keyboard to write some of these scripts. If you see a lot of ??? below, your browser is not supported.

The scripts are Arabic (العربية), Japanese (ひらがな, カタカナ), Greek (Αλφάβητο), Georgian (ქართული), Armenian (Հայերէն), Hebrew (ורמ – עברית), Korean (한국어를), Indian (Devnagari, देचनागऐ), Chinese (汉字练习纸), Russian (Кирилица), pan-Ēŭŗôpěąņ enhanced alphabet, Tamil (தமிழ), and Thai (ภาษไทย) (“Oh it bring back memories of spicy Siam. Words that are a great mystery to me and have looong word that become entire sentances.”). He’s extremely concerned (to the point of constant pop-up warnings) to let you know that it’s only guaranteed to work in Internet Explorer, but Firefox seems to be OK with it. (Via Mithridates.)

Comments

  1. Michael Farris says

    He misspells ภาษไทย. It should be ภาษาไทย (if that shows up right – I just corrected it with cutting and pasting).

  2. I’m not surprised — he misspells “Кирилица” too (it should have two л’s), and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were mistakes in some of the other languages as well — his English is certainly charmingly idiosyncratic. But after all, he’s a computer guy, not a linguist.

  3. Going Dotty in Kansas says

    What? No keyboard for Rotor?

  4. Usually you see “Hangul” misused for Korean language instead of Korean script, but this does the opposite. “Han guk eo reul” means “Korea country language (direct object particle)”.
    Anyone with Windows already has Charmap which does the same thing. I assume Mac has something similar.

  5. Macs used to have KeyCaps. I have no idea what OS X has, though there must be something, somewhere.

  6. There is also a program called SC UniPad for Windows computers. The free version allows you to play around with various fonts & keyboard layouts, and is useful even so. You don’t need any extra fonts for it either.
    Unipad information/download

Speak Your Mind

*