Hi all. I think I should introduce myself first: I am Jon Harald Søby from
Norway. I am a global sysop on Wikimedia projects (which means I can help
you delete things from Wikipedias with no adins if you need it!), and have
been a Wikipedian for over seven years. I am very interested in African
topics (esp. languages), and have lived in Tanzania for six months and
speak some Swahili. I haven't been to West Africa yet, but hope to go there
in not too long!
Now, onto my question. MediaWiki (the software that Wikipedia uses) has an
extension called Narayam <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Narayam>,
which makes it possible to write in scripts other than Latin using a normal
Latin keyboard. This is very useful if you are on a computer with no
software support for your language, for example in an Internet cafe or if
you are in another country or whatever.
Since Akan and Ewe use some characters that are not standard in the Latin
alphabet, I think this could be a useful extension for these Wikipedias as
well. So that it can be tested, I have one question, however: How is a
proper Akan and/or Ewe keyboard set up?
According to this page on
Omniglot<http://www.omniglot.com/writing/akan.htm>tm>,
the Akan alphabet has two "special" characters, ɛ and ɔ, which are in place
of the standard Latin letters q and x. Is that they way it works on
keyboards as well? According to the same
website<http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ewe.htm>tm>,
Ewe has even more special characters, which I don't think fit on normal
keyboards.
Also, my impression from East Africa is that there isn't really any
specific keyboard layout used. I have come across keyboards from languages
all over the world, though the usual setting is "US English". Is it the
same way in Ghana? In that case, how do you normally type the special
letters? Do you use some sort of combination or substitution, like "3" for
"ɛ", "C" for "ɔ", or anything like that? If any of you could
provide this
information I could create a keyboard layout for it, and you can help test
it.
--
mvh
Jon Harald Søby <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by>