Edited by author 07-27-2002 04:24 AM
This is a message board for sharing technical information on the use of the Yoruba language on computers and the internet: fonts, keyboard layouts or presentations, and also related topics like incorporation of audio (spoken language) in content and localization of software.

This message board is created in response to a discussion on the "A12n-collaboration" working group* about the work of the non-governmental organization, CAWD, in Oke-Ogun, a predominately Yoruba-speaking area of southwestern Nigeria, and the possibilities of facilitating use of Yoruba language in its IT for development work there.

As such, it is the same sort of motivation as that behind the "Hausa charsets & keyboards" message board,* which was established several months ago in response to a question from the Fantsuam Foundation in northern Nigeria. Interestingly, though perhaps not surprisingly, Fantsuam and CAWD have been in contact (though not on this topic). The challenges facing various NGOs trying to use ICT for development, including challenges in providing multilingual access to their clients, are often very similar.

The reason for setting up language-specific boards is first of all to try to create a discussion space where people who are working in different ways with a particular language on computers and the internet - NGO workers, linguists, others - can communicate on technical issues and practical problems & solutions they have encountered. This board is to a certain degree experimental, as part of an effort to explore how to best facilitate exchange and collaboration on multilingual applications in telecenters and development projects.

There is certainly more in common than different in what faces people trying to use various different African languages with the new technologies. This board is linked to the "A12n gateway" - http://www.bisharat.net/A12N - and as such fits into a larger project and vision of facilitating use of all languages with the new technologies for a positive development of humankind.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net - http://www.bisharat.net

* "A12n-collaboration" and "Hausa charsets & keyboards" are accessible through the "A12n gateway"

The introductory message for this board is below, /m1 .

Here are four sites for fonts, the first two especially for Yoruba, and the second two intended for transliteration of Middle Eastern languages, but which apparently can be used for Yoruba (and perhaps other languages in the region?):

Yorůbá Fonts: http://african.lss.wisc.edu/yoruba/font/index.html

Learn Yoruba (YorubaOK.ttf): http://www.learnyoruba.com

Jaghbub Font Package (apparently can be used for Yoruba): http://www.hf-fak.uib.no/Institutter/smi/ksv/Jaghbub.html

Windows Fonts for Bahá'í Texts (apparently can be used for Yoruba):
http://ianvink.com/bahai/fonts/index.html

Of the four I think only the two at the fourth site are Unicode fonts. To display the e with a dot under and an accent requires inputing the e with dot under and the "combining diacritic" accent. Such "dynamic composition" is a feature of Unicode that is apparently being improved, but still raises questions among some users.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Hi Don, and everyone.

On the plus side - This site has already 'worked' for me because I've learnt of the 'learn Yoruba' website - which I shall follow up in due course. So thanks to Don for setting this up.
 
On the minus side - I nearly didn't visit. This is because of the title, which gave me the impression of something narrow and techie - fortunately I knew Don was setting up a Yoruba related site which would be of interest to people like me so I checked it out. Could we widen the title so people know its for anyone with a Yoruba and ICT interest?

Edited by author 07-27-2002 04:49 PM
Thanks, Pam. And your suggestion is welcome. Although the board topic does center largely around "technical" and language-specific issues, the whole reason we're doing this is in the hopes of contributing to the work that you, CAWD, and others are and will be doing with ICT in predominately Yoruba-speaking areas. The only life of a technology, after all, is how people put it to good use.

New visitors who saw the invitation to "Yoruba fonts & keyboards" - this is indeed the place, and just the name has been modified...

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Here's a very basic question: What is the Yoruba alphabet? As a novice on this language (I've learned Fulfulde and Bambara, and little bits of others) I've had the understanding that the orthography was established some time ago - the Learn Yoruba site has brief intro confirming this at http://www.learnyoruba.com/orthography.htm . But looking at the alphabet on that page, and comparing it with some other samples, for instance at http://african.lss.wisc.edu/yoruba/font/index.html , one notices the absence in the former of vowels with dots (or small vertical lines) underneath. Are there different standards or a change in usage?

As far as different standards go, I've also learned that the related Ife language uses several modified Latin letters not used in Yoruba.

Another question is how much people use the tone markings etc. when they write Yoruba? To the extent people use Yoruba for communication on computers, has the inconvenience of using tone markings or vowels with marks underneath diminished their use? Tones of course are extremely important in Yoruba.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

One other item on the subject of fonts, brought up earlier /m2 : Linguist's Software http://www.linguistsoftware.com sells a font (non-Unicode)called "AfroRoman" which is intended to cover most African languages, presumably including Yoruba.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

James Kass's "Does Your Browser Support Multi-language?" site at http://home.att.net/~jameskass has a couple of Unicode test pages for Yoruba:

Yorůbá Example and Resource Link. (Unicode decimal NCR format)
http://home.att.net/~jameskass/yorubatest.htm
Yorůbá Example and Resource Link. (Unicode UTF-8 format)
http://home.att.net/~jameskass/yorubatestutf.htm

Note that these pages use the small vertical line under e, o, and s, not the dot. Is this a matter of choice or the standard?

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Here are a couple of other pages with Yoruba text
http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/yor.htm (in UTF-8 text)
http://www.language-museum.com/y/yoruba.htm (as image file)

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Pam McLean requested that the following message that she was unable to post herself be forwarded to the board (apologies to her for the delay in so doing):

Hi
I hope to be travelling to Nigeria on Thursday [15 Aug.], to our project in Oyo State, and would appreciate knowing if anyone using this list will be in Nigeria during the rest of August.
Pam

Don Osborne wrote,

> Here are a couple of other pages with Yoruba text
> http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/yor.htm (in UTF-8 text)
> http://www.language-museum.com/y/yoruba.htm (as image file)

Note that the first link, the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, uses the Unicode character
"COMBINING PLUS SIGN BELOW". On the second link, it is
a bit hard to tell which characters was used because it is a graphic, but it looks like a "COMBINING CIRCUMFLEX BELOW".

The United Nations' page is also a "font-specific" web page. It is calling for a newer font which is not installed on this system, and defaults to an older version of that same font, even though other fonts installed here can handle Yoruba well. This results in little boxes appearing in the text. The little boxes are "missing glyphs" and these are displayed when the font in current use doesn't have the proper glyph to display.

Best regards,

James Kass.

Don Osborn wrote,

(Sorry your surname was misspelled in the previous post!)

>Of the four I think only the two at the fourth site are Unicode fonts. To display the e with a dot under and an accent requires inputing the e with dot under and the "combining diacritic" accent. Such "dynamic composition" is a feature of Unicode that is apparently being improved, but still raises questions among some users.
<

The YorubaOK font available at http://www.learnyoruba.com does use a special, non-standard "code page" for Yoruba, but it is also a Unicode font and should include all of the necessary combining marks properly encoded at Unicode positions. If there are any missing, please let me know and they can be added.

Entering special letters with tone marks will be an interesting process. Although the Unicode Standard suggests that in most cases it is better to enter the top marks first and then enter the marks below, something called "normalization" *should* make the actual order of entering marks to be up to the users.

In other words, if the letter "e" was typed, then the line below, and then the acute accent, the display would look the same as if the acute were typed in before the line below. But, the underlying encoding would be different and a search for a string of text entered in one fashion wouldn't bring back a find if the actual text had been entered in the other fashion. Fortunately, "normalization" is supposed to take place automatically during text searches and the like, and this means (in theory) that any problems associated with the order of mark entry should be avoided.

Best regards,

James Kass.

Here are some scans of the Lord's Prayer in Yoruba,
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/JPN-yoruba.html

Please note the differences in the font styles used.

Another web page with a scanned example of Yoruba orthography
http://www.worldlanguage.com/Languages/Yoruba.htm
which includes a translation. This example of Yoruba was apparently scanned from page 292 of "The Languages of the World", Katzner, 1975.
The second example uses the combining short vertical line below.

My current understanding is that the line is the standard and
preferred form. Traditionally, lead fonts were expensive and
often were hard to acquire. Naturally, people used whatever
tools were available to them. This could be a reason why there
are so many differences in the appearance of certain marks.

Before Unicode, computer fonts were limited to only 256 positions. A font like AfroRoman, seeking to cover many languages in one
region, may well have made typographic compromises in order to
be able to cover as many languages as possible.

The Unicode character used for Yoruba text should be standardized. The "normalization" mentioned in an earlier post is not expected to be able to handle the difference between a word entered using the combining dot below and the same word entered using the
combining vertical line below.

Best regards,

James Kass.

Edited by author 08-19-2002 05:26 PM
Thanks, James, for the pointers, background, and information. I'll try to respond briefy to the main issues:

1. Re the symbol under certain letters, it does seem as you imply in /m9 that the choices in the two sites I mentioned are rather unorthodox. I have also heard that the small vertical line underneath is the standard as you suggest in /m11 below. But the fact that we can see these and the not infrequently used dot below as meaning the same thing begs the question of whether the importance is mainly one of choice of style. Ultimately it belongs to the language speakers and the autorities in the countries they live in to make the decision, but IF nothing is set as far as Unicode standards goes, one would be tempted to suggest using the precomposed letters with dots under, and let font makers design glyphs that modify the shape of the dot. Either way, the readers would, I think, understand the sound intended.

2. You are certainly correct in any event that from a technical point of view, a clear choice should be made that would serve as the standard.

3. Regarding the entry of the various combinations, this has led some to want to insist on more precomposed characters to be added to the Unicode repertoire (ISO-10646), as for instance in the Bamako 2002 meeting (see http://www.geneva2003.org/bamako2002/doc_h...andinternet-en.html ). Apparently, though, it is possible to set up a keyboard layout so that you don't have to key in a character and two combining diacritics. And advances like what you mention as the ability to recognize the combination in whatever sequence entered and improvements in the way the software combines the symbols, should improve ease of use and appearance. (So I'm given to understand, but you may know better.)

4. Re the YorubaOK font /m10, I would defer to people with expertise in written Yoruba.

Thanks again and all the best!

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

There are also different orthographies for the Yoruba in Benin and Ife in Togo, just to make matters a bit more complicated. Mainly it's a matter of Benin and Togo using the open e and open o in the place of the e and o with mark under, but Ife uses some other extended Latin characters.

See pages from Hartell, ed. (1993) Alphabets of Africa at the Rosetta Project site:
Yoruba - Nigeria
http://www.rosettaproject.org:8080/live/se...version=0&scale=six

Yoruba - Benin
http://www.rosettaproject.org:8080/live/se...scale=six&version=1

Ife - Togo
http://www.rosettaproject.org:8080/live/se...version=0&scale=six

Summary tables of this info and special character needs for other languages by country is available at http://www.bisharat.net/A12N .

Orthographies are often set by countries. Such differences may not be as problematic as they might seem at first - at least in a web environment. It would be relatively easy to prepare a page in Yoruba that permits the user to toggle between the Nigerian and Benin transcription. This sort of thing is done with Chinese for example (simplified and traditional characters).

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Does anyone have a list of websites in the Yoruba language?

Also, one webpage in Yoruba, "Egbe Isokan Fun Igbesoke Ede Yoruba" at http://www.homestead.com/amoye seems to no longer be functioning. Does anyone have any information on what's happened with that?

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

I arrived back from Oyo State yesterday. It seems increasingly obvious that we must use Yoruba as well as, or instead of, English in some of the computer applications we will be using for the project. It would be good to try something as soon as possible, as we now have the staff and the start of the technology. There are two full-time workers on the project, based in Ago-Are, in rural Oke-Ogun, Oyo State. I took my laptop (and digital camera) to leave with them, so we now have a working computer, when the electricity supply is sufficient. We found this was usually after 10p.m. when most of the local people connected to the grid had gone to bed, so the power supply to our premises increased. There are also frequent, and prolonged power failures. The generator is better, but funds for fuel are limited. All the local people I was with use Yoruba as their first language, and despite the supremacy of English as the local *written* language I did see various examples of written Yoruba.

Edited by author 09-02-2002 02:53 PM
Pam, Thanks for your note and interesting report, and glad you had a productive trip.

May I ask what kind of computer applications are you and your colleagues in CAWD looking at overall, and which ones would you foresee Yoruba being used for? You mention starting something soon - which applications would be a priority?

Also what sort of computer software are you currently running?

One of my hopes for this board is that people like you in CAWD working on local ICT projects in Yoruba-speaking areas, people who work in teachng Yoruba which increasingly involves computers and the internet, and people with more general knowledge of multilingual computing can share share useful information on practical projects such as the one you describe in Oyo State.

I'll post next a message from someone involved in teaching Yoruba online and then return to this topic.

The power issue is vitally important but I'll address it under separate cover.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

NB- For more info on CAWD, see http://www.cawd.info

[The message below was in response to an e-mail publicizing this board, and is posted with permission. D.O.]

From: Adebusola Onayemi
Date: Sun Sep 1 2002, 7:37 PM GMT+01:00
To: Donald Z. Osborn
Subject: Re: "Yoruba fonts & keyboards"

Greetings,

I was delighted to get your e-mail.
Indeed the issue you are addressing was the theme of a paper I presented at the (ALTA) conference in Madison, Wisconsin in April 2001. The paper titled "TEACHING THE YORUBA LANGUAGE ONLINE - 2001 AND BEYOND" identified some of the problems faced in rendering Yoruba text properly and viewing it correctly online. The fundamental issue revolves around the fact that all existing Yoruba language capable typefaces (fonts) are proprietary in nature since a Unicode standard for the few characters of the alphabet that are unique to the language is not yet in place. Until there is universality of Yoruba text typeface this problem will continue to plague communicating meaningfully in Yoruba online. It was suggested that Yoruba font developers work together in the interim to standardize character code assignment in their software to make their products cross-compatible pending Unicode action on the matter. Those who are privy to the Unicode agenda may even be in position to influence and expedite work on this vital issue.

It is essential for font developers to have a thorough knowledge of current Yoruba orthography, at least as far as the alphabet characters are concerned. It is also vital to have a comprehensive awareness of the historical evolution of Yoruba orthography. This will ensure availability of ALL the required characters in Yoruba, both past and present to provide for ongoing academic discourse in the language. Yoruba publications from yesteryears are still very much in circulation where the 'tilde' had been used on words that are today represented with the doubling of the vowel.

I have put together what I believe to be the necessary complete character repertoire for Yoruba as my humble contribution towards the subject.
www.learnyoruba.com/ORTHOGRAPHY_1.PDF

Blessings

Adebusola Onabajo Onayemi

Edited by author 09-02-2002 02:55 PM
Given the need Pam expresses /m15 to develop some applications in Yoruba, and the problems Busola mentions below /m17 concerning fonts for using Yoruba orthography on-line, what should CAWD do? Could one of the fonts mentioned earlier ( /m2 ; see also further description of one of those fonts in /m10 ) be used? Something else?

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Edited by author 09-07-2002 04:16 PM
Busola now has his summary of Yoruba orthography available both in .pdf document format at:
http://www.learnyoruba.com/ORTHOGRAPHY_1.pdf
... and in HTML format at:
http://www.learnyoruba.com/orthography_1.htm
(to correctly view the latter you will need to download the YorubaOK.ttf font)

Although Pam's questions go deeper, I think, the fonts part of it seems to be simplified since the above pages explain that "the two conventions of appending an ‘under-bar’ or ‘dot’ to the letters ‘e’ ‘o’ and ‘s’ to form a different and distinct set of letters of the Yoruba alphabet are both acceptable in Yoruba orthography." She could use either of at least two Unicode solutions:
* the YorubaOK font at http://www.learnyoruba.com (though this has some non-standard character placements - see /m10) or
* the Times and Courier fonts with the "Latin Extended Additional" sets at http://ianvink.com/bahai/fonts/index.html (opting for only the "dot" under); these were not designed for Yoruba but as far as I can tell they would work okay except for the double vowel marker.

I'm not sure about the font at http://african.lss.wisc.edu/yoruba/font/index.html . Perhaps someone else knows more about that and others?

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

The company that runs the search engine "Google" has a "Translate Google Into Your Language" program and Yoruba is among the languages for which they are developing support (although only 5% of the site has been translated so far). See: http://services.google.com/tc/Welcome.html

I'm not sure how they'll deal with the letters with marks under and the tone markings. If they use Unicode (despite many people using systems that can't handle it yet) then it might be possible, using where possible the precomposed diacritics (i.e., the e, o, s with dot under).

The fact of having a major web search engine available in Yoruba could be useful anywhere the language is spoken.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Re /m20

a couple of notes:

It would be good to see a google interface in various languages.

There naturally would be problems with fonts and input. There are a couple of fonts that provide passible Yoruba unicode if you restrict yourself from using all capitals. Although its only passible. I guess its a waiting game till appropriate fonts and rendering technologies become available.

Although, I wonder if they'll bother with the diacrtics. Some of the Google language interfaces aren't in native scripts, they just use an over simplified latin transcription.

Its posisble thta if they do Yoruba, they may leave out the diacritics and write Youruba without then. It wouldn't be the first time Google has done that.

It may also be worth thinking about using a unicode based web directory at soem time, maybe amking use of the Open Drectory project http://www.dmoz.org/World, or we have an old bilingual web directory (circa 1999) that could use embedded open type fonts when suitable fonts become available [1].

Andrew

A few quick responses...

First, you mention a couple of fonts - which are these? (Mentioned on this board already or not?)

Second, my impression from other African languages is that folks currently make do with what they have when typing messages etc. In general one can understand the result, as much as in misspelled English or French with no accents, etc. But it's not ideal and one shouldn't have to settle for a "dumbed down" transcription, of course. The first step would be to settle on standards for Unicode characters and then better interfaces for users to use the standard transcription can be developed.

Third, the idea of a Yoruba web directory seems like a good one.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Edited by author 10-20-2002 06:14 AM
I've just learned about a font and keyboard package for Nigerian languages called Konyin (with thanks to Walter Oluwole). See http://www.konyin.com for more information. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Hi Don
I tried to put this information directly on the Yoruba language page but all the links just appeared as ordinary text. I hope it may work better if I send it to you as an email. Pam

I have updated information on the CAWD site- it's not fancy but it is factual. It will be some time before we are actually creating Yoruba web pages, but this is where we are now, and where we are trying to go.
Links of most interest to people interested in the practicalities of an ICT project with people who speak Yoruba are probably
Home page. Includes news update written when I returned from visiting the project http://www.cawd.info/
Background information on Oke-Ogun
http://www.cawd.info/content/okeogun/about.html
Information highway - details of the practicalities of communicating given the existing infrastructure and equipment
http://www.cawd.info/content/highway/about.html
Information traffic - our experiences of information flows and information needs http://www.cawd.info/content/traffic/about.html
Introduction to CAWD and how the Oke-Ogun project came into being http://www.cawd.info/content/cawd/introduction.html
Information about partners
http://www.cawd.info/content/aboutus/partners.html
People involved in the project in Nigeria and the UK
http://www.cawd.info/content/aboutus/people.html

Edited by author 10-23-2002 02:07 PM
Thanks, Pam, for this contribution. It came across fine on the board (the QT software converts text URLs into links). You all have done some nice work on the CAWD site.

When you (or any other readers) are ready to try some Yoruba text online, ask (here) and we'll see what can be done.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Interesting that we could try something with Yoruba fonts. I’ve emailed that information to David Mutua (our field officer in Ago-Are). I heard from him yesterday. He is having difficulty emailing as often as he originally hoped (fortnightly) so it may be some time till he picks up the message and posts some text back.

With regard to the potential audience, David is holding weekly computer lessons at home for his two colleagues, Amos Adeniyi and Timothy Oyawale, and for Maria the cook. David still has no proper office and can’t do much more on IT awareness in the community until that is sorted out – but the mini sessions are going well, and doubtless his ‘pupils’ are telling their friends and family about what they have learnt. It would be brilliant if he could surprise them with some Yoruba.

I’ve suggested the Ago-Are anthem, but David may have other ideas. He is currently being asked for information on two main themes, HIV/AIDS and solar cookers.

Pam

Why can't we write in Yoruba Online? I think we need to address this problem by liasing with font developers, operating system developers like Microsoft. That's the only way forward otherwise there won't be a generic font for Yoruba. I did a survey few years ago, 90% would like to read yoruba contents online not in plain text but in a multimedia form.Yoruba Online content provider should try and present their content in an interactive way,
here is an example of online Yoruba Multimedia Tutor "Memorise Yoruba Alphabet(A-Y)in 30 seconds YorubaLingo series http://www.kazicom.cwc.net/yoruba/yorubatutor.htm

For more information on YorubaLingo series "Yoruba Alphabet, Yoruba Numbers visit: YORUBAWORLD GROUP AT YAHOO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yorubaworld/files/

Olalekan Lawal (Yorubaworld)

re /m27

it is theoretically possible to write Yoruba online. Using legacy encodings would be problematic, but Yoruba is theoretically possible in Unicode.

Open Type fonts suitable for Yoruba are being preduced. Microsoft and other companies are enhancing their font rnedering technologies to allow the display of a rnage of African languages.

At the moment, it is a chase of waiting for the first software solutions under development to become available.

Its already prossible to type and create web pages, but we have to wait for the new fonts and rendering technologies to be able to adeqautely veiw the pages. Hopefully soon the fonts and rendering technologies become available.

There are a range of services online, irc, instant messaging, email clients, web browsers, online forums, etc that are unicode based.

Andj.

This is reposted from A12n-collaboration. It concerns keyboard layouts for Unicode fonts on Macintosh designed by Eric Rasmussen to facilitate typing of extended Latin characters used in many African languages.

> I have finally posted the first of my Latin Extended keyboards at:
> http://homepage.mac.com/chinesemac/LatinExtended/index.html
>
> These are Mac OS keyboards, so the compression format used for the
> downloads is SIT.
>
> I went with a minimum set of African characters, leaving out a number
> of IPA characters in Hartell: small alpha, small u with stroke, small
> turned v, and small r fishhook. [Note that u with stroke and r with
> stroke can be composed using dynamic input.] I also left out a number
> of IPA characters already adopted into Unicode for African (with
> capitals in Latin Extended-B): upsilon and t with retroflex hook,
> neither of which are in Hartell. I added the modifier letter small
> raised w (U+02B7), which is used for Twi.
>
> There will be a version 1.1.1, so additions are still possible...
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Eric

It would be interesting to hear how this works for Yoruba, if anyone has a Mac (OS 9.1, 9.2, 10.2). One may have to opt for the dot rather than the bar under the e, o, and s, I'm not sure.

Regarding Lekan and Andrew's posts /m27 & /m28, it should be possible to send e-mail in Unicode fonts using something like Outlook (as Andrew mentions), though adding the accents for tones would be tedious. One of the problems is the input method (keyboard layout options) another is rendering which I think is what Andrew refers to (which may be especially important if the bar under is preferred?).

It may even be possible for a place like Ago-Are (see /m26) if they have the software. Would it be worth a quick experiment to see how mailing Yoruba in Unicode works?

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

On Windows 98/ME using Tavultesoft Keyman

it is possible to type in HTML forms (input fields and textareas) in Unicode using Opera 6.05

The email client in Opera 6.05 can also accept unicode input from keyman on Win98/ME

MSN Messenger can be used for unicode based instant messaging using keyman to type in.

On windows 2000/XP, there are more options. Keyman will work with Opera 6.05 (browser and email client), Netscape 7/Mozilla (browser and email client), Chatzilla, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express and MSN Messenger.

The key problem is the availablity of appropriate rendering of fonts as mentioned in /m28.

Second problem is that Opera doesn't adequately support uniscribe.

Inhouse, here, we have unicode based forums (similar to Yahoo Groups) that are being developed.

You could always sent messages in this quciktopic forum for testing purposes, you'd have to type the text in as decimal NCRs (numerical character references).

If anyone is interested I have a couple of keyman keyboards I've been playing around with for Yoruba. Haven't done anything with them yet since I wasn't too sure what to do about the diacritics on certain characters (ie a dot below U+0323 [ẹ ọ or ẹ ọ] or a vertical line below U+0329 [e̩ o̩ ]).

Although at teh moment I'm tending to think that maybe they should be treated as glyph variations of U+0329 (and becomes a font design issues) rather than a problem of two completely different characters being used, which would make searching , text processing, collation, textual analysis and many other functions problematic.

Somewhere, not sure where, I think I remember seeing a version of the vertical line below which looked a bit more like a tear drop, i.e. visually partway between a vertical line and a dot.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Andrew

Andrew, Using your suggestion I'll experiment with the opening phrases of the UN Declaration of Human Rights (from http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/yor.htm) in Yoruba in three ways. (Remember, they for some reason had plus signs under the letters.) Apologies in advance to subscribers who will see only the code.

1. Uses extended Latin additional dot-under characters plus accents from the combining characters set (so no combining dots or vertical lines under):

ĚKÉDE KÁRÍAYÉ FÚN Ẹ̀TỌ́ ỌMỌNĚYŔN

Ọ̀RỌ̀ ŔKỌSỌ

Bí ó ti jẹ́ pé ṣíṣe ŕkíyčsí iyě tó jẹ́ ŕbímọ́ fún ẹ̀dá ŕti ědọ́gba ẹ̀tọ́ ṭí kň ṣeé mú kúrň tí ẹ̀dá kọ̀ọ̀kan ní, ni ňkúta ěpělẹ̀ fún ňměnira, ědájọ́ ňdodo ŕti ŕlŕáfíŕ lágbŕáyé, ...

2. Uses the combining dot under U+0323 you were referring to; accents are part of precomposed accented characters (no combining accents):

ĚKÉDE KÁRÍAYÉ FÚN Č̣TỌ́ ỌMỌNĚYŔN

Ṇ̌RṆ̌ ŔKỌ́SỌ

Bí ó ti jẹ́ pé ṣíṣe ŕkíyčsí iyě tó jẹ́ ŕbímọ́ fún č̣dá ŕti ědọ́gba č̣tọ́ ṭ̣̣̣í kň ṣeé mú kúrň tí č̣dá kṇ̌ṇ̌kan ní, ni ňkúta ěpělč̣ fún ňměnira, ědájọ́ ňdodo ŕti ŕlŕáfíŕ lágbŕáyé, ...

3. Uses the combining small vertical line under U+0329 you were referring to; accents are part of precomposed accented characters (no combining accents):

ĚKÉDE KÁRÍAYÉ FÚN Č̩TÓ̩ O̩MO̩NĚYŔN

Ň̩RŇ̩ ŔKÓ̩SO̩

Bí ó ti jé̩ pé s̩ís̩e ŕkíyčsí iyě tó jé̩ ŕbímó̩ fún č̩dá ŕti ědó̩gba č̩tó̩ t̩̩̩̩í kň s̩eé mú kúrň tí č̩dá kň̩ň̩kan ní, ni ňkúta ěpělč̩ fún ňměnira, ědájó̩ ňdodo ŕti ŕlŕáfíŕ lágbŕáyé, ...

If the dot and small vertical line under are indeed equally acceptable (see /m19), which of the above is preferable, the approach in #1 or that of nos. 2 & 3? If #1, then font designers could make the dot under more like a line, if one wanted it that way for aesthetic reasons.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Thanks Don,

for those with their browser configured the right way, /m31 should illustrate the current state of fonts. Although if Don had included combining acutes and graves rather than precomposed versions then you'd get a very good pictuire of why special opentype fonts are needed.

there are a couple of issues, I'd quickly mention releating to Yoruba in Unicode.



1) The entry in the Unicode charts for U+0329 is:

0329 COMBINING VERTICAL LINE BELOW
 • IPA: syllabic
 • Yoruba
 →02CC modifier letter low vertical line

While U+0323 has the following entry:

0323 COMBINING DOT BELOW
  = nang
 • IPA: closer variety of vowel
 • Americanist and Indo-Europeanist:
   retraction or retroflexion
 • Semiticist: velarization or
   pharyngealization
 • Vietnamese tone mark
 →02D4 modifier letter up tack

It would make snese to me to use U+0329, and for Yoruba font designes to consider the dot, bar, tear drop, etc., as glyph variations that way all Yoruba data in the future would use the same unicode codepoints rather than different codepoints.

2) sorting and searching Yoruba unicode text.

o + grave + vertical line below == <U+006F, U+0300, U+0329>

which is canonically equivalent to

o + vertical line below + grave == <U+006F, U+0329, U+0300>

which is canonically equivalent to

o with grave + vertical line below == <U+00F2, U+0329>

the same yoruba character can be represented as three sets of codepoints. If no processing is done on the character strings, it would be difficult to search or sort or compare text.

If an application uses accent ordering the resultant form would be <U+006F, U+0329, U+0300>

If my memory serves me right.

I can easily see different typing/input software for yoruba could use different character strings for the same combination.

Andj.

Martin Benjamin of Yale University posted the following on H-Africa. Between projects like the one he mentions and ones in Africa like what Pam is working on with CAWD in Oke-Ogun (I'll post somthing re that shortly), there certainly seems to be a need for easier and standardized ways of using Yoruba on computers and the internet...
Don Osborn
Bisharat.net
-----------------------
I've been working with colleagues at Georgia Southern University who are launching the Internet Living Yoruba Dictionary. In order for users to access the Yoruba portions of the site, they MUST download and install a special Yoruba font, which is a difficult demand to make of any web user who is not particularly computer savvy, and may be impossible for users at cybercafes where general users are prevented from writing to the hard drive. We developed the font using freeware, and it looks horrible - GSU only just got a grant that enabled the purchase of expensive font design software, so we're hopeful that we can have a good-looking font ready to use soon, but that takes both time and money. Even after users have downloaded and correctly installed the special font, it is difficult to write web pages using the special characters, because they aren't part of the standard keyboard, so special efforts must be invoked that code the characters for the browser every time one appears. We've designed an input system for the Yoruba dictionary that will render the characters correctly, but it involves typing text strings such as e;';. (five keystrokes) in order to produce an e with a dot under it. These sorts of obstacles make developing web pages for many African languages into major technical challenges - and if you were to land at a homepage written in one of those languages without having already installed special fonts on your machine, your computer would render the page as complete gibberish. (The other alternative, for a web author to use gif images for each special character, would tend to make web page file sizes absurdly large, make downloads over slow connections eternal, and would still exclude users from communicating in that language because they would have no font with which to type.)
[from a letter posted to H-Africa list by Martin Benjamin, Yale University, 23-12-02]

Looking at the info Martin gives re the Georgia Southern effort and the hurdles faced by Pam's project are we further from a Unicode solution for Yoruba than some of us had been thinking? The latter faces basic connection issues but the former has many resources at its disposal.

On a12n-collaboration the possibilities of (informal) standards facilitating use of Yoruba and African languages on computers and the internet has been discussed - but are we actually further from that than we thought?

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Don,

in response to your question in /m34

YES and NO

With Georgia Southern the issues related to (as I see it):

* bandwidth considerations on one hand,

* the lack of key yoruba fonts on computers. Irregardless of whether they're using unicode or 8-bit custom fonts, the issue of font availability remains. There is no one Yoruba character set available. each set of fonts uses a different character set, making it difficult to exchange data and provide information online.

Its possible to use dynamic fonts on netscape 4 or IE, or embedded opentype fonts on IE. these web fonts would be downloaded with the page and used to display the web page. (this solution doesn't work on netscape 6 or opera).

Other alternatives include using glyphGate (formerly FAIRY) http://www.glyphgate.com/info/glyphgate.htm. This can be used to provide platform and browser indepedant display of Yoruba, without the need for fonts to be installed.

either way this increases bandwidth requirements for the end user, which isn't the best approach for Yoruba.

In the long run, Unicode makes more sense, although the ideal font rendering technologies aren't available yet.

probably the key issues with unicode is the need to develop a standard correspondence between each yoruba character and unicode. The current confusion between the use of "dot below" and "vertical bar below" and which is used to render the character in unicode. But more on that issue later.

The other need is to develop a satndardized keyboard layout for unicode.

* general IT literacy, ie knowing how to install fonts.

One approach I've always thought was important when designing multilingual web sites, is to develop a tutorial of sorts that teaches or explains to the end user how to downlaod and install fonts and configure the web browser.

Ultimately, there is an educative role that needs to be considered.

Additionally, conversion tools are needed to convert information in one encoding to another.

Assuming a key set of fonts, input software and other useful software is identified. There is still the question of how to make the software accessible and available. Obviously a lot of this can be made available on the web for download. This has the problem of making these resources inaccessible to users who have limited access to the net, or very restrictive bandwidth.

One possibility may be to distibute the material on cdrom or soem other format. It could be sent to projects in regional africa and other key access points.

If tutorials are developed in the target language, they could be bundled onto teh smae cdrom. Just a thought.

What other alternative mechanisms could be used to deploy software and fonts?

* standardized keyboard layouts and software that enables simple and direct input of Yoruba into web pages.

Andrew

Thinking ahead and reflecting on progress to date I have two things in mind ref Yoruba and the Oke-Ogun project.

One relates to our hopes of finding a way to provide email facilities in Ago-Are. If we provided a public access phone then Yoruba would be the dominant language. But I don't know what would be the choice for *written* language. My impression from adult Nigerian friends and acquaintances is that their usual *written* language is English, because although Yoruba was their first *spoken* language English was their first *written and read* language. In their time at school Yoruba had to wait till secondary school - one reason why many Yoruba speaking adults who only went to primary school are not able to read and write. The situation is changing now. I have just been talking to an English teacher, working with VSO in Nigeria. He says that in his experience Yoruba literacy and English literacy get equal attention at primary level. (It is also possible that people who can't yet read and write might be encouraged to try, if written Yoruba was more in evidence.) I would certainly like Yoruba to be offered at our email bureau, even if uptake is slow or non-existent at first.

The second thing I have in mind relates to creating our own content. In December the Oke-Ogun project did its first information providing campaign. It was a three day HIV/AIDS awareness campaign, run in several locations, with the help of local health workers. A local video cameramen recorded some of the proceedings, which were all in Yoruba. Each presentation was followed by lively question and answer sessions. In my mind I see that developing into local content provision. Imagine that we have our ten CDICs (Community Digital Information Centres) - one in each local government area in Oke-Ogun.(or that hundreds, or even thousands of them, are scattered across Yorubaland.) Imagine that the Ago-Are co-ordinating centre had a good video camera and a computer with an editing suite and CD burning facilities. Imagine the various HIV/AIDS live presentations presented instead as short easily selected video clips. Imagine the questions and answers as a series of easily searchable FAQs, in Yoruba of course. Imagine a CD being sent to each of the CDICs. With one of these CDs the CDIC manager could easily present HIV/AIDS awareness sessions for various local groups. It could be a group presentation, so that many people could benefit from the information at one time, and thus it would naturally include people who could not operate a computer, or could not see well, or could not read for themselves. We could repeat this CD production with other local content, as we discovered what was useful to the community. It may be that this more localised need and stand alone approach might come to fruition before all the loose ends can be tied up for connectivity and email.

Pam McLean
On behalf of Oke-Ogun Community Development Agenda 2000 Plus.

>
< replied-to message removed by QT >

Hi Pamela,

a couple of thoughts.

* with our refugee communities from Africa we're finding that combining IT training as part of literacy courses is useful. Its possible that if you really want to tackle email in yoruba, then it might be necessary to also tackle Yoruba literacy at the same time.

* as to the current feasibility of using Yoruba in email. This will depend on how your labs are set up.

Getting to the nitty gritty:

what operating systems are being used?

do you provide a local email server, or do your users ahve to register with an meail service provider else where?

do you use web based interfaces into email, or do you use email clients?

CD-Rom presentations could be worthwhile. Multimedia presentations with image and sound are a very good way of developing materials where literacy might be a barrier.

Andrew

Hi Andrew

Ref what we are using...... We have very little equipment so far. When Peter Adetuji Oyawale (initiator of the project) was killed, in the very early days of the project, all that was left was fragments of his vision and some scattered individuals who still wanted to make it happen.

Our first achievement was to become a small, multi-cultural,voluntary team. We work in our spare time, and reach from rural Ago-Are, via email in Ibadan, to internet connectivity in the UK. So, for equipment, there was simply public access email in the urban area, and my home pc in the UK. Everything moved slowly. Communication was difficult and slow. We had much to learn from each other. Our main strength is our core team and its network, reaching across a wide geographic area in Oke-Ogun and straddling many different social groups.

Our next achievement was to get a full-time community development worker, David Mutua, a Kenyan, via VSO. He was rapidly joined by a local man, Amos Adeniyi, seconded by Atisbo Local Government. That enabled us to get a base in Ago-Are, and begin to start work in earnest.

I was asked by the committee to go to Ago-Are last August to help with David's induction. I took my laptop with me, and a CD-Rom with some snippets of websites, and left them with David. I also left him a digital camera. That is all the equipment we have so far.

David expects to go on a fund-raising course with VSO in January.
We know we have strong foundations of vision, commitment, human networks, local knowledge - things that are hard to quantify but of great value. We are optimistic that during 2003 we will be able to raise our profile and get the pump-priming help and equipment we need. Ideally we want to make symbiotic relationships with people and groups who are like minded, who will value what we do have, and will have access to what we need, so that together we can move forward.

Hopefully by the time we get our equipment, we will be sure enough of what we want to do with it to come up with the right specifications. Advance comments and advice are most welcome. We need to learn all we can from others.

You mention literacy teaching combined with IT training. As a primary school teacher, basic literacy is one of my personal interests, and I will be very interested in other people's experiences. In Oke-Ogun we intend to be needs driven, and want to be as ready as possible for whatever seems most important to people. The project is about opportunities for self-help and access to information. So much is interlinked. Literacy is an important element. Peter was most concerned to include people who cannot read, people like his own parents and friends of his from primary school, who are still in Ago-Are. That is why his vision includes local radio broadcasts in Yoruba.

As Yoruba is the local spoken language, I believe we should be ready to provide it as a written language too, even if there is no apparent demand yet. We believe in being pro-active in exploring needs. Peter was going in with lots of ideas, because he knew the local situation, and the potential of ICTs. Most local people are too busy struggling for survival to get into abstract discussions about what information they might need, but they recognise and appreciate it when they see it.

Our task is to get it flowing.

Pam

< replied-to message removed by QT >

Hi Pamela,

I'll chase up some of my links on literacy and ICT.

As to Yoruba email:

There are two situations: using 8-bit fonts and using unicode. I've been playing around with suing Keyman 5 & 6 for entering Yoruba text (both 8-bit and unicode encodings).

* Unicode:
on Windows98/ME the only browser and email client that will accept unicode input from keyman is Opera 6.05

on win2000/XP its possible to use IE/Outlook Express/Outlook, Netscape7/Mozilla and Opera

No need to go into the problems of unicode fonts at the moment.

* 8-bit
any browser or email client where you can change the font preferences or send email as html rather than text (so that font information is included in the email)

Using 8-bit email clients can be problematic, since the mime type will not be indicated correctly and relies on the person recieving the email on setting their font preferences.

In the environment of a lab of public workstations, If there ai a spefic 8-bit font i wnat to use in the browsers, I assign that font to the user defined encoding slot in IE/Mozilla, to simplify selecting and using that particular font.

If you're using web based public email services (such as yahoo or hotmail, it becomes more complex - since these services tend to assume what langauge you're using).


Likewise, its possible to use IRC/Chat

mIRC is a good choice for 8-bit fonts. It allows you to easily set the font you wnat to use for a chat session.

For unicode irc, Mozilla comes with an unicode based irc client called chatzilla. On the win2000/XP platforms it works well with Keyman 5 & 6. Unfortunately it doesn't currently work with Keyman 5 & 6 on Windows 98/ME.

Thats a brief summary of my "playing" with software

haven't test linux yet, and don't have access to a Mac.

Andrew

Alaafia,

Someone please help me. I am interested in learn to speak yoruba.

Please inform me by emailing dheartmender@hotmail.com

Alaafia,

Someone please help me. I am interested in learning to speak yoruba.

Please inform me by emailing dheartmender@hotmail.com

Edited by author 02-01-2003 11:07 AM
Alaafia
Message 2 on this list introduces a learn Yoruba site (YorubaOK.ttf): http://www.learnyoruba.com. If you try it please tell us all how you get on.
Pam McLean

Thanks, Pam, for responding to this. One of the interesting potentials of the technology that we have yet to really explore is linking people learning languages like Yoruba (who may be quite proficient in computer & internet use) together with people who speak those languages (who may want to learn more about the new technologies and how to use them to advantage locally). Could such connections benefit both?

On a management matter, I'll try to put together a short index soon to help readers find if info they're seeking is already posted here.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Another kind of keyboard is one based on a graphics tablet where input is made with a stylus. One intended for African languages is the Aim8 Pan African Language Tablet - see http://www.largeformatcomputing.com/LTAB/PanAfricanLTAB.htm

The current set of characters does not include the s with dot-under, but my understanding is that this will be revised in the not distant future.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

(Still trying to find time to do an index. In the meantime, one can search the postings by cliicking on "All messages" and then searching with the browser [Ctrl-F on most computers]).

Edited by author 03-08-2003 05:02 PM
Below is a quick index of topics that have come up on this message board thusfar.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Some topics covered so far on
Yoruba language & ICT (fonts, keyboards & applications)

Purpose & name of the board /m1 /m3 /m4

Fonts /m2 /m5 /m10 /m19 /m21 /m22 /m23 /m32 /m33 /m34
Keyboards & input /m23 /m29 /m30 /m44
Orthography - dot/line under /m5 /m6 /m9 /m11 /m12
Orthography - general /m5 /m11 /m13 /m17 /m19 /m31
Orthography - tone marks /m5 /m10 /m31
Unicode tests /m6 /m31
Unicode (see also fonts)
Yoruba online - dictionary project /m33
Yoruba online - learning/teaching /m2 /m3 /m27 /m40 /m41 /m42
Yoruba online - text & websites /m8 /m9 /m11 /m14 /m31
Yoruba online - using it /m27 /m28 /m30 /m31 /m32 /m33 /m34 /m35
Yoruba online - web searches /m20 /m21
Yoruba use in IT project (esp. CAWD) - /m15 /m16 /m18 /m24 /m25 /m26 /m36 /m37 /m38

A draft tablet keyboard layout designed by Lee Pearce and intended specifically for Yoruba and other Nigerian languages can be viewed at: http://www.bisharat.net/A12N/Projects/NigeriaTabletKeyboard.htm. This is part of the redesign process mentioned in /m44. As I understand it, the resulting product will eventually be offered at a new site: http://www.language-keyboard.com/.

Other draft layouts for Africa as a whole and some languages and regions are at http://www.bisharat.net/A12N/Projects/ (top of the page for traditional keyboards; bottom for tablet keyboards).

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Can I do anything of practical use when I visit the Oke-Ogun Community Development Agenda 2000 Plus (OOCD 2000+)team later this year? I'll be leaving from the UK, possibly end May/June but probably end July/August. OOCD 2000+ now has use of 'the BAT building' in Ago-Are as its base. I hope for news soon that the 'necessary minor repairs' are completed. It should then become an excellent place to try things out.

Pam, It's good to get us thinking about it now. Right off hand I'd think that Andrew's test keyboard at http://www.openroad.net.au/languages/files/yi.html might be interesting to test. What sort of systems will you find there when you go back?

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Pam,

if you can give me some idea of operating system and softwrae in use, I could prepare a list of what should work with keyman and the Yoruba keyboard layout.


Andrew

Andrew, and all.

Update on equipment,software and applications.

At present there is just one laptop. Last I heard from David Mutua (field officer in Ago-Are) all his existing software had been corrupted by a virus and he was installing microsoft windows millenium. Today I have had incomplete positive news from Chief Gbade Adeumo (OOCD 2000+ chairman)which gives the impression that at least a couple more computers should be installed before I visit. no details yet.

The OOCD 2000+ team have heard of Open Source and its benefits, but Microsoft is most likely because it is what people know, and nothing is any good unless someone can come and fix it.

OOCD 2000+ has the setting up of an email bureau in Ago-Are as one of its main objectives for this year, but it does not have the funds yet. Emails are still having to be sent from Ibadan.

The laptop is normally used by David. It's also used to do informal ICT awareness sessions, but they have been limited by lack of space. CD-ROMs and VCDs are used to provide information and to demonstrate what web access is like. Opportunities for ICT awareness sessions should be increasing now, because the premises for the OOCD 2000+ centre in Ago-Are were released in January (but with need for 'minor repairs').

I realise we hope to use the Yoruba keyboards for email later, and we hope to generate content in Yoruba for the Information Centres over time, meanwhile we will need some reason for people to try out a Yoruba keyboard. Is there any chance of someone adapting a typing tutor to include with the Yoruba keyboard? Of course not everyone wants to struggle with 'proper' fingering. A simple 'find your way round the keyboard' program would possibly get used by more people.

Presumably you want feedback. If so you might be wanting quality use rather than quantity use, and there are various issues to think about. Perhaps it is simpler than that and we are simply looking for an opportunity to get some kit in place ready for when it can do something useful!

Pam

Hi Pam McLean

ICT Technical Support For Ago-Aare project.

I read through your posting regarding to system breakdown at Ago-Aare. Could you please let me know how we can help, interms of software & hardware support. YorubaWorld Group at yahoo has been supporting users, organisation, business in IT related issues via telephone, remote-access, online text/voice chat and e-mail at no cost to our members worldwide, there is no joining fee all you need to do is to sign up at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yorubaworld/
and started enjoying the benefit of being a member from day one.
Let me know how we can help.

Thanks

Lekan (Yorubaworld)U.K.

Edited by author 03-23-2003 12:16 PM
YOU ARE INVITED: Alafia. I'd like to invite everybody to the lauching of Chief IfaYemi Elebuibon's new film called Eko Eleko. The film will be showing on March the 29th. This is a film on Odu ifa. I think you will find it intersting. Please follow my link for details. http://www.geocities.com/osunyoyin/

Thank you Lekan for updated info on Yorubaworld in /m51 (remembering your previous note /m27). It is interesting to note that participants are contributing some in Yoruba, though without the marks under and accents - not ideal, but does that make text hard to understand?

Thank you Osunyoyin for your info on the film in /m52. I've a couple of comments (rather tangential I admit). First, looking at the flyer for the film I am curious to know how the Yoruba term at the top was composed - from the looks of it, with the dots under appearing a bit to the left of the letters it would seem that the designer had the same problem that others have had with composing characters with current software. Just to see, I have retuyped this term four ways (a bit like what I did in /m31)

1. Precomposed dot-unders + combining accents
OLÓKUNASỌ̀RỌ̀DAYỌ̀

2. Precomposed accented letters + dot-under
OLÓKUNASṆ̌RṆ̌DAYṆ̌

3. Precomposed accented letters + vertical line under
OLÓKUNASŇ̩RŇ̩DAYŇ̩

4. Simple letters + combining accent + dot-under
OLÓKUNASỌ̀RỌ̀DAYỌ̀

All this is not going to display properly unless the font is right (you'll have to copy to Word to see). In my version of Word I had more problems with appearance of the combining accent than with the marks under. In any event, though we're talking about default fonts and how to make extended characters work in this forum, it's certainly a broader problem as you, readers of Yorubaworld, and others have found.

The second point regarding the film, and films in Yoruba in general, is whether you or anyone has discussed the possibility of doing "same language subtitling" in Yoruba as an educational tool? This technique is being used quite successfully in India to help people learn to read their languages and probably has great potential in Nigeria and the rest of Africa.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Don,

re four Yoruba samples in /m53

You'll get different results in Mozilla and Internet Explorer, Mozilla displays 1)to 4) fairly well, except for the very last diacritic on each line.

Internet Explorer is lacking the ability in uniscribe to correctly place the diacritics, you'll get a slightly better result with the combining acute/grave using lowercase characters, instead of uppercase characters.

Additionally, with the dot-below forms, there is another variation, NFC (Normalization Form C) output, using all precomposed characters, except when you have both a dot below and an accent, in which case use the precomposed dot-below, and then use combining accent. That is if you have an accent (without a dot below) use the precomposed form).

With the vertical line below, 3) would be in NFC.

Andrew

WHAT IS CAUSING THE DELAY?

1. When will a proper Yoruba font availble for an online content? Many Language fonts features in every newly release of Windows Version, when should we expect Yoruba font to be embedded in Windows Operating System or availble for online content without rendering problem.?

2. HAS ANYONE IN THIS FORUM KNOW HOW WE CAN OVERCOME THIS FONT PROBLEM & HOW CAN WE FUND THE PROJECT.

3. Do we have to wait until this Yoruba font is available before generating online content?

4. What is the opinion of Nigerian government/ department of culture, Yoruba Organisations, Yoruba scholars, Yoruba authors and Publishers of Yoruba books, on this font issue?

I would be glad if anyone can furnish me with up-to-date information concerning the above questions.

Thanks

Lekan Lawal (YorubaWorld)

re. /m55

1) & 2) It is not just a question of fonts and of font rendering systems, but also a question of confusion over orthographic conventions.

1a) some yoruba fonts use a dot below as a diacritic, some yoruba fonts use a small vertical line instead of a dot. Are both correct, or is only one correct. In unicode they are very different character sequences. If someone writes a unicode web page using a dot below, but someone searches in a search engine using teh virtical line below, then the searcher will never find the web page in question.

These disparate conventions for writing Yoruba are a hugh barrier.

1b) Yoruba requires the use of combining diacritics. True type fonts are unable to handle combining diacritics properly. OpenType fonts or Graphite enabled fonts are required.

Microsoft are currently updating unsicribe, their complex script rendering system to include MarkToBase and MarkToMark features of OpenType. Fonts with these features built in will display correctly. Hopefully the next release of Office (currently in Beta) will have the required support.

Additionally, SIL are working on an opensource rendering engine that they are building into their won software and are also adding to Netscape 7. It should be available latter this year.

1c) Yoruba web designers using unicode, need to normalise their web pages. W3C recommend that all web content be in NFC.

A the moment it is possible to create yoruba unicode web pages if you aren't too fussy about typographic display and don't use a lot of upercase characters.

I have an experimental version of uniscribe taht I use with teh latest version of the Code2000 font which displays Yoruba very well. I can create yoruba unicode web pages now using a text editor and a unicode keyboard layout I designed for Yoruba.

It can be done now! But current rendering is not ideal (esp. uppercase characters with acute/grave) and the positioning of the vertical line below. But as I said the experimental version of uniscribe seems to work very well and overcomes many of these problems.


Once the rendering systems are available to everyone, its just a case of accessing appropriate fonts with the required opentype and graphite font tables.

3) As I said previously, its possible to create content now, given the above mentioned restrictions. The key problem in the future is not going to be the fonts, but rather which characters are being used (the dot-below vs. vertical-line-below diacritics).

Don's test should give you some idea if the fonts on yoru system and your web browsers preferences will adequately dispplay the test. Although as I mention in my previous post if Don had used lower case characters, the text might display better than in uppercase:

olókunasò̩rò̩dayò̩ 

4) No idea. I suspect that they're still using the older non-unicode fonts.

Andrew

re /m55 and /m57

For those interested:

I just put together a sample page of a range of characters used in the current and older orthographies, a bit of a mixed bag.

I've put up a screen shot at http://www.openroad.net.au/languages/files/docs/sample.jpg

The screen shot is using an updated version of uniscribe (Microsoft's complex script rendering technology) that was released to the font development community. It isn't available to the public yet, put should be available in the next version of office and hopefully a future release of IE.

All the standard characters for Yoruba (including combining diacritics) display well.

I was using an updated Yoruba unicode keyman layout, that I finished updating this morning, for typing, Internet Explorer 6 SP1, and the Unicode font Code2000 (version 1.13), as well as an updated version of uniscribe. I used emeditor to create the XHTML file.

So it would appear good screen display of Yoruba unicode text and HTML is just around the corner.

Andrew

re /m58

For those interested in tinkering with Yoruba in Unicode, I've put a copy of an updated keyman layout and documentation.

The help file is available at http://www.openroad.net.au/languages/files/yo40.html

The keyman layout package is available at http://www.openroad.net.au/languages/files/yo40.zip

I still need to write up notes on font and rendering issues. Hopefully I'll have time tomorrow.

Any feedback on the keyboard layout would be appreciated.

This new version has been designed to be flexible. It allows you to type NFC output. Its also possible to type NFD output (fully decomposed with some cannonical accent reordering).

.
The keyboard layout from Andrew Cunningham looks good.

Andrew, have you considered adding currency symbols, like the
Naira and the Euro?

Best regards,

James
.

Thanks James,

thats a good idea.

Andrew

I've incorporated James' suggestion in /m60 and incorporated some currency symbols.

Updated versions of the keyboard are available at:
http://www.openroad.net.au/languages/files/yo41.html

the help files are at:
http://www.openroad.net.au/languages/files/yo41.zip

Andrew

I'm taking the liberty of reposting something Andrew wrote in correspondence that might be of wider interest. DZO

Current state of affairs:

1) Unicode Keyboard layout for Yoruba has under gone a few changes, I think i'm at version 4.1 although the latest on the web site is 4.0

A couple of fundamental questions still exist with respect to Yoruba orthography and the best way of representing it in Unicode. There seems to be two traditions in Yoruba typography, one is to use a character with a dot below it, the second tradition is to use a small vertical bar below the character.

In unicode these are very different character sequences. And in the long term will make searching the internet/databases and many other tasks more difficult than need be.

The current keyboard layout supports both traditions, and also supports diacritic usage of older orthographies for textbook purposes.

Although, this is more complex that would actually be needed. A keyboard layout that is more simplified, in the sense of supporting a single orthography, would be better suited to Pamela's needs. Its a quick and easy thing to adapt a keyboard alyout and generate a new keyman layout package.

I guess, with respect to Yoruba literacy projects and to internet usage for Yoruba, which characters would be required, ie which tradition (dot-below or small-vertical-line-below) would be most appropriate.

2) For Unicode, Yoruba needs to use appropriate OpenType or Graphite enabled fonts.

Currently there are two, Doulos SIL Regular (beta) and Code2000 which I'm testing.

3) Updated rendering systems and applications that can use these updated rendering systems.

I'm currently running some tests on SIL software (WorldPad and a graphite enabled version of Netscape 7). Seems to work well.

The beta release of Microsoft Office 2003 contains an updated version of uniscribe and support for comining diacritics. Just recieved it today, and am putting it through its passes. draw back of Office 2003 will be that its operating system requirements are Windows 2000 SP3 and better or Windows XP.

because of that, the SIL solution looks a bit more promising.

Some other microsoft products and third party products like Windows Messenger, Internet explorer, Emeditor, BabelPad, WordPad, NotePad among others will work even on older versions of Windows, if the programs can use an updated version of Uniscibe.

Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't allow uniscribe to be distributed independantly of its software. Currently the only software available with the updated uniscribe is Microsoft Office 2003 beta 2. I'm hoping that a some point soon an internet Explorer service pack or update will be available with the newer uniscribe.

Once an updated uniscribe becomes available it should be possible to put up Yoruba unicode websites. Not everyone will have the fonts, but it should be possible to use embedded opentype fonts. It may be possible to use server side solutions such as GlyphGate.

Hope this provides something of an update.

I'll check my notes to make sure that I don't have any details wrong.

Andrew

An apology; a request; and an update.

The apology is to Lekan Lawal for my delay in replying to your kind offer of help. If I had your personal email address I would explain - but not via the list. I was most excited by your offer of help and hope your group and ours will discover ways to work together – in Nigeria and the UK. I did not manage to get details of the laptop problem, but it seems to be okay again now.

The request.
I don’t speak anything except English, and would really like to do better next time I go to Nigeria. I do at least want to manage the politeness of getting a few simple phrases right. I did try last time but I had to ask my friends to repeat things over and over, even simple things like ‘thank you’(is it ‘esse’?) and still I would forget. I felt ashamed to keep asking. This time I have acquired a Dictaphone, so I can record what people say for me and practise afterwards. I hope to collect it in this format. I’ll ask the person to say the word or phrase once in English first, then say it three times in Yoruba. First very slowly so I can hear the bits, then ordinary speed so I know what it should sound like, then ordinary again so I can speak along with the tape. I will also try to get a written list of the words in the order they have been spoken, both in English and in Yoruba –partly so I can fast forward or back to find what I want, and partly to help me get the Yoruba word right. Perhaps someone already has a tape like this. Any ideas?

The update.
The OOCD 2000+ Information Centre in Ago-Are is due to be formally commissioned on June 10th. I hope to go out again in August.

This is what I am told about the computers:
“Three desktop computers pentium 3 we installed
windows xp professional - For networking we have a hub, two UPS
(Uninteraptable power supply)equipments, Stabilizer
and networking cable. We yet to purchase a generator as planned in order to
have a standby power supply when electricity cuts
happen.”

David Mutua, the project manager in Ago-Are says that a number of Special Interest Groups are starting to develop – i.e. people in Oke-Ogun with a shared interest in how the Information Centres could help them (for example education, health, renewable energy). We do not have a Yoruba Special Interest group yet - but I think one could be on the way.

Pam

Pam, The Afara initiative for Yoruba language & ICT may be of interest to your efforts, as per the posting on A12n-forum:
http://www.pin.itgo.com/afara/index.htm

BTW, A12n-forum is a brand new forum for all African languages and ICT that may be of interest to some readers of this board. See: http://lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/a12n-forum

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Edited by author 06-04-2003 10:17 AM
Attn: PAM
Got your message, I've compiled the greetings in Yoruba available in both audio and readable format as requested. (word document, pdf format & Mp3 audio format)playable on DVD player that has Mp3 features / on PC or Apple Mac. It can be coverted to CD audio format which is playable on any CD player. I can be reached at yorubaworld@hotmail.com

Thanks for your time.

Lekan Lawal (YorubaWorld)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yorubaworld/

Update: ingnore previous posting

Attn: PAM
Got your message, I've compiled the greetings in Yoruba available in both audio and readable format as requested. (word document, pdf format & Mp3 audio format)playable on DVD player that has Mp3 features / PC or Apple Mac. It can be coverted to CD audio format which is playable on any CD player. I can be reached at yorubaworld@hotmail.com or If you have Yahoo Messenger add me to your friends list as Sir_Lawie

Thanks for your time.

Lekan Lawal (YorubaWorld)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yorubaworld/

Dear Lekan
Fantastic. I look forward to trying it out. Thank you.
I think 'thank you' is 'esse'- with you help I'm about to find out :-)
Pam

Hi Don
Ref your message about Titi and teh new A12n forum list. Titi and I 'met' earlier this week through her colleague Gbenga Sesan. He had found Andrew Cunningham and me through searching the internet for Yoruba things. Titi, Gbenga and I are exploring possible collaboration, on behalf of our various organisations and all feeling very positive about ideas currently under discussion.
Pam

I'm in the Yoruba religion and would like for someone to translate this name for me:
OYA NIRE
I know I'm not spelling it right

Thanks

Olo - You may want to try a group like http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yorubaworld/ re translation questions (/m70).

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Pam, Re your message /m69, the announcement re the "ALT-I" Yoruba keyboard is at http://www.nigeria.com/dcforum/DCForumID1/1815.html. I copied this URL to the A12n-forum. It would be interesting to have the keyboard's creators participate on this board and the A12n lists so that information is more readily shared among all.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

I will Like to know the various gods that have existed in Nigeria and their roles and everything about them. Send the answer to me at salaulat@yahoo.com.

I'm being blessed in the religion and need to learn as much as possible on the yoruba language does anybody have any ideas????

Dear Members:

We have keyboard that has all Nigerian alphabets. If you are interested
please let me know. Once you have this keyboard you don't have to change
your keyboard before you type in English...it is all in all keyboard.
It is called KONYIN keyboard and the driver software is Windows Ž OS based,
which allows the driver to be application independent. The keyboard works
like any other standard keyboard driver, with enhanced functionalities for
Nigerian users. In short, it is a standard keyboard driver for everyday use
and it allows users to type Nigeria specific unique alphabets without
changing how you type today. Users do not have to remember any complicated
codes or shortcuts. The software is designed for use both at homes and
offices.
The Keyboard driver software uses proprietary source codes to generate all
the identified unique alphabets. The source codes further create a Nigeria
specific code-page in your computer registry, which means that you will be
able to see the Nigerian currency sign any time you use a spreadsheet
application like Microsoft Excel or Lotus.

System requirements: Windows Ž (9x, ME, NT, W2k, XP professional). KONYIN
basic package includes keyboard and wrist pad, keyboard driver software only
$99.98 please add shipping and handling cost. If you are buying from
California please add 8.25% tax. Thank you for your inquiry.

Oládňkun

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The URL for the Konyin system mentioned in /m75 is http://www.konyin.com/

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

The following, which was posted on the Multilingual_Literacy list* may be of interest:

Some Yoruba Digital Dictionary Projects Easily Accessible Online

1. Awo Yoruba Dictionary at Awo Study Center Published as four PDF Documents
http://www.awostudycenter.com/classroom.htm

2. Yoruba Language as Spoken in Cuba and Parts of USA- Lucumi Vocabulary
http://www.seanet.com/~efunmoyiwa/vocab.html

3. Yoruba-Spanish-Yoruba Dictionary
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bioenergylist/message/43

4. Dictionary Usuel Yoruba to French
http://www.addall.com/Browse/Detail/0320004716.html

5. Yoruba - English - Yoruba Digital Dictionary Development by African Language Resource Council (ALRC) based at University of Pennsylvania in collaboration with Prof. Yiwola Awoyale from the University of Ilorin in Nigeria and Akin Akinlabi From Rutgers University.
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~seidlf/ALRC.html

6. United States Department of Education and Dr. Arasanyin Yoruba Digital Dictionary Development Project
http://www2.gasou.edu/writling/other_visitors/grants.htm

7. Yale Center for International and Area Studies and Dr. Ore Yusuf from University of Ilorin, Nigeria working on Yoruba Digital Dictionary Project and Yoruba Linguistics.
a) http://www.yale.edu/ycias/scholars.htm
b) http://www.yale.edu/ycias/african/ygrall/yoruba/linguistics.html

8. Electronic Dictionaries of African Languages- European Association For Lexicography Newsletter
http://www.ims.uni-stuttgart.de/euralex/newsletter/9802.html

COMMENT: The list above is by no means exhaustive. I will not be surprised to learn that some large mulinational companies and religious establishments already have in use Yoruba Digital Dictionaries not currently available to us all online.

Warm Regards and Best Wishes,
From Dr. Samuel Kayode Olamijulo

* http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Multilingual_Literacy/message/32

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orisha.

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We study the 256 odu of Ifa and merindilogun revealing the secrets of the lukumi and traditional yoruba.

Iba se O !

It would be interesting to know how much of the e-mail on Yoruba-related groups such as the one in /m80 is in Yoruba. I haven't searched lately, but am sure there must be a variety of Yoruba-related groups on Yahoo for example. The problems with representing the dot (or small vertical line) under characters and tone marks in Yahoo can be gotten around but are perhaps too cumbersome for many?

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Alaafia

I need the yoruba fonts for my word program. Send me a email ochabi_whitedove@yahoo.com.

Adupe O

RE: Yoruba Font

visit www.learnyoruba.com or www.Bisharat.net to down load it.

There is a new site dedicated to Yoruba affairs, please check it out - http://www.dnetcom.com there is a lot of software and multimedia applications on the site designed to help those learning the language

The following announcement is a little off topic, but seems important enough to share here. From an ICT perspective it does raise questions as to what kind of wordprocessing and publishing softwares were used for the book (not a new issue, but the interface between the two hasn't really been explored here).

Aké. Ní Ěgbŕ Čwe (Aké. The Years of Childhood)
Wole Soyinka & translated into Yoruba by Akiwumi Isola

Aké: Years of Childhood, Wole Soyinka's classic autobiographical narrative of childhood was first published in 1981. Originally composed in English, this is a new, and unique translation of the text into Yoruba, Soyinka's mother tongue, and national language. In the narrative, the author recounts the first eleven years of his life in 1930s and 1940s Nigeria. He portrays a child's discovery of the world, his place in it, and the human and natural environment, and the beginnings of his literary imagination. Wole Soyinka is one of Africa's most outstanding intellectuals, and greatest writers. He is the only black African to have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1986. The author has spent long periods in political exile, but is now living again in Nigeria, and was actively engaged in this translation project, with the translator, who is a personal friend and colleague of the author's. Aké has recently been listed in Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Cenury.
9782030287 294pp. 2001 [publ. 2003] Bookcraft $31.95/Ł19.95 - cased

Ejemhen O'Connell
Sales and Marketing Officer
African Books Collective
The Jam Factory
27 Park End Street
Oxford
OX1 1HU
www.africanbookscollective.com

[North American Customers are reminded to order books from Michigan State University Press : msupress@msu.edu ]

UNICODE COMPATIBLE YORUBA FONT
Congratulations to Akinwunmi Ishola for his
achivements regarding the Wole Soyinka book.
It is also of great interest to me and I guess many people out there what word processing,proofing and publishing tools were used for his accomplishments.
In particular,is anybody aware of a UNICODE compatiple Yoruba font currently available with tonal marks of "\" "/" or "~" on top of relevant Yoruba letters ?
Olamijulo S.K.

Samuel, Several possibilities include:

Konyin - http://www.konyin.com/ - mentioned in /m75 & /m78

Learn Yoruba - http://www.learnyoruba.com - also mentioned in /m83

You may want to consider a free font called Gentium you can access via http://www.sil.org/~gaultney/gentium

I believe the Code 2000 font should also suit your needs - see http://home.att.net/~jameskass/

If you have the patience to browse back through the earlier messages you may find more info. There were also discussions of the tone markings and dot/line under issues.

Hope this helps.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Edited by author 02-29-2004 05:59 AM
Checking back on the Georgia Southern University Yoruba dictionary project (see /m33, also /m34 & /m35), I see that it is available as Čdčyčdč Project: Internet Living Yoruba Dictionary at http://www.yoruba.gasou.edu/ (actually this info was given to me a few months back but at the time I was travelling and am only now getting back to it). From a quick tour it seems an impressive effort, and Profs. Arasanyin, Benjamin and others who have worked on it deserve a lot of credit.

Taking a look at orthography and font issues, since these are at the core of standardization that will facilitate use of Yoruba on computers and the internet: They've opted to use dot under rather than line under - a valid option at this time, since the issue does not seem to have been decided one way or another - and to use a non-Unicode font - which is more problematic.

In order to accomplish the latter, there are some character substitutions for dot-under characters with tone marking. That therefore requires that you use their special font - once you download it the display is fine. With their font, look up the Yoruba equivalent(s) of an English word and get one or more related entries. (Without the font, don't bother unless you know Yoruba well enough to figure out what is meant.)

The problems come with compatibility with other applications - you can't paste in a Yoruba word correctly written in Unicode (or a different 8-bit font, but that is why Unicode was created in the first place) to do a reverse lookup of the English meaning. For example, on my computer & browser, if I take the Yoruba word for horse,
ẹṣin
composed with the standard Unicode characters you see here to paste in the search window, I will not get a result. The same word correctly spelled in their 8-bit font shows up in the search window as
ć˙in
but it works.

But again, if you have a Yoruba text in Unicode font and want to copy and paste in a word to look it up, you can't. You'd have to have text in their font or input using key sequences described at http://www.yoruba.georgiasouthern.edu/font.htm (though it was not clear to me how to download the keyboard for this, even though downloading the font was no problem).

While overall this online project seems to be a great resource, I fear that the choices made re font will complicate matters for Yoruba on computers and the web. Part of the problem seems to me (as an outside observer) to be a lack of communication among diverse people and projects working on Yoruba for ICT. Noting that there are more than a few Yoruba projects (see for instance /m79), maybe what is needed is some sort of summit or (UNESCO-supported) "expert meeting" along the lines of those held in the past in Nigeria and the region to discuss standardization of transcriptions and the emerging (already here!) ICT questions that need to be addressed.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Hi Don,

The Internet Living Yoruba Dictionary site is facinating and a valuable resource, although an archaic approach. interesting to note that have labelled their website as being charset=iso-8859-1.

I suspect that given the current state of play with combining daicritics in web browsers, they wouldn't have much choice and had to select an 8-bit legacy font.

Although Unicode support using SILA or Drusilla implementations of Mozilla would have been better.

With regard to direct input. I couldn't see any info on keyboard software either, but it would be fairly quick and easy to create a keyman keyboard to type directly into the dictionary

As to the inability of cutting and pasting to and from Word. One solution would be to create a mapping file between the Yoruba font and Unicode. SIL have a tool called TECKit, it has a Microsoft Word plugin that will allow you to do a direct encoding conversion within a word document.

I've used this mechanism for converting legacy documents to unicode for a number of African languages in the past.

If people are interested, I could look at creating a mapping table for this font. Or maybe two mapping tables, one ofr dot-blow and one for vertical-line below, so people could choose which representation they convert the document to.

Andj

I posted a message re the Yoruba online dictionary similar to the one below /m89 on the Unicode & A12n-collaboration groups. Here is a reaction by James Kass:

Don Osborn wrote about the on-line Yoruba dictionary.

Without some kind of an agreement among Yoruba users as to which combining mark should be used under certain letters (vert. line or dot), Unicode font development for Yoruba is pretty much stymied. This is really a shame.

It's also too bad that the good folks behind the dictionary project didn't use an existing 8-bit encoding scheme rather than adding to the disarray.

Best regards,

James Kass

Edited by author 03-14-2004 04:08 AM
Here's another reaction, this one from Chris Jacobs, to the message on Unicode & A12-collaboration lists. He offers another technique to the one proposed by Andrew in /m90 to entering a Unicode text search item in the Yoruba online dictionary lookup window.

It is easier to get the input for the search window from the unicode if you work with decomposed chars. The search window accepts the non-conformant decomposed chars described at http://www.yoruba.georgiasouthern.edu/font.htm

If you have the text in UniPad try the following:

Edit Convert Decompose Combinations, and then Search Replace Text to find: "\u0323" Replace with: ";." Replace All

For ẹṣin this yields e;.s;.in which you can insert in the search window too.

Since the input for the search window already does not have to be the font codes a non-conformant font is not as bad as it first seemed. I think it should be not that hard to change the search window to let it accept unicode too.

Chris Jacobs wrote,

> If you have the text in UniPad try the following:
>
> Edit Convert Decompose Combinations, and then
> Search Replace Text to find: "\u0323" Replace with: ";." Replace All

Or "\u0329", depending on which combining mark was used in the source.
Also, since the mark below can appear along with a combining grave or acute, those decompositions would have to be considered in the search and replace operations.

> Since the input for the search window already does not have to be the font
> codes a non-conformant font is not as bad as it first seemed.
> I think it should be not that hard to change the search window to let it
> accept unicode too.

Perhaps they've chosen their custom encoding in order to side-step the mark-below issue. As you say, it shouldn't be hard to enable Unicode in their search window. And, once an agreement within the user community is reached on the mark below, it shouldn't be that hard to convert their entire web site and database to Unicode, too!

Best regards,

James Kass

Hello all,
First, I would like to commend the effort that has been put into the aid and development of Yoruba on the computer and the internet. I am very excited reading about the progress that has been made, work that is currently being done by various people... I am very optimistic about what the future holds!

I would like to touch on the issue of the use of a vertical line vs. a dot under the characters "e", "o" and "s". I have also seen the two variants being used on the internet, as well as in different publications. I was born and brought up in Nigeria, and I definitely belong to the Yoruba user community. While learning Yoruba language in elementary school in Nigeria (In Ile-Ife, the cradle of the Yoruba race:)), I was taught to use the dot, NOT the vertical line. In fact, I do not know of anyone who was taught to use the vertical line while learning Yoruba in Nigeria – and I have friends and relatives who were taught Yoruba all over Nigeria. If there is a person that was taught otherwise, please share/correct me if I am wrong:)!

While I was in Nigeria, I read several Yoruba publications, some of them dating years and years back. From what I have seen in Yoruba writing, the dot has been predominantly used. The line was used as well, but it seemed to me that the line was more of a variation of the dot... like the dot kind of went 'out of control', if you know what I mean. You know this can happen if you are writing a dot really fast – so a dot might end up looking like a short line. As well, I don’t know if there were some technicalities involved with printing/publishing the dot in those days – maybe it was sometimes easier for writers/printers/publishers just to use the line instead of the dot? I do not know. In any case, I believe that the dot was what our Yoruba ancestors started out with at the very beginning.... and this is what children are still taught in school today, to my knowledge.

I agree that the inconsistency in the use of the vertical line vs. the dot is definitely a hindrance to the progress of the development of standard Yoruba fonts and technologies. It is also confusing for people trying to learn Yoruba, as well as for people that are not too fluent in Yoruba. Plus, it just doesn't look good:( :) Some websites use one variation, some use the other. In fact, both variations are often used on the same websites! Two of the best Yoruba learning websites I have been opportuned to browse briefly are www.learnyoruba.com and www.konyin.com (really great work, I am really impressed!). www.learnyoruba.com makes users aware that both conventions are acceptable. I noticed on both sites that both variations are actually used... For example, on www.learnyoruba.com, "Ko" in "Ko Yoruba" is written with a dot, while "E" in "E Kaabo" is written with a vertical line. As well, "Koyin" is written with a dot on the Koyin homepage, but "E" is written with a line on other parts of the website.

Apart from the fact that I believe the dot was what Yoruba's originally started out with, I think it looks much nicer – look how nice "Ko Yoruba" looks (with a dot), compared to "E Kaabo"(with a line)! :) :) :) As well, putting the dot under makes it distinct from the main character, and so I think it is even more effective than the line, which usually looks more like an extension of the main letter – i.e. using a dot shows that the same letter has a different sound because of the dot. From my understanding, it also seems like the dot is technically easier to implement (font wise).

I am not sure why some people prefer the use of the vertical line – so I cannot really speak on this. Maybe it is technically easier for some to implement for use on the internet? I do not know. We definitely need to come to an agreement however, so that we can move forward. :) How can this be done? How can we come to an agreement on what is "acceptable"? I'm not sure which governing body has the authority to make this decision. If any one knows of the final authorities on the Yoruba language, please share. In any case, I hope we can come to this decision quickly, and I hope we decide on the dot :) :) :)!


Bomi O.

From a technical and font development point of view, it is our opinion in KONYIN that "dot" or "vertical line" is really a font style issue and should not be confused with the character itself.

First, Unicode has all the three characters with its unique coding. This is the first step in integrating these characters into common computing. As more and more Operating Systems (OS) and Applications incorporate complete Unicode characters into their default font programs, these characters will become easy to access during regular typing.

Second, the three standard fonts (Arial, Time New Roman & Courier New) in most OS has “e” and “o” with dots, the most updated font "Arial Unicode MS" has all three characters with dot.

Third, the three characters are actually part of the Yoruba alphabets. Unlike tonal signs, these are unique alphabets in themselves. Let me remind everybody that alphabets come in different styles in various fonts. Fonts like Algerian and Courier uses styles different from Arial or Time New Roman.

The issue of "Font style" should not be confused with alphabets substance. There should be room for various font styles including these three alphabets.

During our research for KONYIN development, we came across styles that included "horizontal line", "dot", "tear drop" and "vertical line." We concluded that these font styles does not substantially change the alphabet or its pronunciation, it amounts to variety. Like some wise persons use to say "variety is the spice of life"

We think the real substantive issue with incorporating Yoruba into day-to-day computing environment is developing coherent “National Language Support” and Keyboard Drivers that work on any OS and all software applications. The problem in resolving the coherent issue is that Yoruba is not synonymous with a country. Nigeria for example includes Yoruba and other languages. At KONYIN we decided that a multilingual approach is the best solution. A commercially acceptable keyboard and driver that incorporates all unique alphabets in major languages in the specified country is the best way to encourage commercial usage.

Here's a bit more on the dot versus the vertical line. It's very interesting to hear that Yoruba students in Nigeria are taught to use the dot.

Quoting Andrew Cunningham from May, 2002 archived at:
http://lists.kabissa.org/lists/archives/pu...ation/msg00119.html
(Thu, 09 May 2002 12:25:30 +1000 )
> The whole U+0329 versus U+0323 business.
>
> I've been going through some sources that I can locate close to hand on
> Yoruba, there appears to be two vowels: e with vertical bar below , and
> o with vertical bar below that have caused soem confusion in teh past.
> From what I understand the appearance of the diacritic is sometimes a
> dot and soemtimes a short vertical bar, actually looking at the fonts I
> have on handd for Youruba it looks more liek a water drop or tear drop.
>
> The Unicode charts indicate that U+0329 COMBINING VERTICAL LINE BELOW is
> a yoruba diacritic. Its interesting to note that a proposal to add 14
> precomposed Youruba characters was rejected (since these characters
> should be formed by using combining diacritics).
>
> Some sources indicate that U+0323 COMBINING DOT BELOW (and the derived
> precomposed forms: U+1EB8, U+1EB9, U+1ECC, U+1ECD, etc) is soemtimes
> used for Yoruba.
>
> To my way of thinking:
>
> 1) U+0329 is the correct diacritic for Yoruba
>
> 2) There is stylistic variation in teh appearance of the diacritic (dot,
> bar, water drop) basically variations suitable for the design of the
> typeface
>
> 3) U+0323 should not be used for Yoruba. Its use will make text
> analysis, comparison and searching very problematic
>
> 4) Unicode fonts supporting Yoruba will require the open type features
> to enable diacritic stacking
>
> Does this make sense?

(The letter "s" can also take the combining mark below.) Andrew is correct that the combining vertical line below character is specifically annotated in the Unicode Standard as being a diacritic for Yoruba.
Quoting from a page by J. C. Wells at:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/dia/diacritics-revised.htm

> In Yoruba, a dot below is used for two purposes. In Ẹẹ and Ọọ it
> denotes a half-open vowel (nowadays classified by phoneticians
> as characterized by the absence of advanced tongue root, -ATR),
> as against the half-close, advanced-tongue-root vowels written
> as plain Ee Oo. These dotted letters can be combined with acute
> or grave tonemarks, e.g. ẹ́ ọ̀. Dotted Ṣṣ represents a palatoalveolar
> fricative, IPA [ʃ]. In some fonts or styles a subscript vertical line
> is used instead: E̩e̩ O̩o̩ S̩s̩. For example, in Bamgboṣe 1966 the
> diacritic is printed as a dot in the serif font of the main text,
> but as a vertical line in the sans serif font of the examples.
> According to Hein 1996, although the dot is widely used, purists
> prefer the vertical line. In the orthography of another Nigerian
> language, Ibo (Igbo), the dot is used only for -ATR vowels,
> in Ịị Ọọ Ụụ.

Quoting from an article titled "YORUBA ORTHOGRAPHY" by
Ayo Bamgbose, circa mid-1970s (not his 1966 booklet of the same name):
"7. That the diacritic mark indicating open vowels should be a vertical bar (tail) or a dot but never a dash ... This should also be the case for the consonant s ... "

Quoting from notes kindly provided by Adebusola Onayemi in 1999:

"The Yoruba alphabet also has a distinct diacritic mark for the letters e, o, and s which implies a different sound and meaning when applied as opposed to when it is not. This mark is either a short vertical bar or a dot placed under these letters. It is of note that this vertical bar (tail) should abut the letter underneath i.e. with no space between it and the letter as is the case with the dot. ..."

(More on the Yoruba orthography can be found in this paper by
Adebusola Onayemi at:
http://www.learnyoruba.com/ORTHOGRAPHY_1.pdf )

This page,
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/JPN-yoruba.html
... shows The Lord's Prayer (plus the Hail Mary) using various diacritics. (Note the use of the e-with-tilde-with-combining-vertical-line-below in the second example. The tilde in Yoruba is now considered archaic.)
It's my understanding that the vertical line below must attach to the base letter.

This would mean that fonts offering vertical lines below which *don't* attach would be incorrect for Yoruba and fonts offering vertical
lines below which *do* attach would be incorrect for everything else.
Best regards,

James Kass

Hmm... this dot vs. line thing is all very interesting. Yes, we were taught to use the dot in Nigeria, we were taught that our Yoruba ancestors used the dot, and school children are still taught to use the dot this day, to my knowledge.

I discussed this issue with some of my Yoruba friends after I got home last night(before I read the post below). They confirmed that they were also taught to use the dot... but that they understand the dot is supposed to be attached to the main character, NOT separate from it. My earlier thinking that it was supposed to be separate was just a hunch, not an expert opinion....So Mr. Adebusola Onayemi's quote seems to be very much in place:)

If the dot is supposed to be attached to the character, then I can even better understand why the line was gradually increasingly used - definitely easier/more visible when you attach a line to a character, as opposed to a dot.

Why then are Yoruba students still taught to use the dot in Nigeria? I feel much more attached to the dot - I'm obviously biased because that's what I've been taught and that's what I've always known:) - seeing the line makes me feel like it's a modern day thing that is replacing original Yoruba - and I don't think it looks as nice as the dot.

If indeed the line is deemed better than the dot for several valid reasons, then I would like this to be made formal - e.g "As of March 2004, the line will replace the dot." Then we will all know and accept what is right/why....and we can move on with one or the other.

KONYIN tech also makes a valid point - Yoruba is spoken in different countries and it does make sense to try to accomodate various uses/preferences in order to encourage commercial use.


Bomi O.

THE LINE VERSUS DOT ISSUE
1. Current, ongoing discussion on the internet is very useful in assisting to evolve a needed easily understood computer age world convention on Yoruba language common services issues starting for example with the "line" versus "dot" issue.
2. I have in front of me now a 1960 edition of Bibeli Mimo, a Yoruba Bible published by the Bible Society of Nigeria. The old testament was reprinted from 1900 Edition .In it, a line under "e", "o", and "s" when applicable is consistently used throughout both Old and New Testament. The line is joined to each letter.
3. It will be good to see on the market soonest possible, user friendly, very affordable physical keyboards with which people can all type to freely share with others Yoruba products and services utilizing Unicode compatible Yoruba alphabets including correct tonal signs.
4. KONYIN CEO informed me recently they are working to upgrade and include Yoruba tonal signs on their Unicode compatible Yoruba fonts soon. When that upgrade actually arrives , the fact that you can also type English, Igbo, Hausa and some other Nigerian languages in addition to Yoruba on their keyboard is likely to make it a very attractive product at the Yoruba,Nigerian and indeed African World Marketplace.
CONCLUSION: Yoruba language computer age conventions of the immediate future will probably not evolve from Government or even local Academic Committee decrees which cannot be enforced worldwide. Future conventions will likely emerge from majority of people's real choices from useful affordable products actually available on the market that people get to know about and can easily get to buy in their own locality. My reading is that "line" under "e", "o" or "s" will probably prevail as the world working standard in computer age Yoruba for a long time to come. It is wise that people factor this trend into their choices that will easily facilitate compatibility between Yoruba Products and Services of the future throughout the world.
Thank You,
Olamijulo S.K.

Re the discussion on the mark-under e, o and s - is it possible to devise a solution that would permit both?

One solution would be to allow font variations, but the line under is significantly different from the dot under, so this may not be practical.

Could another solution be that either the precomposed dot-unders or the composed vertical line unders could be used and search & spell-check routines could be devised to recognize both as the same in Yoruba?

I'm thinking along the lines of Chinese, where there are simplified and traditional versions of many characters, but some software can toggle between the two.

Personally as an outsider thinking about longer term countrywide standardization of characters and keyboards, and general ease of use, the precomposed dot under characters would be a logical choice. But the beauty of the technology is (or should be) that it makes alternatives possible for users. Could it be possible therefore in software to have something like a "standard" Yoruba using the dot unders and, for those who want a different look, a "classical" Yoruba using the line under?

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Below is a quick index of topics that have come up on this message board thusfar. It is the revised version of the index in /m45

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Some topics covered so far on
Yoruba language & ICT (fonts, keyboards & applications)

Purpose & name of the board /m1 /m3 /m4

Fonts /m2 /m5 /m10 /m19 /m21 /m22 /m23 /m32 /m33 /m34 /m35 /m55 /m57 /m63 /m82 /m83 /m87 /m89 /m90

Keyboards & input /m23 /m29 /m30 /m44 /m46 /m48 /m59 /m60 /m61 /m62 /m63 /m75 /m78

Orthography - dot/line under /m5 /m6 /m9 /m11 /m12 /m89 /m93 /m94 /m95 /m96 /m97 /m98 /m99

Orthography - general /m5 /m11 /m13 /m17 /m19 /m31 /m58 /m96

Orthography - tone marks /m5 /m10 /m31 /m87 /m88 /m96

Unicode tests /m6 /m31 /m53 /m54

Unicode (see also fonts)

Yoruba online - audio /m67

Yoruba online - dictionary projects /m33 /m34 /m35 /m79 /m89 /m90 /m91 /m92 /m93

Yoruba online - groups/lists /m51 /m65 /m71

Yoruba online - learning/teaching /m2 /m3 /m27 /m40 /m41 /m42

Yoruba online - text & websites /m8 /m9 /m11 /m14 /m31

Yoruba online - using it /m27 /m28 /m30 /m31 /m32 /m33 /m34 /m35 /m81 /m92 /m93

Yoruba online - web searches /m20 /m21

Yoruba publishing - /m85 /m87

Yoruba software devt. - /m65 /m72 /m75 /m78

Yoruba use in IT project (esp. CAWD) - /m15 /m16 /m18 /m24 /m25 /m26 /m36 /m37 /m38

re /m99

Don, at some stage in the past when i was playing about with some keyboard layout ideas, I create a keboard layout that would use one of the options, but allow an alternative key sequence to type the other, so by default either dot-bolow or vetical-line-below was used but the other could be type if desired.

I also created a mapping table between then.

It would be possible to create a mapping table in CC or TECKit for instance. SIL have a plugin for work that allows you to use CC, TECKit or ICU to handle character set conversions on the current document.

So it owuld be possible to open a word document and then convert it in situ within Word.

Alternatively, the standalone version of TECKit could be used to convert webpages, text files, etc.

I'll have a look around and see if I still have the mapping tables, it would be fairly simple to recreate.

We use the mapping tables to convert from 8-bit legacy encodings to Unicode for a number of African languages. Works quite well.

Andrew

It is interesting to see the Yoruba part of the list so active. Perhaps an update on the project in Ago-Are would be timely.

- The organisation behind the project in Nigeria has just been granted funds to buy more equipment. Oke-Ogun Community Development Network (OCDN previously known as OOCD 2000+) plans to open two more InfoCentres (two computers in each) at Iseyin and Okeho.

- The project manager comes to the end of his time with VSO in May. Attempts are being made to find funding to pay him a salary, as he is a great asset and would be willing to stay on.

- OCDN is working increasingly closely with RUSEL, a micro-finance and training NGO in Oke-Ogun. The director Mrs Victoria Adetona is very interested in the use of Yoruba, and was doing a Masters degree related to it last time I met her - I think it should be completed by now.

- A couple of years ago I met Tunde Adegbola in London and we exchanged vision about ICTs and the use of Yoruba. There was not sufficient active overlap at that time to take any follow up action, but we agreed to get in touch again when appropriate things started to happen on our various projects. A recent email from Chief Adejumo, shows that contact has been renewed. It seems likely now that the Yoruba Special Interest Group may begin to move forward.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gbade Adejumo"
To: <pam.mclean@ntlworld.com>Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 7:23 PM Subject: REPLY


> Hello Pam,
> (snip)
> Good news : I am sure you remember Margret (snip)You can than imagine how
> surprised we would be when Margret phoned David last
> night to tell him that she had gone to Ago-Are to
> meet David unfortunely David was in Ibadan and it was
> on her way back that she phoned in Iseyin informing
> him of her trip to Ago-Are A meeting was therefore
> arranged for 9.am in Ibadan here. That was surprise No
> 1, The No2 surprise was that if was Tunde Adegbola ,
> the man who designed the yoruba keyboard that hosted
> Margret . It was in Tunde's office that we held the
> meeting this morning and it was all a pleasant
> meeting. Tunde happens to have come from a rural
> community like Oke-Ogun in Ogun State and his late
> father was very desirous of bringing development to
> his native place so, the concept of our project
> tallies with what the father wanted for his village.
> Tunde's sister Sade Taiwo a research officer was also
> at the meeting she is also involved in an NGO which is
> into Social and economic empowerment. The meeting
> decided that we should all work together .
(snip)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- I plan to be in Nigeria during April working on a variety of projects with OCDN and others, including Bisharat's Hausa group member Fantsuam Foundation. Two of the project we are working on may ultimately overlap interests of this group. We are working with teachers, initially on ICT awareness project, but I look forward to hearing their views on Yoruba and literacy, and Hausa and literacy, as time goes by. We are also starting to work with Richard Koman of anyhwherebooks, and will be discussing publishing and printing ideas in local languages as well as English.

- It is early days yet, and I am usually reluctant to say anything about ideas for projects etc until they have actually happened. Things that seem positive and likely to come good can come to nothing . However I mention these in advance because it is possible that someone on the list may have some comments, advice or questions that they would like me to know before I travel, so I can share them with people I will be meeting.

Pam

Pamela McLean

CAWD volunteer -supporting Community Action for Welfare and Development
(CAWD volunteers use home Internet connectivity on behalf of rural development projects - new volunteers welcome)

For OOCD 2000+ updates subscribe to the newsletter
http://lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/oocd2000plus


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Line vs. dot – Here we go again. I am very happy about the continuing discussions that have resulted from this issue -progress is definitely being made! I guess the bottom line is that some people will always be passionate about the dot, while others will forever remain passionate about the line - each group for several valid reasons.

I think incorporating both options in Yoruba keyboard use is an excellent idea which will greatly encourage the use of these developing technologies by people across both groups. Using table mapping as a means of achieving this also sounds like a great idea – I know Table lookup performs a lot better than algorithmic conversions, and should generally not be complicated(unless of course we start getting into space issues, but that shouldn’t pose a problem in this case).

I will always remain true to the dot:)!:). That is what I was taught to use while learning Yoruba, and that is what students are still taught to use in Yoruba classes today. That is what I believe our Yoruba ancestors used. However, the line also has its' benefits and its' users, and one cannot just ignore this situation, or impose one particular use upon all Yoruba speakers/writers.

Thus, I agree that incorporating a “standard” dot which indicates what is used in traditional Yoruba, as well as a "classical" line, which indicates an alternate convention; is a great way to move forward.

I find this line and dot discussion is rather interesting. You may wish to note that the discussion is actually over 100 years old. It was a rather controversial even then between Rev. Henry Townsend and Bishop Samuel Ajayi-Crowther. Townsend the printer/print maker argued for the line because the dot wore out much earlier than the line (on the die).

Today, however, the standard Yoruba orthography (1977/87 I'm not too sure now) specifies the line for various reaosons.

I shall post an excerpt of the relevant parts of the document on www.alt-i.org in the next few days.

Tunde Adegbola

Apologies to list members for using the list for this response, but I can't see a personal email address on Tunde's email.

Incidentally I was interested to read about "the dot". From the various odds and ends of Yoruba that people have written down for me I had assumed that it was supposed to be a line - that's what it has always looked like - I don't recall ever seeing what I would have described as a dot.

Tunde, I understand that you and OCDN have finally been able to make contact, and are making plans, but I don't have any details yet. I hope Chief will arrange for us all to get together while I am in Nigeria next month. I think that a Yoruba Special Interest group must be well on its way now.

I am in contact with Richard Koman of BookMobile/anywherebooks. We are exploring ideas related to book printing and publishing. I would like to see some input regarding books in Yoruba, and would like to know your thoughts on this, and generally catch up with you again to explore how our overlapping ideas and interests have developed since last we met, way back, at Victoria station.

Pam

Pamela McLean

CAWD volunteer -supporting Community Action for Welfare and Development
(CAWD volunteers use home Internet connectivity on behalf of rural development projects - new volunteers welcome)

For OOCD 2000+ updates subscribe to the newsletter
http://lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/oocd2000plus



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Respected Yoruba , Nigerian and African Compatriots plus our friends in the human family, this mail is to announce our new publication
"Yoruba Language Development-Emerging Consensus"

  by Olamijulo S.K.

At http://www.hopeafricaepublisher.com/yoruba-dev-coverpage.html

INTRODUCTION

 

      A well-researched June 2003 estimate puts the global population of Yorubas and their descendants at over 50 million. For details, please see http://www.hopeafricaepublisher.com/yoruba-digital

 

     In our book titled “People Cooperation for African Development” we advocate cooperation for development at all distinct but complimentary levels of

 1. Extended Family = Ebi

 2. Village or Town = Ilu

 3. Language Nationality = Ibile

 4. Country = Orile

 5. Continent = Igun Aiye

 6. Global = Agbaiye

For more details, please see http://www.hopeafricaepublisher.com/coopbk

  Professor Abiodun Adediran of the Department of History, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria in their book titled “ Culture and Society In Yorubaland” published by Rex Charles Publication in association with Connel Publications in 1998, lead evidence to demonstrate on page 1, that Language is the basic element of Yoruba Civilization.

 

   Within a very worthy, broad but unified context of Global African People Development, cooperation among Yorubas all over the world for the development of their language is a critical element in Yoruba People Development as part of a bigger African People Development in today’s world.

 

    In March 2004, I made a renewed appeal on the internet for global cooperative participation in Yoruba Language Development for a modern age. This current publication contains a compilation of March 2004 contributions from all over the world and a listing of some of the institutions accessible to me on the Internet in which important work is currently going on for Yoruba Language and People Development.

 

This publication honors the memory of an illustrious Yoruba person , Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther for his very important contributions and Rev. Henry Townsend as a useful reminder that all, including non-Yorubas, in the global community who contributed and continue to contribute in one way or another to Yoruba Language and People Development are and will always be appreciated for their labors.

 

   March 2004 has confirmed that it is possible for the Yoruba global community to dialogue effectively on the Internet not only on general development issues of mutual interest but even a specific issue like “dot” or “line” under “ E,e” ; “O,o” or “S,s” for harmony in future development of global Yoruba language products and services.

 

Olamijulo S.K.

SUMMARY
It is useful for Yoruba Language Products Developers in particular and modern Yoruba Speakers, Writers and Students all over the world to be at least aware of some of the many Yoruba fonts and keyboards currently available. This should equip all stakeholders to participate better in the worthy pursuit of useful harmony in the face of different potential choices. Informed contributors observed that variety in Yoruba font styles is neither bad nor unique among font styles generally worldwide. It appears reasonable and practicable in contemporary Yoruba to accept the suggestions for a "standard" Yoruba using the dot under “E,e”; ”O,o”; “S,s” and a "classical" Yoruba using the vertical line under “E,e” ; “O,o”; “S,s” .

The drive is to get the same code assigned to these two styles of the same letter leaving the installed font to render it one way or the other as per the underlying chosen style of the font. This should facilitate the development and better distribution of many more user friendly UNICODE COMPATIBLE YORUBA PRODUCTS AND SERVICES for the good of all Yoruba Language stakeholders world wide.

Olamijulo S.K.

Please follow the contribution links at the website to read the actual contributions of people in their own words, get familiar with their location and some of what they have on offer.

Thank you for your active ongoing participating interest in Global Yoruba Language and People Development.

 

Olamijulo S.K.

How are you. please tell me about your self... Are you a yoruba prof, or you are a medical doctor.. Is the other Bomi olamijulo related to you.. Your child.. Is she married.. to oki... where does she live, in america...

I am an Imesi-Ile, Yoruba, Nigerian,African Pediatrician. I devote some of my time,resources and opportunities to freely encouraging practical, productive,non-government, people to people cooperation at the various complimentary levels of Extended Family, Town, Language Nationality, Country, Continent and Global for the development of Africans everywhere. This as part of a desirable better, fairer, more inclusive, healthy, positive, global human family,sustainable development.
Thank you for your interest.
Olamijulo S.K.

Respected African Compatriots,
In pursuit of African People Development, we created and maintain a deliberately simple website for Hope Africa E-Publisher at :

http://www.hopeafricaepublisher.com/

I have currently on my personal websites favorites list

1. http://www.africaservice.com/

2. http://www.chatafrik.com/

3. http://www.nigeriaworld.com/

4. http://www.nigerianmuse.com/

5. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yorubaworld/

6. http://www.learnyoruba.com/

7. http://www.aloba.at/eng/index-e.html

8. http://www.lagosforum.com/

9. http://www.bisharat.net/

10. http://www.oauife.edu.ng/index.php

11. http://african.lss.wisc.edu/yoruba/font/index.html

12. http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/afl/yoruba.html

13. http://www.yoruba.georgiasouthern.edu/

14. http://www.nitda.org/projects/kbd/index.php

15. http://www.mbendi.co.za/ and others.

Africans are still very grossly underrepresented on the internet, therefore the creation of additional useful websites for Africans is needed and must be encouraged. Africans require to dialogue constructively and cooperate better for mutual development. I appeal to all African webmasters to freely,creatively, aggressively network and crosslink better than at present for mutual enhancement.

Olamijulo S.K.

Sorry for asking too many question, are you bomi and fosho daddy.. I just curious, I knew them some years back in school.

Yoruba Language for International Meetings:
Yoruba is a native authentic African language. There are over 50 million Yorubas in Africa, Americas, West Indies and Europe.Yoruba should be one of authentic native African languages used in ECOWAS,AU,the UN and other international meetings.
Please learn more at

http://www.hopeafricaepublisher.com/yoruba-digital.html

Thank you.
Olamijulo S.K.

Hello, everyone! This is my first posting around here.

Can I wade in a little on the issue of the representation of the pronounciation symbol below the "e" or "o" (lower and upper-case) vowels and "s" (lower and upper-case) consonant in Yoruba: whether dot (.), bar (-) or plus (+).

1. First, at one level, it does not really matter, because there is NO AMBIGUITY as to the alteration meant for the vowels wrt to pronounciation, provided there is some CONSISTENCY within any given document. The levels at which it matters are however two-fold:

(i) the need for alternative representations so that any who wish to use one or the other is free to do so. [I would prefer to retain the "dot" as the standard, and the other two as variations.]

(ii) in underlining. The dot and bar tend to "wash" with the underlining, particularly with the smaller font sizes (eg 8 or less), while the "plus" stays a little more distinct. However, if the symbol is made "closer" to the original letter, or the underline is made "further" from the underlined letter, then this presents no problem. [Personally, I would prefer to retain the dot, provided the underlining issue is solved, otherwise, the less common "+" appears acceptable.]


(2) What is the experience of anyone with respect to the use of the ARIYA font (apparently an extension of the Arial font for Yoruba) and the WAZOBIA keyboard, both available from Dnet Communications?


Thanks.


Bolaji Aluko

re /m112

start with 2) I haven't tried the font, since its a commercial font and i don't feel like spending that amount of money just to experiment. Looking at their web site, they say that "Ariya offers functional equivalents to Arial Unicode MS". Not reassuring since Arial Unicode MS lacks the OpenType Mark to Base features that high quality rendering of Yoruba text requires.

with 1) at least within the Unicode context, I'm not fussed about the glyphrepresentation issues, I'm more concerned about the codepoint differences. In Unicode each of these diacritics is a distinctly different character.

From the point of view of using text, i.e. collation (sorting) , searching and a variety of other basic text operation, it is an important difference. If you search for a dot below, you will not find a vertical bar below. Alternative representations is well and good for 8-bit legacy character sets, but it would mean that every piece of unicode software would have to be rewritten to allow the type of conversion you're talking about ... changing from one discrete unicode character to another.

at least thats my understanding of it, eg.

o with dot-below could be <U+1ECD> or <U+006F U+0323>
o with vertical bar below is <U+006F U+0329>
and the last one you mentioned (the plus below) would be
<U+006F U+031F>

My interest is not so much who prefers what glyph in a legacy character encoding, rather it is which unicode codepoints should be used for Yoruba characters to ensure interoperability and the exchange of data that can be reused in other ways.

Andj.

Edited by author 07-19-2004 01:13 PM
re /m113

Andrew, thanks for your enlightenment.

1. Which fonts have acceptable "OpenType Mark to Base features"? [Maybe you want to elaborate on these features?]

2. I had specified underlining as a feature of concern, while you have added "collation (sorting), searching and a variety of other basic text operation...interoperability, exchange of data" as important - or even more important in choosing glyphrepresentation. The more the boundary conditions, the greater the narrowing down of choices: what glyphrepresentations therefore do these desirable features remove, or which ones are thereby highly recommended?

Thanks again.

re /m114

Hi Bolaji,

1) the only font that I know that will work is Doulos SIL, Code2000 might work as well. Microsoft have indicated that they will ship new fonts tha would be suitable in their next operating system (Longhorn).

The problem with Yoruba in Unicode is that not only do you require appropraite fonts, you also need an appropriate font rendering system. Which on windows means you need MS Office 2003. Windos XP service pack 2 should also have necessary support.

At least thats what i've found works here.


I'll eleborate on the opentype stuff very soon.

2) I don't use underlining, even in web pages. Its not necessary.

as to your final question "what glyphrepresentations therefore do these desirable features remove, or which ones are thereby highly recommended?"


I don't recommend any particular codepoint assignment. I just believe that the Yorubaa language would benefit from using a consistent set of codepoints. Assuming you wanted to search a range of Yoruba texts (in Unicode) for particular words or phrases. Would you find all the occurances of the word/phrase, if different texts used different codepoints for particular Yoruba characters?

I just thing that consistency in representation of Yoruba characters in Unicode would generally benefit the Yoruba language in an electronic format.

If I have time later today, I'll try to throw together soem files to illustrate what I mean.

Andrew

Edited by author 07-19-2004 09:20 PM
Andrew:

Yes, we should probably wait for your illustrations, using certain files.

Maybe you can also use the first paragraph of the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" in Yoruba to illustrate wherever possible?

http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/yor.htm


"Bí ó ti jé̟ pé s̟ís̟e ŕkíyčsí iyě tó jé̟ ŕbímó̟ fún č̟dá ŕti ědó̟gba č̟tó̟ t̟̟̟̟í kň s̟eé mú kúrň tí č̟dá kň̟ň̟kan ní, ni ňkúta ěpělč̟ fún ňměnira, ědájó̟ ňdodo ŕti ŕlŕáfíŕ lágbŕáyé, ..."

[Don't even know whether it will render right here.]

That has almost become like "Hello, world!" in Yoruba code/font demonstrations. :-)


Thanks.


Bolaji Aluko

I was indending to use the UDHR ofr the illustration, although when i went through it, I had to clean but the file, it was a hugh mess in parts it had two or three combining diacritics superimposed over each other.

I've also writen some quick and dirty mapping tables for CC to convert between the different unicode versions.

More later

Andrew

For instance the seventeenth word in the first paragraph is : t̟̟̟̟í i.e. t&#799;&#799;&#799;&#799;í

I assume it should be tí̟ (tí&#799;) instead?

Andrew

Edited by author 07-19-2004 10:19 PM

Yes, it should simply be tí. Too many characters.

do oyu mena tí or tí̟ ?

Edited by author 07-19-2004 10:57 PM
The "tí kň seé mú kúrň" means "that cannot be denied" or "that cannot be removed." The "tí" means "that", no doubt.

I've uplaoded a sample html document at http://www.openroad.net.au/languages/african/yoruba/sample.html

it shows the same text in unicode using each of the three orthographic conventions, it allows you to select a font and dislay the page using different fonts. Please let me know if you wnat other unicode fonts added to the list.

When I have time over the next few days i'll convert the full text of the UDHR into each of the orthographic conventions. I may need help correcting the text since there seems to be a number of errors in the document.

I'll also throw together a page describing issues relating to Yoruba and Unicode.

Andrew

Edited by author 07-20-2004 12:04 AM
Thanks a bunch again, Andrew! You sure know your stuff. Some of the complex font and type and etc. discussions that you referred do sound like Greek to me at times! :-)

But is there a reason why it is only the Arial Unicode MS choice that enables ALL of the glyphs (or is it fonts?) to be displayed right? Does that have to do with the fact that it is the only UNICODE font here - or am I wrong there?

I am also not sure why you need to translate the whole UDHR. The fragment that we are experimenting on sure makes the point. Of course, translating the whole UDHR is fine, but I believe that we are getting the point here...

By the way, if you send me your email, I might be able to convince the Ariya font developer to send you the software FOC (free of charge) for evaluation purposes. My email is alukome @ aol.com.

OK, no need to convert the whole UDHR.

In the sample page I've included Arial Unicode MS, Doulos SIL and Code2000 all which support Yoruba. From memory, the larger the font size the less satisfactory Arial Unicode MS is, ie the more apparent the problems Yoruba has with the font is.Umm, maybe I should make a version of the sample page that allows the user to change the font size of the sample text.

The other fonts, standard windows fonts do not support all required characters.

I'm writing notes at teh moment, hopefully finshed later today or tomorrow which will explain the differences between Arial Unicode MS, Doulos SIL and Code 2000. Between the different Unicode Normailization forms, and the differences in unicode codepoints for Yoruba, and how this impacts on the end user. esp. since ideal display (esp at large point sizes) will require updated Windows components.

Also worth noting that there are two different versions of Arial Unicode MS in use. Different Microsoft products shipped with different versions, Version 0.86 and version 1.0. You might get better mileage out of the newer version.

Andrew:

Thanks Andrew.

I hope that forum members don't think this a two-person useless private discussion, but rather I am of the firm belief that font and font rendering issues must be properly tackled first, followed by discussions on TERMINOGIES (as in "dictionary of technical terms") in ICT in the target language before serious translation efforts can really begin.

I've uploaded a new version of the sample and have included a link to a version that uses NFD, i.e. only uses combining characters rather than using precomposed characters where they exist.

Edited by author 07-20-2004 10:39 AM
Andrew:

I was able to view ALL the font renderings in NFD, and only the Arial Unicode MS in NFC in

          Samples of Yoruba font renderings

But in BOTH NFC and NFD, only the Arial Unicode MS has the dot, bar or dot FIRMLY under the center of the bottom of the "S" letter: otherwise, they are displaced to the left of the bottom of the letter.

It appears to me that the Arial Unicode MS is IN GENERAL favored in Yoruba letter rendering - or is that a hasty generalization from these observations?


Bolaji

Edited by author 07-20-2004 11:09 AM
Andrew:

For example, knowing that for Yoruba vowels:


a e i o u - each with accent aigu (/) or accent grave (\)
A E I O U - each with accent aigu (/) or accent grave (\)

are already pre-composed on a standard keyboard,

then we need only the following 14 letters:


e o s - each with dot under; e o with dot under and
                               accent grave (\) and accent
                               aigu (/) over

E O S - each with dot under E O with dot under and
                               accent grave and accent
                               aigu over


Question: which of them have fonts that are ALL pre-composed WITHOUT composition of two letters? That is, should we not aim for NFC rather than NFD?

Is a two-key-stroke combination considered as "pre-composed?" If that is the case, then by combining the [FN] key ALONE with unused letters (for that key) on the English or US keyboard, can we not PRE-COMPOSE all the above additional 14 Yoruba letters?

Or is this what has been done already?

Andrew:

Can we set up a "live" example in which we search differently for the following text (for example) from a paragraph:

     odó (mortar)
     odň (river)
     ňdó (young) - each "o" here should have a dot under,
                   but I cannot represent that here, but
                   could do so under Ariya.

That search would be aided by "pre-composition", would it not?


Bolaji

re /m128

part of the purpose of the display, was the accompany the notes I'm writing.

Briefly NFC = all characters that can be precomposed will be precomposed. Precomposed means using a single unicode character for each yoruba letter (ie a-acute is precomposed a + combining acute isn't, both both are canonically equivalent in Unicode).

Not all Yoruba letters are precomposed in Unicode, so some Yoroba latters have to use combining diacritics in NFC

NFD = decomposed. ie no precomposed characters. All diacritics are combining diacritics (ie separate unicode characters).

So in NFC problem characters are Yoruba letters that have two diacritics (acute or grave and diacritic below). In Arial Unicode MS you'll see the problem most clearly when you are looking at the uppercase version of these characters, where the acute or grave character overstrikes the letter.

In NFD .. the characters that exist in Vietnamese should render correctly the acute and grave on A,a,E,e,I,i,O,o,U,u
but should be problematic on other characters. Arial Unicode MS does a relatively OK job with lowercase letters, but if you had to set text in NFC or NFD in all uppercase you'd run into problems.

You will get different results in Firefox (On Windows XP) and Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer will try to use the specified font. Firefox attempts to correct problems and does some font switching on my computer.

For me the ideal font display is with Dolous SIL .. there is a reason for why the best font for you is different from what I see. Doulos SIL is an OpenType and Graphite font which has support built in for correct rendering of combining diacritics. This feature isn't available in Arial Unicode MS (except for characters in the Vietnamese character range).

But to get these combining diacritic features to work, it is necessary to have the most recent version of Window's Unicode Script Processor (Uniscribe - usp10.dll). The version shipped with Office 2003 supports combining diacritics in the Latin script.

That said, if you don't wnat to use NFC or NFD its possible to get ore accurate rendering of Yoruba, by swapping the order of the diacritics in the NFC version. That will display better in Arial Unicode MS, but has the handicap of not being normalized. On the web and in a range of applications data maybe be normalized on input, so things would be coverted to NFD or NFC. Most of the new web services I'm working on will do this so that searching would be possible across a range of resources. Different keyboards may produce different results, ie NFC data, NFD data or something not normalized, so on imput we convert everything to one form to work with. Have a look at the W3C draft document on normalization there is a link form the sample page.

Andrew

re /m129

There is no specific relationship between keystrokes entered and the number of characters input into the data.

i could type a single key and get a-acute
I could type a single key and get a + combining acute
I could type a two keys and get a-acute
I could type two keys and get a + combining acute.

The design of the keyboard should be independant of the characters produced. You design the preferred keyboard layout and then create the rules that out put the characters you want from the key strokes you have identified.

Its a bit more complicated that that (with different input software placing different requirements and restraints on how you design the layout) but estentially thats what happens.

I can take the same keyboard layout and write a keyboard file that can produce NFC or NFD or non-normalized data.

re /m130

Maybe if I illustrate with vietnamese. Take a word like "chŕo" where there is an a-acute.

Most Vietnamese typing/input software enters vietnamese characters using NFC (precompsoed characters) so that "ŕ" would be a single character a-acute.

The Vietnamese keyboard in Windows 2000 and Windows XP on the other hand doesn't input Vietnamese in NFC or NFD but use their own order for grouping characters ... so I a web apge is created using this keyboard the "ŕ" would actually be a + combining acute.

In practice, this menas that when I'm searching search engines like Google I have to search twice. Google does not normalize data. therefore i have to search once using Microsoft's Vietnamese keyboard and search again using another third party vietnamese keyboard.

The search results for each search will be completely different.

This is the danger that Yoruba faces in the move to Unicode. The keyboard layout isn't too important, but the unicode characters out put will be.

In your example:

odó (mortar)
odň (river)
ọ̀dọ́ (young)

IF they were input using NFC then in order to find them the keyboard would need to use NFC. If it used NFD or something else you wouldn't find them.

alternatively if the data comtained the dot-below and your keyboard inputs using the vertical-line-below then irregarless of wether you used an NFC or NFD or other keyboard you will not find these terms, because they use different characters than you are searching with.

The only way around this is to be consistent in usage between input of dtat and search

or build a custom Yoruba search tool which will search all possible combinatiosn at teh same time, irregardless of what is actually typed. Hope this makes sense. I'll try to illsutrate the point in my notes.

Andrew

Andrew:

I now have to reflect on ALL the "gems" that you have written below, and will get back to you!

Thanks again.


Bolaji Aluko

PS: Just one thought: If "all caps" is the only major problem with Arial Unicode MS, my preference would be to stick with it.

Hello

I have just found out that I am from the ethnic group of Yoruba. I wanted to know more about my heritage as i have been adopted. Also wanted to know more about my last name which was " Adeyinka" I also wanted help on finding my long lost birth father. If anyone can help me please e-mail me at felicita453@hotmail.com. Thanks

Hi,

I am from Czech Republic. I would like to learn Yoruba language. But we do not have neither courses or books.
Could you advise me if there is web where I can learn this language?

Thanks

Edited by author 08-02-2004 12:17 PM
Re /m136 (learning Yoruba) and /m136 (info on the meaning of a name), you may find it helpful to check the index at /m100 (message 100) on this board - there are links to messages which give URLs for online learning sites (like LearnYoruba.com) and an online dictionary.

BTW, the recent dialogue between Andrew and Bolaji has been quite interesting ...

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Subject: Yoruba World Population – July 2004 Estimate by Olamijulo S.K.

Dear All,

Yoruba World Population – July 2004 Estimate:
   TOTAL ---------Above 100 MILLION ( One Hundred Million)

 PERSONS INCLUDED:

 1) All Persons who have one or more Yoruba parents, grandparents,great-grandparents, ancestors.

2) All Yorubas by marriage.

3) All who have become Yorubas, all over the world, through adoption or naturalization.

 Please Access Details Published by Hope Africa E-Publisher

at http://www.hopeafricaepublisher.com/ywp0704.html

Thank you.

Olamijulo S.K.

Subject: Nigerian Keyboard Free Download

Respected Nigerian Compatriots and other well wishers,
I suggest that you download a Federal Government Provided, Nigerian Keyboard from:

http://www.nitda.gov.ng/projects/kbd/index.php

I came across the website just fortuitously whilst searching the net for things
of interest to me.

Explore the site from the homepage for background information and test out the keyboard. Endorse it to others who might, or should be interested, all free.

Share with others freely what you discover are the good things about this keyboard when used for any of Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa languages that you are fluent in. Feel free to make suggestions for improvements, if you have any. This way you can make useful contributions to the development of African people.Plus just imagine how much richer humanity will be if much of the sayings, wisdom and
skills of African elders can be effectively recorded and better shared with the rest of mankind when significantly large populations of Africans become computer literate and Internet enabled in their own language. Such through the use of free Unicode Compatible keyboards like this that can rapidly become easily accessible in African communities
worldwide.

In addition to posting anywhere you wish on the net, please send a copy of your response to me at the e-mail address below for collation soonest possible.

Also access and download for free

 "People Cooperation for African Development"

 at http://www.hopeafricaepublisher.com/

 Thank you.

Olamijulo S.K.

Contact: publisher@hopeafricaepublisher.com

Hello all,

Just to let you know that I have created an online tutorial to support the Free Nigerian keyboard driver by NITDA. This tutorial is based on my experience with the keyboard, as well as on some questions I have answered from other users. It explains how to install and also how to use the keyboard. The tutorial is provided as a free service to whoever may require it, and gives several examples of (Yoruba) usage. If you want to learn how to
use the keyboard to type in PURE Yoruba, you may want to take a look at the tutorial, published at:

http://www.africanportal.net/Publications/ykbdtut.htm
(An MSWord version is also available for downloading/printing).

The NITDA keyboard driver download is available at:
http://www.nitda.gov.ng/projects/kbd/index.php
(Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa).


Regards,

Bomi Olamijulo-Oki.

Hello I would like help with the meaning of a word which I think is in the Yoruba language. The word is 'bologun' - Can anybody help.
Thank You

i would want a detaild answer on the topic the analysis of yorubars language its structureand contributions to societal developement

SUBJECT: Yoruba Reading and Writing on Computers and Internet-Olamijulo S.K.-Oct.20, 2004

Over 100 million Yorubas, Ìran Yorùbá, currently living in many countries around the world, and others who have the need or the interest, should be enabled to read and write mutually intelligible Yoruba easily, often and efficiently on computers and the Internet.
We must and shall all cooperate constructively to make this happen very soon.
Please indicate if you can read the Yoruba lines below on your own computer.

A kí gbogbo Ìran Yorùbá ní igun mẹrẹrin àgbáyé
Okè la ó má a lọ
Nigbà tá ò sèbàjẹ ọmọ ẹnikejì
Okè la ó má a lọ
Gbogbo wa níláti fi ọwọ sówọpọ pẹlu ifẹ fún ìtẹsiwájú.

This piece was written using Nigerian Keyboard and Arial Unicode MS font.

For further information please access
“ FREE Nigerian Keyboard by NITDA- Aug.2004 Installation and Yoruba Usage Tutorial by Bomi Olamijulo-Oki

At http://www.africanportal.net/Publications/ykbdtut.htm

Also access related publications for free at

http://www.hopeafricaepublisher.com

Thank you for your interest.
Olamijulo S.K.

gfjli;;

Re /m141 requesting help with the meaning of a word, see the link to an online Yoruba dictionary at /m89.

Re /m142, this is beyond the scope of this group's topic.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

The Yoruba text displays properly in /m143 with my MSIE6 browser setting on UTF8. In another encoding it is unreadable. Your text did not include any tone markings (as combining fdiacritics) over the dot-under vowels. I copy below a text from another of your letters with such tone markings. (Without a proper font, these may appear as empty boxes.)

Ă’kè t’álĂĄjĂ pĂĄ kò le gĂšn

Á tí gùn á ti sọ̀
 
Ìran Yorùbá pegedé

Gbogbo ọmọ Yorùbá ni àgbáyé nilati fi ọwọ́
sowọ́pọ̀ pẹ̀lú ifẹ́ fún ìtẹ̀siwájú.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Re: Meaning of "Bologun"

Hello Sam (/m141)

I do not know the meaning of "Bologun".. Did you mean "Balogun"? Balogun means "General" i.e. Army officer in Yoruba.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

Bomi

"ABD YORUBA" KEYBOARD

* Free, easy download
* Extremely easy to use, with reduced keystrokes
* Types Yoruba and English very well, on the same keyboard
    - No keyboard switching required
* Send pure Yoruba Email with Hotmail, Yahoo, MS Outlook
* Create/Transfer Yoruba MS Word documents
* Publish your Yoruba work online


Click on the link below to learn more, download and view examples. Please share with family members, friends and others who may wish to type in Yoruba.

URL:
http://www.africanportal.net/Publications/ABD/mktut1.htm

Thank you,

Bomi Olamijulo-Oki

The influential American newspaper The New York Times had an article in its Nov. 12, 2004 edition by Marc Lacey entitled "Using a New Language in Africa to Save Dying Ones."*

Below are excerpts mentioning Yoruba and Alt-I (re the latter, see also on this message board, /m72 and /m104).**

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

"Technology can overrun these languages and entrench Anglophone imperialism," said Tunde Adegbola, a Nigerian computer scientist and linguist who is working to preserve Yoruba, a West African language spoken by millions of people in western Nigeria as well as in Cameroon and Niger. "But if we act, we can use technology to preserve these so-called minority languages."

...

Mr. Adegbola, executive director of the African Languages Technology Initiative, has developed a keyboard able to deal with the complexities of Yoruba, a tonal language. Different Yoruba words are written the same way using the Latin alphabet - the tones that differentiate them are indicated by extra punctuation. It can take many different keystrokes to complete a Yoruba word.

To accomplish the same result with fewer, more comfortable keystrokes, Mr. Adegbola made a keyboard without the letters Q, Z, X, C and V, which Yoruba does not use. He repositioned the vowels, which are high-frequency, to more prominent spots and added accent marks and other symbols, creating what he calls Africa's first indigenous language keyboard. Now, Mr. Adegbola is at work on voice recognition software that can convert spoken Yoruba into text.

...

Mr. Adegbola ... is distributing his keyboard free to influential Yoruba speakers, hoping to attract some deep-pocketed entrepreneur who could turn it into a business venture.

...

* The article is on the web at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/12/internat...frica/12africa.html & http://news.com.com/Using+the+kompyuta+to+...7337_3-5449598.html
** The ALT=I website is http://www.alt-i.org

SUBJECT: ABD Yoruba Keyboard User Experience-Nov.9,2004

I accessed for free to read all of a short, simple and helpful guide at the ABD Yoruba Keyboard link below updated on November 7.

After that, I downloaded and installed the Unicode Compatible Keyboard to my computer for free.

With MS Word, Selecting Arial Unicode MS font, Using this ABD Yoruba Keyboard;

 I do with the same keyboard now write English and without any switches:

1. Type ALL Yoruba Alphabets.

2. Undermark ALL Yoruba vowels and “S”.

3. Apply tonal signs on ALL vowels and “n”.

4. Apply combined undermark and tonal signs to “E e” and “O o”.

5. Write Naira, USD, BPS , EURO and Yen symbols.

6. Send and Read Emails with Yoruba passages.

In conclusion, I have personally found the Free ABD Yoruba Keyboard excellent for Unicode Compatible Yoruba writing on my computer and for doing e-mails.
Yoruba postings on web forums still present a challenge. Improvements are currently being explored. In any case, the only direction Yoruba on computers and Internet must head is UP.

As a privileged African, Nigerian, Yoruba elder, I am very happy to be alive in this era of Yoruba Language and People Development in the broader context of African People Development Worldwide. I pray and sincerely believe that Olodumare will bless and prosper many eminent persons from different country and language nationalities, known and unknown; who have contributed, are contributing and will in future contribute to Yoruba Language and People Development.

We love and appreciate them all.

Learn more, Download and Share with others for free from
 
ABD Yoruba Keyboard at:
 
http://www.africanportal.net/Publications/ABD/mktut1.htm
 
Thank you.
Olamijulo S.K.

SUBJECT: Yoruba Song with ABD Yoruba Keyboard-Nov15,2004
 
Free user tutorial and download at
http://www.africanportal.net/Publications/ABD/mktut1.htm

Ọmọ ẹgbọn ọmọn ŕbúrň

Ẹ făra yín mọnra

 
Olamijulo S.K.

Hearty congratulations to Mr. Adegbola and the team at Alt-I. Makes me feel really good to know that more and more people, many of whom I am not even aware of I'm sure, are working on Yoruba Language Development all over the world.

I look forward to a few years(?) from now, when 100% functioning, universally compatible, and universally accessible Yoruba keyboards will be taken as a "normal" thing.... we will get there!

Once again, thanks to everyone who has contributed / is contributing/will contribute to Yoruba development. Ire o!

Regards,

Bomi Olamijulo-Oki
http://www.africanportal.net

Edited by author 11-23-2004 06:52 PM
E sheun gŕn ň fun "keyboard".
Ŕwŕ ti n gbimň lati sň "applications" bi "Mozilla web browser, Open office productivity suite" ati "Linux operating system" si édé wa. Ishe yi nlň lňwň. Opň rč jč itůnmo (translations). Ŕwňn Eleyedé ti shé ishéč yi ri. Sugbon itůnmo kŕn si čyň kŕn loshč shč pčlu Eleyedé. Óma rŕn wŕ lňwň tě Eleyedé bŕ ran wŕ lňwň.

Ŕpŕ kéji ni itůnmo tuntun fun ňro ti a nlo ně "Science, ICT, Engineering, Medicine...".

// Thanks for the keyboard.
// We have started work on translating applications like Mozilla, OpenOffice and Linux into our language. This work is ongoing. Much of (the basic dictionary) work has been done by Eleyede. But Eleyede only allows word by word searches. It will be very helpful to collaborate with Eleyede developers.

// The second part of our work will conprise translations for the newer terms used in S.T.E.M ... Examples of this work can be seen at the link provided below.

Link=
http://p221.ezboard.com/fnigeriadiscussion...pic&start=1&stop=20

***ata***

Edited by author 12-25-2004 12:29 AM
This item may be of interest...

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

"Microsoft Endorses Due Process in IT" This Day (Lagos)
December 15, 2004, Posted to the web December 16, 2004
http://allafrica.com/stories/200412160060.html

" ... Microsoft Nigeria has also begun a process of software localisation in the three major Nigerian languages as part of its commitment towards reinvesting into the Nigerian society. By this, Microsoft intends to come up with a software programme that would enable functions to be performed in the three local languages of Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa. Ilukwe disclosed this in Lagos last week, saying that such a programme has already been produced in South African for Swahili language."

There certainly seems to be a lot of activity re Yoruba and ICT, particularly with regard to keyboards. I was particularly interested to note the open-source effort mentioned by Remi-Niyi Alaran in /m155. May I ask who exactly is working on it?

It would also be interesting to know how the OSS and MS efforts will deal with some of the character combination issues that have been discussed on this board and elsewhere like on A12n-forum & A12n-collaboration.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Subject: Yoruba Language Development- December 2004 Thank You All.

The Renewed Gratitude of Yoruba World Community-Iran Yoruba- goes to but is not limited to:

 1. Bomi Olamijulo Oki for ABD YORUBA KEYBOARD.

This is still the most user friendly YORUBA Keyboard I have so far come
across to use for YORUBA language desktop work at my end. I can type both Yoruba and
English on the same keyboard with no need for switches. Underdots, tonal signs,
and combinations of both I now easily do with this keyboard. Above all it is
available for free downloads and free tutorials to everyone from the weblink
below. It can be used with Arial Unicode MS or other Unicode compatible fonts also
available for free to all on the Internet.

 http://www.africanportal.net/Publications/ABD/mktut1.htm

 2. Fakinlede Kayode in USA.
Proponent of historically significant Yoruba Decimal Counting System and Author of Modern Practical Dictionary: Yoruba-English, English-Yoruba.

E-mail Contact : Dr. Kayode Fakinlede jfakinlede@aol.com

3. Olamijulo S.K of Hope Africa E-Publisher

For various free products at

     Website : http://www.hopeafricaepublisher.com

 
4. Schleicher Yetunde Antonia in USA of the University of Wisconsin- Madison Yoruba Program,Producers and Distributors of Yoruba Products including Yoruba Fonts
available for download at:

 http://african.lss.wisc.edu/yoruba/font/index.html

5.Aloba Babatola in Vienna Austria of Aloba Publishers


at http://www.aloba.at/eng/index-e.html

6. Onayemi A.O. in Ontario Canada of Learn Yoruba Website .
Distributors of Free YorubaOK Font and Keyboard Program
    at: http://www.learnyoruba.com

7. Olamijulo S.K. of Hope Africa E-Publisher
on "Yoruba African Computer Keyboard - Do It Yourself Technique" First Published July 2003,Updated November2004 at

http://www.hopeafricaepublisher.com/yoruba-keyboard.html

8. Lawal Olalekan in the United Kingdom of YorubaWorld at


     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yorubaworld

9. Oyegbola Ade G. in USA of KONYIN KEYBOARD


    at http://www.konyin.com

10. Olawole Oladele in Norway of D-Net Communications


   at http://www.dnetcom.com/products/fonts.html


  and http://www.africaservice.com

11.Awoyale Yinka in USA the University of Pennsylvania Linguistic Data
Consortium working on an Electronic Yoruba Dictionary using a Yoruba Font:
at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/afl/yoruba.html

12.Arasanyin Olaoba F. in USA of Georgia Southern University Edeyede Yoruba Digital Dictionary Project. Producers of Yoruba Font, which can be downloaded from

http://www.yoruba.gasou.edu/template.php?a=13


13.Osborn Don in Niger of Bisharat.net


      at http://www.bisharat.net

14. Cunningham Andrew in Australia of Openroad
    at http://www.openroad.net.au/languages/files/yo41.html

15.Adegbola Tunde in Ibadan Nigeria
of African Languages Technology Initiative (ALT-I)
  at http://www.alt-i.org/projects.htm

16. Ajayi G. O. in Abuja Nigeria
of the National Information Technology Development Agency
      at http://www.nitda.org/projects/kbd/index.php

17. Akindana Martin in USA
of AfriK Network Groups
at http://www.ChatAfriK.com
  Moderator E-Groups including Yorubas-Community at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yorubas-community


18. Kehinde L.O. in Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
      Deputy Vice-Chancellor ( Administration )
      At the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile- Ife, Oshun State, Nigeria.
  Website: http://www.oauife.edu.ng

19. Omidire Felix Ayoh in Salvador-Bahia, Brazil.
       Exchange Professor ( OAUIfe/UFBa),
       Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais da UFBA,
       Salvador-Bahia ,
        Brazil.
         Website: http://www.ufba.br.
        E-mail Contact: fomidire@yahoo.fr

 

20. Several other Yorubas and Friends in the International community like Chris Harvey,James Kass,Trod Trosterud and others who have worked hard on Yoruba Language
products and services.We appreciate you all. May Olodumare abundantly bless you all and crown your labors with breakthrough successes in year 2005 and beyond.

 

Thank you.

Olamijulo S.K.

Thank you Samuel for your thanks and for the list of people contributing in one way or another to the use of Yoruba in ICT (although personally I can't claim to have done much). The list itself is a very helpful summary, though if anyone can think of others, please let us know.

I'd also like to take the opportunity to recognize people working for computer & internet access in the field who are taking account of the language dimension in their work (like Pam McLean and the OOCD organization).

Best wishes to all for a happy and productive new year 2005!

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Edited by author 01-04-2005 12:12 PM
Greetings and Happy New Year.

Kindly see our modest contributions towards the promotion of Nigerian languages since 2001. Our award winning word processor and translator - Paradigm LinguaŽ makes it easy to produce documents in several African languages on the PC.
http://www.paradigmint.net/lingua.htm
For details, please see our News Page.

I desperately need someone who can type up less than 150 words of hand written yoruba on the computer in yoruba font. I am willing to pay for this service.

Please call me urgently on 01582517448

Maliha

Yoruba Classical, Net Message by Olamijulo S.K. -01.20.05

 

ABD Yoruba Keyboard downloaded with free tutorial from:

 

http://www.africanportal.net/Publications/ABD/mktut1.htm

 

 Windows XP Professional,

MS Word 2003 Web Layout View, Arial Unicode MS Font

Saved as Web Page,

Sent with I.E. Western European (Windows) Encoding

 

Ẹ kú dẽde iwňyí gbogbo iran Yorůbá ni ŕgbáiyé ,

Čdůmŕrč á fi ibůkún si ăyan ati őgun gbogbo wa o - Amin

 

QUESTION: All of the above is beautifully clear on my desktop.

Can you read with under dots and tonal signs at your end?
Thank You for your helpful attention.

Olamijulo S.K.

Samuel, Your text in /m162 displays only one dot-under, but tone marks are there. Does it appear on the QuickTopic screen as you intended it to?

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

The following suggestion re standardizing the choice of diacritic for the dot/line under characters was posted to the Unicode list today. U0329 is the codepoint for the small vertical line under combining diacritic (meaning it can be added to letters to make the diacritic character):

You probably know how Yoruba uses a mark below certain vowels, as well as the letter s, to represent certain phonetic distinctions. There seems to be a variety of shapes for this symbol: a dot below, a short vertical line below, the same as before, only attached to the letter above it, a teardrop below, and even (so I've read), a small Greek cross below.

I've read on this list and elsewhere, that there is no real preference between these shapes. However, since there are different Unicode characters for at least the combining dot below and the combining short vertical line below, there is a lot of confusion over what to use. I believe that it has even been said earlier on this list, that until a particular diacritic is picked, a proper representation of Yoruba in computers will be stymied.

However, after thinking about it, I think there could be an alternative. There is an analogous situation in Greek, where a particular diacritic (the perispomeni) can be shown as a tilde, an inverted breve, or a macron, depending on the style. All of these already have their own codepoints, but the perispomeni has its own position, U0342. This avoids having to change codepoints every time you change the typeface, and treats a single logical character as such, rather than a set of 3 different characters.

Perhaps something like this could be done for the Yoruba under-mark? After all, the different forms used are apparently merely a matter of style, but Unicode disunifies them. Would it be possible to pick, say, U0329, as the Yoruba under-mark *exclusively*, and note that it has possible alternative glyphs in the code charts? Or, if that would conflict with possible alternate uses for U0329, could a new combing diacritic be encoded just for Yoruba?

Does anyone have any comments?

James Fox

Here is my reply to the letter in the previous message below, /m164.

James, Thanks for bringing this up. The possibility of choosing one form and letting font designers modify the glyph in Yoruba Unicode fonts for reasons of style and aesthetics has seemed to me to be a reasonable avenue to resolve this issue but there are complications.

Using the combining vertical line below U+0329, which seems to be in the charts uniquely for Yoruba (?), and using it effectively as "combining mark below" would resolve the problem. But I had the impression that this kind of solution is frowned upon (I am not familiar with the Greek example you mention).

On another level, it might handicap efforts at unified/standardized Nigerian usage of dot-under (mainly precomposed) characters. Some other languages notably Igbo have similar diacritics, but appearing uniquely (?) as dots. I may be the only one bringing this kind of issue up, but if you look at current pan-Nigerian software efforts that seek to serve a multilingual market (Konyin, Paradigm, to name two small commercial ones), they utilize dot-under diacritics.

Are there ways that software can handle different characters and combinations of characters as equivalents in certain language settings?

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Subject: Yoruba Letters Undermark Discussion Update- Jan 05

Dear Dr Don Osborn and James Fox,

1. Yes the display of especially the Yoruba component of my posting on QuickTopic M162 typed with ABD Yoruba Keyboard using Arial Unicode MS font was perfect at my end. This was unfortunately not the same at Yahoo e-groups or even A12n-forum.

2. In April 2004, there was a useful discussion with inputs from experts and Yoruba language stakeholders from all over the world on the Yoruba Vowels and S undermarks issue. Find contributions links is at :


http://www.hopeafricaepublisher.com/yoruba...tributionlinks.html

THE CONSENSUS

QUOTE
It is useful for Yoruba Language Products Developers in particular and modern Yoruba Speakers, Writers and Students all over the world in general to be at least aware of some of the many Yoruba fonts and keyboards currently available. This should equip all stakeholders to participate better in the worthy pursuit of useful harmony in the face of different potential choices. Informed contributors observed that variety in Yoruba font styles is neither bad nor unique among font styles available for many other languages generally worldwide. It appears reasonable and practicable in contemporary Yoruba to accept the suggestions for a "standard" Yoruba using the dot under "E,e"; "O,o"; "S,s" and a "classical" Yoruba using the vertical line under "E,e" ; "O,o"; "S,s" .
The drive is to get the same code assigned to these two styles of the same letter leaving the installed font to render it one way or the other as per the underlying chosen style of the font. This should facilitate the development and better distribution of many more user friendly UNICODE COMPATIBLE YORUBA PRODUCTS AND SERVICES for the good of all Yoruba Language stakeholders worldwide.

END OF QUOTE

It is useful to know what various experts and Yoruba stakeholders think now.

Olamijulo S.K.
-----------------------------------------------------

QuickTopic daily digest <qtopic+15-KKgbRqJUAR8@quicktopic.com> wrote:
Date: 28 Jan 2005 05:07:11 -0000
Subject: Yoruba language & ICT (fonts, keyboards & applications)
From: QuickTopic daily digest
To: samola43@yahoo.com

--QT-------------------------------------------------------------
Messages for the topic "Yoruba language & ICT (fonts, keyboards & applications)" for 01-27-2005.
Reply by email or visit
http://www.quicktopic.com/15/H/KKgbRqJUAR8

-----------------------------------------------------------------

From: BisharatNet Time: 01:26 PM
Samuel, Your text in /m162 displays only one dot-under, but tone
marks are there. Does it appear on the QuickTopic screen as you
intended it to?

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net
------------------------------------------------------------
From: BisharatNet Time: 01:31 PM
The following suggestion re standardizing the choice of
diacritic for the dot/line under characters was posted to the
Unicode list today. U0329 is the codepoint for the small
vertical line under combining diacritic (meaning it can be added
to letters to make the diacritic character):

You probably know how Yoruba uses a mark below certain
vowels, as well as the letter s, to represent certain phonetic
distinctions. There seems to be a variety of shapes for this
symbol: a dot below, a short vertical line below, the same as
before, only attached to the letter above it, a teardrop below,
and even (so I've read), a small Greek cross below.

I've read on this list and elsewhere, that there is no real
preference between these shapes. However, since there are
different Unicode characters for at least the combining dot
below and the combining short vertical line below, there is a
lot of confusion over what to use. I believe that it has even
been said earlier on this list, that until a particular
diacritic is picked, a proper representation of Yoruba in
computers will be stymied.

However, after thinking about it, I think there could be an
alternative. There is an analogous situation in Greek, where a
particular diacritic (the perispomeni) can be shown as a tilde,
an inverted breve, or a macron, depending on the style. All of
these already have their own codepoints, but the perispomeni has its own position, U0342. This avoids having to change codepoints every time you change the typeface, and treats a single logical character as such, rather than a set of 3 different characters.

Perhaps something like this could be done for the Yoruba
under-mark? After all, the different forms used are apparently
merely a matter of style, but Unicode disunifies them. Would it
be possible to pick, say, U0329, as the Yoruba under-mark
*exclusively*, and note that it has possible alternative glyphs
in the code charts? Or, if that would conflict with possible
alternate uses for U0329, could a new combing diacritic be
encoded just for Yoruba?

Does anyone have any comments?

James Fox
------------------------------------------------------------
From: BisharatNet Time: 01:48 PM
Here is my reply to the letter in the previous message below,
/m164.

James, Thanks for bringing this up. The possibility of
choosing one form and letting font designers modify the glyph in Yoruba Unicode fonts for reasons of style and aesthetics has seemed to me to be a reasonable avenue to resolve this issue but there are complications.

Using the combining vertical line below U+0329, which seems to be in the charts uniquely for Yoruba (?), and using it
effectively as "combining mark below" would resolve the problem.But I had the impression that this kind of solution is frowned upon (I am not familiar with the Greek example you mention).

On another level, it might handicap efforts at
unified/standardized Nigerian usage of dot-under (mainly
precomposed) characters. Some other languages notably Igbo have similar diacritics, but appearing uniquely (?) as dots. I may be the only one bringing this kind of issue up, but if you look at current pan-Nigerian software efforts that seek to serve a multilingual market (Konyin, Paradigm, to name two small
commercial ones), they utilize dot-under diacritics.

Are there ways that software can handle different characters and combinations of characters as equivalents in certain language settings?

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net
------------------------------------------------------------

Yoruba nikan la nso lori Egbe Yahoo! ti a npe ni Tiwantiwa.

E le ye wa wo lori:

http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/Tiwantiwa

A oo maa reti yin lohun!

Subject: Individual characters and combining diacritical marks, cross platform translation of characters, and dot or vertical.

First, there seems to be a misunderstanding here are to what needs to be done relating to Yoruba characters like Ẹẹ, Ọọ, and Ṣṣ. (Note that the S with dot did not show correctly, this is because the font in use on the server does not have the glyphs to present it correctly.) These three characters are not combining diacritics in Yoruba language, the characters are indeed independent character and have there own code points in the Unicode charset. The Ẹẹ and Ọọ are also vowels for which tonal signs are applicable; therefore using these two characters with tonal signs will qualify as combining diacritical marks.

Second, with regards to Dr. Ọlamijulọ's comment on the display of fonts from one platform to another. Here is the issue, most of the multilingual keyboard layouts are created using Language IDs that are based on 1252 codepage. But, 1252 codepage does not have all Yorùbá characters included; however, if a receiving platform is Unicode compliant, the platform will not need the codepage to translate the text correctly, it will use the more expansive Unicode commands. So OS platforms like Linux, and email servers used by Yahoo, AOL and others that are not fully Unicode compliant, uses the system codepage to translate the text and where a specific character in not included in the codepage, the translation is lost and incorrect.

Third, dot or vertical line? It is very interesting that Yorubas are still trying to fit everything into a single straight jacket. The dot or vertical line and for that matter horizontal or tear drop should be considered as writing styles and not emphatic or de-facto character representation. The Unicode Organization told us sometime ago that these characters are already represented by a codepoint in their chart and they do not make any representation as to the official glyphs. Let’s think about this again, if the single glyphs position will be the only acceptable style, then font creators will be out of business.

Finally, in any case I will like to inform all that KỌNYIN Keyboard with fourteen (14) additional Nigeria languages specific characters and twelve (12) tonal signs, which will allow for unlimited tonal sign combination on any vowel character without changing how users type today, should be available for sale before the end of March 2005. The new KỌNYIN keyboard is totally Windows 2000, 2003 and XP based and completely application and font independent.

We are now almost done with the Africa (Niger-Congo) version of the keyboard that will include Twenty-six Africa language specific characters and Nineteen (19) tonal signs.

Ade G Oyegbọla
LANCOR Technologies
www.konyin.com

SUBJECT: Yoruba Proverbs Online
Dear All, Greetings.

About over 100 million people in the Yoruba World Community - Iran Yoruba, must be deeply appreciative of a very large number of Yoruba Proverbs published in Yoruba online

at http://libr.unl.edu:2000/yoruba/

by Professor Oyekan Owomoyela at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. USA.

We are also very greatful to Compatriot Irenikatche Akponikpe for bringing this to our attention.

At my own end, access to the website is easy. Viewed in Internet Explorer with the default Western European(Windows) encoding, the Yoruba is beautifully complete with under marks, tonal signs and all.
The content is high quality.

Please endorse to family members ,friends and others who may or should be interested.

Thank you.
Olamijulo S.K.

-------------------------------------------------
QUOTE
From: akponikpe [1]
 Sent: 01 February 2005 15:59
 To: yorubaworld@yahoogroups.com
 Subject: [YorubaWorld] Yoruba proverbs

 Mo ki gbogbo yin, at'ewe at'agba,

 For those who don't know, this website below may be of great interest. It is a set of thousands of Yoruba proverbs compiled and translated by Dr. Oyekan Owomoyela frm University of Nebraska - Lincoln.

 "Owe leshin oro, bi oro ba sonu, owe la fi nwa a" (Proverb is the horse of speech, when speech is lost, proverb is the means we use to hunt for it).

 http://libr.unl.edu:2000/yoruba/

 Ire o
 Irenikatche Akponikpe


END OF QUOTE

SUBJECT: Yoruba Decimal Counting System Re-Endorsement 02.15.05

Dear Compatriot Oladokun,
 
Thank you for your latest e-mail message to me . I appreciate our united worthy interest in the Development of Yoruba Language for the Development of ALL Yoruba People who have a variety of political and religious persuations in our different current locations in many counties of today's world.
 
I think that the Yoruba Decimal Counting System proposed by Dr. Kayode Fakinlede is excellent. So convinced was I that last year I bought some copies of his dictionary containing the proposal in print to keep in my library and share with some very appreciative family members and friends.
 
I have also used every appropiate opportunity to bring this historically significant proposal to the attention of people .
 
For example at the Hope Africa E-Publisher Website in April 2004
 
http://www.hopeafricaepublisher.com/yoruba...contribution21.html
 
 
CONTRIBUTION 21
FAKINLEDE KAYODE
 
In the USA. Author of
"Modern Practical Dictionary : Yoruba-English, English-Yoruba"
  Which can be purchased from

E-Mail Contact : "Dr. Kayode Fakinlede" jfakinlede@aol.com
   
Proponent of historically significant Yoruba Decimal Counting System, very adequate for current Information and Communications Technology Age.

" Fakinlede J." In LagosForum

http://www.lagosforum.com/comment.php?NR=976

QUOTE

Reevaluation Of Yoruba's Complex Numerical System
If Yoruba would be counted as one of the major languages of the world, its complex numerical system would have to be simplified. Science and technology, the engines that drive the modern world depend largely on number manipulations.

REEVALUATION OF YORUBA'S COMPLEX NUMERICAL SYSTEM
by Dr. Kayode J. Fakinlede - Author of Modern Practical Dictionary;
Yoruba-English, English-Yoruba

"Four scores and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth .."
The event being referenced happened eighty seven years before or thereabouts. If the event had taken place in Yoruba land, and Lincoln were a Yoruba leader, he would have expressed the year as "three less ten less five times twenty years ago.." This is cumbersome indeed!

But then, using this form of numerical system in the Gettysburg Address was Lincoln's way of injecting some sense of history and emotion into a situation that needed it. Today, a young, American schoolboy, unencumbered
with the rigors of a civil war, would be better served if Lincoln had just said "Eighty seven years ago .."

If Yoruba would be counted as one of the major languages of the world, its complex numerical system would have to be simplified. Science and technology, the engines that drive the modern world depend largely on number manipulations. This means that the system of performing rigorous mathematical mechanics before arriving at a given quantity has to give way. The duodecimal numerical system, with which our forebears counted their heads of cattle, chickens in the barn and cocoa bags would have to be replaced with a decimal system.

It is the decimal numeric system that we can use to count the number of people that occupy Yoruba land, the distance of the earth to the moon, the number of molecules in a substance, etc. The duodecimal system would just
not move the Yoruba language into the modern era.

Another reason to change to the use of the decimal system of counting is that it stops making counting itself the objective. It takes a Herculean task to express a number like 59,993 in Yoruba, even for learned speakers of the language. A speaker of English would have expressed this number as fifty nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety three, and proceeded to other endeavors, while the Yoruba person would still be busy with his own system of successive divisions, multiplications, substracions and additions, just to arrive at the said number.

The third reason why this change is neccesary is that it immediately includes more people in the national debate. How many Yoruba people, besides the educated ones, actually understand the implications of the national budget? How does one explain to an uneducated person that the government
will spend more than one trillion naira in a year? If an average Yoruba farmer were to grasp the full implication that the government's debt is forty billion dollars and that it intends to borrow another three billion more, he probably would be more critical of the government's priorities.

In the decimal system, the numbers are called as they are written. In the Yoruba system, the written number does not always have a corresponding voice pattern. For example, a simple number like 97, is called, etadinlogoorun - three less five times twenty. None of the numbers used in the pronunciation can be deciphered from the written symbol.

The Yoruba system already starts on the good foot. All that needs to be
done is a little fine-tuning to get to the destination. A unit in Yoruba is called eyo. Thus, three is eyo meta. A bundle comprising of ten units is taught in the primary schools as idi. Thus 40 can be called idi merin.
In Modern Practical Dictionary: Yoruba-English, English-Yoruba, the following words have been used for higher denominations: Apo (bag)represents 1 hundred; Oke (a big bag) represents 1 thousand; odu (a collection of bags) represents 1 million, eeru represents 1 billion.
The logic behind these deliniations is this: we tie eyo to make an idi; we collect many idi into an apo. A collection of apo makes an oke. A load of oke form an odu.The word eeru (billion) derives from the fact that when things multiply exceedingly, Yorubas say o gbeeru.
 Therefore, a collection of odu is referred to as eeru.

Therefore, a number like 59,993 can now be called as it is written, idi marun le esan oke, apo mesan ati idi mesan le eta.

All in all, a logical step in making the Yoruba language user friendly and relevant to the modern age begins by revamping the numerical system to meet new, world developments.

Dr. Kayode J. Fakinlede (2004-02-03)

END OF QUOTE
 
I heartily re-endorse to all Yorubas worldwide this Yoruba Decimal Counting System for us all to also repetetively endorse as individuals and in groups to as many other people as possible.
 
It will be helpful when Dr. Fakinlede concludes and implements his arrangements to publish at least this Yoruba Decimal Counting proposal complete online for easy, more effective Global Access and common usage soonest possible.
 
Thank you
 
Dr. Samuel Kayode Olamijulo

SUBJECT: Yoruba Internet Display Issues 02.25.05

Dear Mr. Edward Chelin, Greetings.

I appreciate your mail below and your very helpful interest in Yoruba Language Development for Yoruba People Development.

At my own user end, typing ALL Yoruba Letters, under -marks and tonal signs included, is now easy with practice, using free Arial Unicode MS font and ABD Yoruba Keyboard .

Yoruba Desktop Publishing is making tremendous progress with imputs from many good contributors from all over the world.

One important persisting user headache is in communication accross e-mail , yahoogroups, other web forums, websites and other Internet applications even when Arial Unicode MS or other Unicode Compatible fonts are used in the creation of the message.

The display at the author end may be good but at the receiver end letters Ee; Oo ;Ss with under-marks and Aa; Ee; I i ; Oo ; Uu with tonal signs with or without under-marks are often variously compromised.

For example in the display of the Yoruba passage below :

 

The Grace In Yoruba:

 

Ki őre ọfẹ Jesu Kristi Oluwa wa

 

Ifẹ mimọ Ọlọrun

 

Idapọ awọn enia mimọ

 

Ki o mă ba wa gbe

 

Lati isinyi lọ

 

Ati titi lailai

 

AMIN

 

Typed with



Arial Unicode MS font in MS Word 2003 and ABD Yoruba Keyboard available for free from:



http://www.africanportal.net/Publications/ABD/mktut1.htm



The initiating display at my end is perfect. I shall deliberately post at Quicktopic, a 12n- forum and some Yahoo e-groups for display comparisons at the other end.
  

Thank you once again for your very constructive interest.

Dr. Samuel Kayode Olamijulo

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edward Cherlin <edward.cherlin@etssg.com> wrote:
On Saturday 12 February 2005 00:16, you wrote:

> Dear Mr. Edward Cherlin,

>

> 1. Please go ahead and report back to the Unicode list we are

> agreed that Yoruba Ss Oo Ee with undermarks be single

> letters that can be written with either a dot or a vertical

> line below in different fonts.


Done.


> 2. My Previous Comment:

> >This apparently must be coupled with representations

> > by ALL who have the access to Microsoft, Yahoo, Hotmail and

> > several other Major world ICT players to use on their

> > servers fonts that have the glyps to present ALL Yoruba

> > letters correctly.

>

> Your Comment:

> >All of these, plus Apple, IBM, Sun, the Linux and BSD

> >communities, and many more will support whatever characters

> > are in Unicode. Some font vendors and developers of Free

> > fonts will include glyphs for every character in Unicode in

> > their font offerings. There is no problem there.

>

> My Updated Comment:

>

> Your observation sounds very encouraging. We look forward to

> actual speedy implementation by all to overcome current Yoruba

> display, storage and compatibility issues accross different

> products and services.


There is no difficulty in displaying and transmitting Yoruba in Unicode. All that is needed is a suitable font, such as Arial Unicode MS or the free Code2000 or ClearlyU fonts. I find that I have more than 20 fonts in a variety of styles with these letters in my Debian Linux distribution. I can display Yoruba correctly in dozens of applications.


Anybody with experience in creating Linux keyboard layouts could add these Yoruba letters to a standard Latin alphabet keyboard in an hour. (I personally have been entering them throughout this discussion using a Unicode character table utility. I just keep the appropriate page (30 decimal, 1E hexadecimal) of the Unicode space open on my desktop while I type.) The Macintosh would take only a little longer, and Windows requires special tools, but I have been told of a Yoruba keyboard for Windows coming out next month. Let's see if I can find the message...Ah, yes.

============

> Finally, in any case I will like to inform all that

> KỌNYIN Keyboard with fourteen (14) additional Nigeria

> languages specific characters and twelve (12) tonal signs,

> which will allow for unlimited tonal sign combination on any

> vowel character without changing how users type today, should

> be available for sale before the end of March 2005. The new

> KỌNYIN keyboard is totally Windows 2000, 2003 and XP

> based and completely application and font independent.


Excellent.


> Ade G Oyegbọla

> LANCOR Technologies

> www.konyin.com

>

==========

> Thank you for your very helpful interest.

>

> Dr. Samuel Olamijulo



--

Edward Cherlin, Simputer Evangelist

Encore Technologies (S) Pte. Ltd.

The Village Information Society

http://cherlin.blogspot.com
UBJECT: Yoruba Internet Display Issues 02.25.05

Dear Dr. Samuel Olamijulo,


QT - Dr.Samuel Olamijulo wrote:
> --QT-------------------------------------------------------------
> Reply by email or visit
> http://www.quicktopic.com/15/H/KKgbRqJUAR8/m173
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> SUBJECT: Yoruba Internet Display Issues 02.25.05

> At my own user end, typing ALL Yoruba Letters, under -marks and
> tonal signs included, is now easy with practice, using free
> Arial Unicode MS font and ABD Yoruba Keyboard .

Arial Unicode MS isn't an ideal font, since

1) it is only available to people who own an appropraite Microsoft product like MS Office 2000,XP or 2003.

2) it doesn't have the open the open type features that handle combinig diacritics.

Have a look at

http://www.openroad.net.au/languages/afric...uba/sample_nfd.html http://www.openroad.net.au/languages/african/yoruba/sample.html

you'll need the appropriate fonts loaded.

> One important persisting user headache is in communication
> accross e-mail , yahoogroups, other web forums, websites and
> other Internet applications even when Arial Unicode MS or other
> Unicode Compatible fonts are used in the creation of the
> message.
>

e-mail will work well if you use a unicode email client (using a POP3 or IMAP email account) and an appropriate font rendering technology.
Most web-based email services are flawed (from the point of view of multilingual capabilities).

Hotmail and Yahoo email services (the US, UK, AU and NZ ones at least) are only really suitable for English and a handful of other languages. Tey're not designed to handle a language such as Yoruba.

The same goes for Yahoogroups and many web forums.

For Yoruba, it is necessary to develop and implement Unicode based solutions that are appropriate for Yoruba, rather than relying on generic US-centric services that are not really suitable.

> The display at the author end may be good but at the receiver
> end letters Ee; Oo ;Ss with under-marks and Aa; Ee; I i ; Oo
> ; Uu with tonal signs with or without under-marks are often
> variously compromised.
>

... for a number of reasons ... if you want to use Yoruba on the internet ... use web tools suitable for Yoruba. I suspect that
appropriate tools will need to be developed.



> For example in the display of the Yoruba passage below :
>

If you had included tones in your example, you would have had a more interesting and more rigorous test.

Andrew

--
Andrew Cunningham
e-Diversity and Content Infrastructure Solutions
Public Libraries Unit, Vicnet
State Library of Victoria
328 Swanston Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Australia

andrewc+AEA-vicnet.net.au

Ph. 3-8664-7430
Fax: 3-9639-2175

http://www.openroad.net.au/
http://www.libraries.vic.gov.au/
http://www.vicnet.net.au/

New Codepage as solution for Yoruba Internet Display Issues

What is a Codepage?
A codepage is an ordered set of characters in which a numeric index (code point values) is associated with each character. The first 128 characters of each codepage are functionally the same and include all characters needed to type English text. The upper 128 characters of OEM and ANSI codepages contain characters used in a language or group of languages. Each defined codepage contains a maximum of 256 code points.

The system locale (sometimes referred to as the system default locale), determines which codepages and associated bitmap font files are used as defaults for the system. These codepages and fonts enable non-Unicode applications to run as they would on a system localized to the language of the system locale. These codepages and fonts are used by non-Unicode applications to emulate operation on a system localized to the language selected as the system locale.

In a cross-platform transmission of texts (Internet):

The characters are converted to digital codes using the code points of the input language codepage. When the digital codes arrive at the receiving system/platform, the incoming digital codes checks if the system/platform is using Unicode for translation, and if yes, the digital codes in the incoming message is translated using the Unicode code point table, if the answer is no, then the incoming digital codes will look for the similar input language codepage on the receiving system/platform to translate the digital code points into displayable characters.

The problem we are having with YoruĚbaě (Yoruba) characters and tonal signs, is that these characters are not contained in any of the 20-150 codepages in most operating systems. Most YoruĚbaě (Yoruba) keyboard layouts use 1252-codepage and it does not contain our unique characters. In that case when the digital codes use the input language 1252 codepage for translation, we get intelligible or weird prints because the code point for the digital codes cannot be found in the codepage.

I hope this explanation is not too technical and can be understood by all.

We really need Microsoft to create a new Codepage for Africa (Niger-Congo) Language Group, which includes YoruĚbaě (Yoruba)

Thanks

Ade G Oyegbọla (Oyegbola)
President & CEO
http://www.konyin.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ade Oyegbola <Oyegbola@konyin.com> wrote:

Dear Dr. Ọlamijulọ (Olamijulo)

The problem is not fonts but “codepage”

Operating systems developers like Microsoft, Apple, Linux, IBM and others have to create a new “codepage” that contains all the characters in question. Without this new codepage text translation in a non-Unicode compliant platform/application will be incorrect, which is what is happening.

An application that is fully Unicode compliant does not need a codepage to translate texts. While, a lot of application developers are migrating towards Unicode text scripting in general, there are going to be lots of legacy applications out there will still be dependent on codepages for text translation, so we really need to push, especially Microsoft, to create a new codepage for Africa. After-all, all major language regions of the world have their own codepages.

First, YoruĚbaěs (Yorubas) needs to get Microsoft to create our own National Language Support b (NLS) (also called Language Locale) page in Windows.

Second, each NLS is tied to a codepage that contains all the characters needed to translate the text in any operating systems.

Third, the new codepage has to be released as systems upgrade for all operating systems in the world to recognize and translate these texts correctly at all times.

At this time most YoruĚbaě (Yoruba) keyboard layout are using 1252 (Latin 1) codepage. This codepage does not have our Ẹẹ, Ọọ, Ṣṣ (Ee, Oo, Ss, with dot below) included and only the acute and grave tonal signs are in this codepage.

FYI, we at KỌNYIN (KONYIN) have submitted a suggested codepage template request to Microsoft for creation, but Microsoft keeps telling us that it will not create a new codepage and we should concentrate our effort in promoting Unicode text scripting to application developers instead. We can use some help from the Yoruba community to pressure Microsoft into action.

Ade G Oyegbọla (Oyegbola)

Hi all, a few quick comments:

QT - Ade G Oyegbola wrote:

>
> First, Yoru&#C3;C;ba&#C3;&#AC;s (Yorubas) needs to get Microsoft to create our
> own National Language Support b (NLS) (also called Language
> Locale) page in Windows.
>

I doubt this will happen. Microsoft have clearly identified their position that new language support will be Unicode based.

And they would also argue that as of Office 2003 and Windows XP SP2, windows correctly handles Yoruba diacritics. They would also tell you that new fonts will be available in Longhorn.

Using fonts like Code2000 or Dolous SIL on Office 2003 or in any unicode app that supports uniscribe on WinXP SP2 you already have Yoruba support.
If Microsoft did the unlikely thing and add a codepage for Yoruba, its likely that would only be added to future operatings systems like longhorn or after and not made available to older operating systems.
These days Microsoft doesn't tend to retrofit, take Internet Explorer 7 as an example, it will only be available for WinXP SP2, not on older versions of windows.


> Second, each NLS is tied to a codepage that contains all the
> characters needed to translate the text in any operating
> systems.
>

only if evbryone adopts the new NLS and adds support for it. A new NLS is taken up, it may be years befoere you see sufficient follow through.
>
> FYI, we at KỌNYIN (KONYIN) have submitted a suggested
> codepage template request to Microsoft for creation, but
> Microsoft keeps telling us that it will not create a new
> codepage and we should concentrate our effort in promoting
> Unicode text scripting to application developers instead. We can
> use some help from the Yoruba community to pressure Microsoft
> into action.
>

Even if Microsoft add a new codepage, this would only affect Longhorn or maybe the operating system version after longhorn. It will do nothing for older operating systems such as Win95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP and so on.
Also, a Microsoft codepage is unlikely to get picked up in some open source software, where the preference is to support iso-8859 series encodings rather than Microsoft codepages.

Yoruba can be done in Unicode on WinXPSP2 or in Office 2003 now. Thats better than Myanmar and other languages that aren't supported yet and may or may not be supported in Longhorn.

An 8-bit locale that isn't compatible with older software, older fonts and older operating systems provides little benefit, and that would take years to propogate is a problematic move. Also there is the political issue of which of the numerous legacy 8-bit fonts would form the basis for a new 8-bit encoding.

The xml and html tools I use now, support Yoruba in Unicode. Why would I want to go backwards?

There are problems with some web services and tools. Best to fix the problems for the future, rather than leaving the problems there and creating a new set of incompatabilities.

How many codepoints would be needed to add support for an Africa
(Niger-Congo) Language Group codepage?

Just my 2 cents worth, please feel free to disregard.

Andrew.

Edited by author 03-01-2005 02:32 PM
Reply to Message 176

Dear Andrew Cunningham,

I will agree with you that Microsoft is firm in moving in the direction of Unicode scripting. Your points on this issue is quite correct. However, this issue of cross-platform interoperability does not start and stop with Microsoft alone.

For example, major applications like Adobe, Corel, Winzip, LotusNotes, Eudora, other e-mail & internet platforms and even Microsoft's Outlook still uses the operating system default codepage for some text computing, and where the character is not included as a code point is the default codepage, you cannot use it. Even Office 2003 & Office XP dictionary is completely codepage dependent, you cannot add a word containing a Yoruba character into the dictionary. There are still pockets of computing in Windows XP that relys on the system default codepage.

We have had many a long conference calls with some Microsoft employees about the need to provide additional support for all the legacy applications out there today that still depends on the system codepage for text translation. While, most of them agree the bridge needs to be built, no one wants to commit to building it.

(It is OK that some people know how to swim and will not need a bridge to cross the river, but should we force everybody else to learn to swim just to cross the river?)

We have suggested creating a new codepage using the CP_1252 template and replacing about 76 code points that mostly contains diacritical marks, with unique characters and then adding combining diacritical marks as independent code points. (52 characters and 24 tonal marks)

If you are interested in the template, please send me a seperate mail (Oyegbola@Konyin.com)

Finally, Microsoft Longhorn will be great for Microsoft Application environment, but it will take a long time for other application developers to fully adopt the Unicode approach.

Microsoft can and should create this one last codepage for Africa (Niger-Congo) area and release it as critical patch for all the currently supported operating systems. (Windows 2000, XP and 2003).

Just my thought.

Ade G Oyegbola (Oyegbọla)
www.konyin.com

Dear Ade Oyegbola,

QT - Ade G Oyegbola wrote:

> However, this issue of cross-platform
> interoperability does not start and stop with Microsoft alone.
>

The first question is, have you tried the ISO path to get a new ISO-8859 character set?

I suspect that Microsoft will not budge on this one, and even if it did, it will not help most users who are not on the latest microsoft windows or the latest microsoft applications.

> For example, major applications like Adobe, Corel, Winzip and
> even Microsoft's Outlook still uses the operating system default
> codepage for some text computing, and where the character is not
> included as a code point is the default codepage, you cannot use
> it. Even Office 2003 & Office XP dictionary is completely
> codepage dependent, you cannot add a word containing a Yoruba
> character into the dictionary. There are still pockets of
> computing in Windows XP that relys on the system default
> codepage.

Understood. But thats why I feel its important to push for better Unicode support for Yoruba. Otherwise these things will not improve, and Yoruba will continue to be in limbo.

I suppose my situation is different to your situation. You require adequate support for Yoruba.

I require adequate support for multiple languages using multiple scripts. The practical approach for me is to lobby for better Unicode support.

I've tested lots and lots of software over the years that claim to be unicode compatible. Most are built using the windows95
internationalization model, ie their support for uniocde is actually based on codepages rather than native unicode support. Very frustrating.
Umm .. are you sure about the dictionaries in Office 20003 and Office XP?
 From memory Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu have spell checkers in Office 2003 (via the proofing tools package) and I was under the impression that Microsoft did not support codepages for these languages. I thought that support for these
languages was Unicode based.

> We have had many a long conference calls with some Microsoft
> employees about the need to provide additional support for all
> the legacy applications out there today that still depends on
> the system codepage for text translation. While, most of them
> agree the bridge needs to be built, no one wants to commit to
> building it.

a problem.

> We have suggested creating a new codepage using the CP_1252
> template and replacing about 76 code points that mostly contains
> diacritical marks, with unique characters and then adding
> combining diacritical marks as independent code points. (52
> characters and 24 tonal marks)
>

24 tonal marks?

> If you are interested in the template, please send me a seperate
> mail (Oyegbola@Konyin.com)
>
> Finally, Microsoft Longhorn will be great for Microsoft
> Application environment, but it will take a long time for other
> application developers to fully adopt the Unicode approach.
>

catch-22. the same issue will probably arise for a Niger-Congo codepage.
> Microsoft can and should create this one last codepage for
> Africa (Niger-Congo) area and release it as critical patch for
> all the currently supported operating systems. (Windows 2000, XP
> and 2003).
>

Unfortunately, Microsoft aren't likely to add additional language support to Windows2000. The trend is to add langauge support in a new version of the operating system, or maybe to the latest operating system via a service pack as was the case with WinXPSP2.

If they were to add a new codepage, it would also have to be base don unicode support, ie they way they implemented Vietnamese. From my understanding this would limit Yoruba to versions of Windows that had an appropraite version of Uniscribe installed, ie Windows XP SP2.

Then there is the additional issues. If Microsoft create a codepage for Niger-Congo, they'll also be under pressure to create codepages for every other language group or region in Africa, South East Asia and Central Asia.

I understand your concerns, and am sympathetic to them. I just think that a better way forward would be to push Microsoft to improve their Unicode support. And push other software developers to internationalize their software properly.

To my mind, the key problem is bad software design practices.


Andrew

Dear Andrew Cunningham,

All your points are well taken, but they do not address the core issue raised by Dr. Olamijulo's (Ọlamijulọ's) conference to wit: Yoruba Internet Display Issues

The issue of correct text display for messages sent via email engines,internet protals and internet application platforms are different from generic applications support for character display in the application itself.

A very good example is this QuickTopic platform and application.(I can easily type my messages using all unicode characters, but if I use any character that is not in the default codepage of the hosting server/portal for my posting name, it will not display correctly.)

You have to belief me, we have spent of 6 years on the issue of input and display devices for Africa (Niger-Congo) latin scripting. The only reasonable answer is a codepage for this region. (By the way, Arabic is the scripting for most of the North Africa Languages)

I don't want to go off issue here.

All the items you have listed as solutions are perfectly OK going forward, but unless you can make all the internet servers and email portals around the world update their softwares to Unicode standard, and stop relying on users' system default codepages, we will continue to have the display problems.

If Microsoft did not have any problem with updating all their existing codepages in 2000 to include the Euro currency symbol, I think Microsoft should not have a problem creating a new codepage to account for Africa (Niger-Congo) languages spoken and writing by over 500 million people.

Yes, 24 tonal marks, represented in the Unicode Chart and used by most languages in the Africa (Niger-Congo) area of Africa. Our focus at KỌNYIN (KONYIN) is not a signle language.

I don't really agree with you that "it is bad software design." For the life of computing, all developers have used the codepage as bases for text scripting and to conclude that becasue we now have a better global standard for the process, does not mean that we should immediatley discard all legacy applications.

I can assure you that it will take a very very long time before all the internet portals and email servers around the world upgrade to fully Unicode standard.

Ade G Oyegbọla (Oyegbola)
www.konyin.com

Dear Ade Oyegbola,

thank you for some interesting emails. Its given me something to think about.

QT - Ade G Oyegbola (Oyegbọla) wrote:
> --QT-------------------------------------------------------------
> Reply by email or visit
> http://www.quicktopic.com/15/H/KKgbRqJUAR8/m179
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Dear Andrew Cunningham,
>
> All your points are well taken, but they do not address the core
> issue raised by Dr. Olamijulo's (Ọlamijulọ's)
> conference to wit: Yoruba Internet Display Issues
>

True, they're things i've discussed in the past, but I tend to discuss these issues so often, in some many different forums that I forget where i've commented and where I haven't commented.

> The issue of correct text display for messages sent via email
> engines,internet protals and internet application platforms are
> different from generic applications support for character
> display in the application itself.
>

The crux is that you are refering to web services that haven't been internationalized.

If I send and recieve email from a unicode aware email client using a POP3 or IMAP acocunt I have no problems what so ever sending and recieving Yoruba emails.

I'm not an expert in MIME, but form my understanding a few different things need to happen, and a lot of web based email services get soem of this wrong.

Yahoo (english language versions) and Hotmail (English language
versions) are notorious for this.

The US and Australian versions of Yahoo, and I assume other English language versions of Yahoo will identify the character set of an email as being US-ASCII. That tends to screw up display for email clients that correctly handle character encodings, forcing the user to select an appropriate encoding. Some email services do not send out charcater encoding info at all.

depending on the browsers default character encoding, Yoruba text may either be inserted as a unicode character or as a HTML decimal NCR. NCRs aren't helpful for text based email clients.

The best work around I've found for Yoruba and other languages when using Yahoo or Yahoo Groups is to use Firefox, set the default encoding to UTF-8 and add the URIid extension. It is then posisble to write CSS instructions in the userContnet.css file specifically for Yahoo mail and Yahoo groups to set an appropraite font for Yoruba (or other languages). This technique is at best an awkward hack.

The reality is the English language interface for Yahoo mail or Yahoo Groups wasn't written for languages other than English.

What is really needed is a Unicode based web mail client that can be tailored (via preferences) for each African language and that respects the email protocols (including transfer encodings).

As an example, we're building a portal for Australian Public Libraries which will contain multilingual web directories. It is all Unicode based. It is intended to be flexible enough to handle any language we may need (including African languages).

The portal will support language specific CSS, and other language specific features, including support for virtual keyboards and in some case custom collation routines.

Most web designers are very bad at internationalization, and aren't familiar with the W3C character model or the W3C's internationalization authouring techniques.

There is a wealth of information on how to developed a well
internationalized web service. Many web developers don't bother or are unaware of how to do this.

If american and european based web services are inadequate, maybe its time to start pulling together a group of organizations that will develop web services and portals suitable for African languages, and hopefully not reproduce the mistakes and errors of existing services.
Personally I feel that a lot of work needs to be done, and rather than relying on US and European solutions that are unsuitable for African languages, it may be better to advocate for and champion projects that have been designed to accomodate African languages.

> A very good example is this QuickTopic platform and
> application.(I can easily type my messages using all unicode
> characters, but if I use any character that is not in the
> default codepage of the hosting server/portal for my posting
> name, it will not display correctly.)
>

LOL, yep, but then QuickTopic wasn't designed to do that. The point is most web services and portals were designed to meet the need of the designers. Often internationalization isn't considered.

Its worth reembering the sender header in an email is supposed to be 7-bit, soem email servers will reject messages that don't have 7-bit clean headers. So in your case, the sender field needs to be reencoded. This should be done by the email client or by the web-based mail server.
But as I said many web based solutions aren't written properly and according to the specs.

> You have to belief me, we have spent of 6 years on the issue of
> input and display devices for Africa (Niger-Congo) latin
> scripting. The only reasonable answer is a codepage for this
> region. (By the way, Arabic is the scripting for most of the
> North Africa Languages)

Granted.

Although worth noting that the Arabic codepage, really only supports the Arabic language itself, other languages like Persian, Dari, Sindhi, Pashto, Urdu, etc which use the Arabic script can not be displayed using the Arabic codepage. For these languages all support is Uniocde based or using hacked legacy codepages.

I started working with Vietnamese web pages in 1994. There are lots of different organisation or company specific codepages, there were also national standards for Vietnamese. Evenetually Microsoft created a Vietnamese codepage, but very few people actually used it, and it has been superceeded by Unicode.

And only some opensource applications provided support for the Windows Vietnamese codepage, others avoided implimenting it.

>
> Yes, 24 tonal marks, represented in the Unicode Chart and used
> by most languages in the Africa (Niger-Congo) area of Africa.
> Our focus at KỌNYIN (KONYIN) is not a signle language.

ahh, ok, then its not just a code page issue, it may also be a font rendering issue. Having looked at your codepage proposal, I suspect that even if Microsoft did implement it, they would implement it i a similar manner to that for Vietnamese. Ultimately all data in the codepage would be converted internally to unicode for processing and display. It would require OpenType fonts that would handle diacritic positioning and stacking, i.e. you would have gone around in a circle. To implement teh codepage, you'd already have to have the pieces in place to handle Yoruba in Unicode.

Vietnamese codepage is implemented via unicode, using Vietnamese language specific tables in the OpenType font to handle tone marks. Although all Vietnamese characters exist as precomposed characters in Unicode, Microsoft's approach to keyboard design and langauge
implementation lead to a codepage that has single unicode points for discrete vowels and combining diacritics for tones. The Open Type fonts and Uniscibe shipped with Windows2000 added the required support.
If they follow this pattern, which seems to be what would have to happen in order to support the 24 diacritics in your proposal, then you require the necessary pieces to be in place to support Yoruba unicode in order to support your Yoruba 8-bit codepage?

But then again I could be wrong.

Best of luck with your work.

Andrew

Hi everyone,

for those interested, I've thrown together a CGI script that generates a HTMl form allowing you to type in Yoruba Unicode and normalize it to NFC and NFD. It will also convert extended Latin characters to HTML numerical character references.

The form also has a virtual keyboard.

Have a play at http://www.openroad.net.au/cgi-bin/tools/yoruba.cgi

Andj.

 SUBJECT: Yoruba Today on Computers and Internet- 03.14.05 Endorsements

The Yoruba language has made very gratifying progress on computers in recent times. Real practical challenges currently however remain, for easy, effective communication by ordinary users at various Internet and e-mail servers/portals.

We are very grateful to all who have participated openly and productively in Yoruba Language Development for Yoruba People Development Worldwide.

Contributions by Engineer Ade Oyegbola, KONYIN President and CEO and Dr. Kayode Fakinlede author of Yoruba – English, English- Yoruba Dictionary, quoted below are endorsed for serious consideration and constructive action by all in everyway we can whenever we have the opportunity. We are all enjoined to play our own parts until together we succeed in persuading Microsoft authorities to create the apparently much needed codepage that includes Yoruba language specific alphabets and others in the Niger-Congo group of African Languages.

The only direction we must look from here is up.

Olodumare Oba A le wi le se a fun gbogbo wa se o - Amin.

Olamijulo S.K.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

QUOTE 1. From Engineer Ade. G. Oyegbola:

Here is a recap of where we think we are today when it comes to Yoruba language and computing environment.
1. Input Devices: Keyboard (No Problem)
There are a lot of input devices in the market today that can be used to type Yoruba in computing environment. There are numerous virtual Keyboard layout software, and there is the Physical keyboard from KONYIN. There is not shortage of input devises, just the question of convenience from having to understand multiple combination keystrokes and shortcuts; this problem will be eliminated with the introduction of the first 106 double function physical keyboard from KONYIN

2. Display: Fonts (No Problem)
To translate the digital code from the input device (keyboard), the operating system needs a font that has the glyphs representing the letter. There are lots of fonts in the market today that will correctly display Yoruba alphabets in any application. Fonts like: Gentium, Ariya, Arial Unicode MS, and more. All Yoruba alphabets are correctly represented in the Unicode Charset, so any font developer can use the Unicode code point in creating fonts for use by Yoruba people.

3. Applications: (generally no problem)
Most applications that are Unicode compliant can handle input and display of Yoruba alphabets. While some have problems saving files with a name that includes Yoruba alphabets, this problem is limited to a few old applications that still rely on the system default codepage as controlling. All Microsoft Applications can handle Yoruba alphabets. Corel and Adobe applications also can handle Yoruba alphabets. If you have any application that is a 2000 version and above, you should be able to input and display Yoruba alphabets. Sending what you type to another person over the internet or e-mail portals/servers is another issue.

4. Operating Systems: (Interoperability text transmission problem)
Most Operating systems, like Microsoft, Apple, Linux, IBM, Solaris and others used to depend on a text translation process that uses codepages to identify languages and then determine the correct codepage to translate a digital code into text. More recently, these Operating systems have now migrated to a text translation process that uses a more global approach called Unicode Charest. The introduction of the Unicode standard is expected to make the codepage obsolete, and it is working but very slowly. To the best of our knowledge, most Operating systems are 90% Unicode compliant. Unfortunately the remaining 10% represent a very critical pathway for interoperability (i.e. Internet and e-mail servers). Because some of these operating systems still use codepages, when there is an issue with text translation using Unicode Charest, the system tries to use any available codepage in the system to resolve the issue. Yoruba language specific alphabets are not represented in any codepage, so translation of our text over cross-platform is inconsistent. If by some miracle all major operating systems become 100% Unicode compliant, this problem will go away. This problem does not affect documents sent as attachments .

5. In General:
We do not have much expertise on the issues relating to display of Yoruba alphabets on website, however in creating our own website, we used the web embedding software from Microsoft, and this software allows website creators to embed their specific font into the website, so that all visitors will see the site in this font. This solution takes care of the issue of incorrect display of alphabets because the Computer in use does not have the required font to view the site correctly. http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/embedding

6. Finally:
With the exception of cross-platform interoperability for most Internet and e-mail servers/portals, the Yoruba language is computer ready. This is not to say that, we should standby and wait for all operating systems to be fully Unicode complaint, this will take a very, very long time. We need to find a way for a backward compatibility with old applications that still rely on codepages. It is worth remembering that a lot of computer users in Nigeria and most third world countries still use old operating systems and applications.

I hope this recap is informative and will help to further focus our efforts in making Yoruba language a force in global computing.

Ade G Oyegbola
President & CEO
www.konyin.com

END OF QUOTE
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

QUOTE 2 - From Dr. Kayode Fakinlede:

The efforts of all of those who work to make our language, Yoruba, easily accessible by computer and the Internet are commendable.
I do not profess to be computer savvy, however, I cannot but be impressed by the continued persistence of people like Dr. Olamijulo, Mr. Oyegbola, etc. to make things easy for the estimated ‘100 million’ people who, in a way, have some Yoruba blood in them.

I believe, however, that a fundamental issue is being overlooked here. The supposition is that once the problems of non-English letters are completely solved, Yoruba people will begin to use the alphabets to communicate. This would probably not happen, or it would not happen to any appreciable extent.
The main issue, as I see it, is that if we follow all the nuances of written Yoruba as it is today, the language is very difficult and time wasting to write accurately, and to type. For example, it takes me an average of 4 hours work presently to accurately produce (type) a manuscript that will take a writer in English 1 hour.

Secondly, accuracy, to me, in the Yoruba language, is not accuracy to someone else, even someone from Southwest Nigeria. Written Yoruba in other nations take different dimensions. Where there is some complexity in anything as important as a language, what normally would happen is that some rules will be put in place to make things easy and universal for all. There have to be some rules put in place in writing Yoruba, so that we can easily communicate with one another and across borders and all those who are eager to learn the language will benefit.

For our children, even in Nigeria, to appreciate the beauty in our language and our culture, we need to simplify the writing and reading of the language ……………..
Respectfully Yours,
Fakinlede

END OF QUOTE

Edited by author 03-15-2005 08:47 PM
Response to Message #182 by Dr. Ọlamijulọ

We at KỌNYIN were indeed very glad to contribute to this discussion group.

I, Ade G Oyegbọla, wish to state that I'm not an Engineer as stated in the message by Dr. Ọlamijulọ in message #182. I can understand the assumption after having provided such detail technical information to the group, but the information I provided are the result of over six years of work by many people in our parent company Lagos Analysis Corporation (LANCOR). I think credit about my technical education and the information I have provided belongs to the following individuals: Engr. O Walter Oluwọle, Chief Technology Officer; Kelvin Oluwọle, Software Engr.; Sergey Torpokov, Software Engr.; George C.K Van-Lare, Research Director; Funmi Oyekusibẹ, Research staff; Chinyere Offor, Research staff; including Dr. Victor Manfredi and Kọle Ade-Odutọla, linguists.

Our product KỌNYIN keyboard with 106 multi-function enabled physical keyboard includes 14 Nigeria language specific alphabets and 13 diacritical signs, clearly labeled on the keyboard. The keyboard layout is patented under Nigeria Law and represents the "First Truly Complete PC Keyboard for Nigeria Official Languages" combined. (English, Ẹdo, Ẹfik, Fulani, Hausa, Igbo, Kanuri and Yoruba)

The keyboard truly does not change how you type today, and does not use the dreaded "dead key" typing process.

Please visit us at http://www.konyin.com for more information regarding the availability of various models of the keyboard.(PS/2, USB, Multimedia, Wireless, etc)

Mr. Ade G. Oyegbọla
President & CEO
www.konyin.com

DADDY
     MY NAME IS TOMI THE SONE OF YOUR BROTHER I JUST WANT TO SAY HELLO TO YOU


                                  THANKS

Andrew, Re the the page with virtual keys, composition window and converters you mention in /m181, this is quite useful. I note among other things, correct placement of the combining-diacritic tone marks on capital and lower case vowels.

My system does not display the dot-under s's (lack of appropriate font) but other than that all works well.

It occurs that some small explanation of "Unicode Normalization Forms C and D might be useful.

Another feature that might be helpful, though harder to implement, might be a key combo input option like what one finds at the http://french.typeit.org page. There Ctrl+e equals é ; strike it twice and get č ; three times, ę ; and four, ë. Yoruba is different in that all (?) vowels can have tone markings, so the key combos would be more complicated. But if one started with say a Ctrl+e, o or s equalling ẹ, ọ, or ṣ, then that might be a start. Ctrl+' or ` could make the combining rising or falling tones.

Just some thoughts.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Thanks for your comments Don,

There are versions of the perl script for both Igbo and Dinka as well as Yoruba, and I should have the Nuer version finished later today.

The form works best on either Mozilla, Firefox or IE on Windows XP SP2. Fonts with the appropriate OpenType tables include Code2000, Doulos SIL, AfRomanSerif and AfSans.

haven't tested it on linux or MacOS yet.

I was planning on writing a small document on "Unicode and African languages" focusing on the need of African languages that use the Latin script, but require complex processing. That will also address what normalization means.

No that I have a spare week, I can concentrate on getting my site uptodate.

I was thinking of adding accesskey attributes to all the buttons. I just need to determine the best keyboard shortcuts to achieve that. Using the access key approacj should be relatively simple.

Although I was thinking taht another approach would be to design a Mozilla Firefox toolbar. I've been looking at a Mozilla/Firefox toolbar for Indic languages, which allows you to type in Indoian languages within HTML forms in Firefox or Mozilla.

A similar approach could be useful for African languages. Something i'll experiemnt with when my current projects are complete.

I'm also in the process of compiling some mapping tables for legacy african fonts, which will allow a quick and easy conversion from the legacy encoding to Unicode. I've been using TECKit and CC. The new evrsion of Encoding Convertors by SIL is very useful. It allows you to copy old 8-bit data to the clipborad convert it to unicode and paste it into an application as unicode. Alternatively you can open an old word document and convert the document to Unicode and chage the fonts at the same time. It has proved quite useful.

When I have time, I'll prepare some mapping tables for some of the 8-bit Yoruba fonts I have access to.

Andrew

SUBJECT: Yoruba Reference Bible Online : Bibeli Yoruba Atoka - Announcement by Olamijulo S.K. Family
 
At http://www.hopeafricaepublisher.com/yrb062505.html
 
Access by ALL to the Holy Bible in eventually many African Languages provided FREE by African Bibles Online.
 
We begin with Bibeli Yoruba Atoka for reasons of logistics.
 
Dr. Samuel Kayode Olamijulo Family

Andrew--

At the Linguistic Data Consortium (LDC) of the University of Pennsylvania, we are just embarking on a corpus-building effort for Yoruba. We also have a researcher here (Dr. Yiwola Awoyale) who is making a Yoruba-English dictionary.

In the past, we've discovered how important it is to understand the encoding systems that are actually in use. I would be very interested in learning what you have in the way of non-Unicode fonts for Yoruba, especially the encoding issues. Thanks!

I thank you very much for your e-mail message.

Could you kindly let me know the relevant Websites, in order to locate courses on "Beginning/Learning Yoruba", as well as the relevant textbooks, relative to those beginning to learn the Yoruba language.

Thanking you in advance,
Sincerely,
Isaac Jadesimi.
jades@tamcotec.com
>
< replied-to message removed by QT >

Hi Mike,

I'll go through my collection of fonts and see what I have. Although from memory I fon't have many 8-bit ones. Been concentrating on Unicode support.

Encoding issues really depend on the purpose you are putting the fonts to. The first issue is that none of the 8-bit fonts in use for Yoruba follow any documented international standard. Which essentially means that all existing encoding conversion tools will not work with Yoruba text. It would be necessary to develop custom mapping tables and use tools like TECKit to convert to and from these encodings. I've done this for a number of Southern Sudanese languages, where we've needed to convert old word documents and rtf file before digitising them.

Other key issue is the availability of the fonts and the copyright/licensing agreements (ie can the fonts be free downloaded and access or redistributed as part of a project).

When using XML docuemnts, it is not possible to identify the character encoding unambiguously (since you're refering to a character encoding that all existing XML software would not recognise).

The killer, at least for information on the internet, is the behaviour of web browsers. Web pages in Yoruba 8-bit fonts would need to be incorrectly labeled as a western european character encoding or identified as a user-defined character encoding.

If web pages are passed and latered by some intermediatary web service, then a page identified as western european may get mangled.

Additionally windows-1252 codepoints in the G0 zone are converted to appopriate unicode codepoints before the browser displays the page. If the Yoruba font has characters in the G0 codepoints windows-1252 uses, these characters will be incorrectly rendered (unless of course thge font has been hacked to accomodate this).

If the web page uses the user-defined slot, then similar problems may occure depending on the browser. In theory, the user defined encoding slot in web browsers shouldn't be remapped, although soem testing indicates that IE (for instance) actually uses a windows-1252 mapping for the user defined slot. I haven't verified this.

Its easier to convert 8-bit fonts to unicode and work with unicode these days.

At least they are some of the issues. If you could let me know what you wnat to know, i could be more precise. Sorry for the vagueness of the response.

QT - Andrew wrote:
> I'll go through my collection of fonts and see what I have.
> Although from memory I fon't have many 8-bit ones. Been
> concentrating on Unicode support.
>
> Encoding issues really depend on the purpose you are putting the
> fonts to. The first issue is that none of the 8-bit fonts in use
> for Yoruba follow any documented international standard. Which
> essentially means that all existing encoding conversion tools
> will not work with Yoruba text. It would be necessary to develop
> custom mapping tables and use tools like TECKit to convert to
> and from these encodings.

Yes, we're quite familiar with that problem in Indic languages, and we've built encoding converters before. It should be a lot simpler with Yoruba, I would hope; the problem lies in figuring out what each code point means, and how it (or in the worst case, a series of code points) should get turned into Unicode.

> Its easier to convert 8-bit fonts to unicode and work with
> unicode these days.

Yes, that's exactly the plan. If it's a "bilingual" font, meaning that the ASCII (lower 128) characters are left intact, then we can run the whole html page through the encoding converter. Alternatively, if it's a "monolingual font", as some of the Indic ones are, meaning that all code points are potentially used for special characters, then we extract the text from the html code, and do the conversion on the text alone. I would imagine the Yoruba fonts are bilingual fonts, as there aren't that many special characters that need to be accomodated, and most of the ASCII characters are needed anyway (maybe all, if English names appear in their English form).

> At least they are some of the issues. If you could let me know
> what you wnat to know, i could be more precise.

What I would need is simply to know what glyphs are at each code point. I wouldn't have to have the actual font, if there is a problem with that (like you have to pay to get the font); a gif of the 256 (less control characters) code points would suffice.

Well, I guess it would also be nice to know which fonts are actually used commonly on the web. It looks to me like a lot of the Yoruba text on the web (not that there is a whole lot) leaves off the tone accents and underdots entirely, but I haven't really had a chance to look. Given that there are likely to be multiple encodings, my usual search technique (google for common words) probably won't work, and I'll have to resort to portals etc.
--
 Mike Maxwell
 Linguistic Data Consortium
 maxwell@ldc.upenn.edu

Mike, Andrew, all,

Thanks for this news re the work at Penn's LDC and comments (ref /m188, /m190, /m191).

There are a few 8-bit fonts referred to on this message board, as you've seen. Though it lacks a search function one can click "All messages" at the head of the column of messages and then do an ordinary Ctrl-F search on strings. You can also look at the A12n page at http://www.bisharat.net/A12N/#font , under language-specific fonts (this whole page needs updating however).

Re the nature of the fonts - in principle, since Yoruba has three mark-under character pairs and then a series of possible tone marks, you are right to assume that the number of characters would not dictate a need for modifying the ASCII range (aka Basic Latin). I haven't evaluated the Yoruba fonts enough to be sure. Again in principle I think that using the upper ANSI range (aka Latin-1 Supplement) with a few modifications one could have a workable 8-bit font with all necessary combinations. Sorry I can't give any more specifics but maybe Andrew or someone else can, and if not we'd be interested to know your findings.

That said, there is another reason why the ANSII/Basic Latin range has been modified in 8-bit fonts for some languages, and that has to do with provisions for input. At least one set of fonts was created by replacing the glyphs of characters "not used" in Bambara with the extended characters needed to write the language. Not sure that this was ever done for Yoruba. Naturally, as you point out, this is an incovenience if you want to include words or text in another language too. (Not to mention the lack of compatibility issue of course.)

There's a whole set of other issues that have come up in such discussions before relating to standardized ways of handling characters in Yoruba. In the absence of a full repertoire of precomposed diacritical combinations for Yoruba (and arguably, in the absence of a need for same, if dynamic composition indeed lives up to its promise) there are different ways one can arrive at, say a lower case o with dot under and a high tone (acute accent). All of these require reaching beyond the 256 character ANSI (Basic Latin + Latin-1 Supplement) character set in one way or another. A useful convention would be to use precomposed dot-under characters from the extended Latin ranges plus combining diacritics for the tone marks. That is, if it is agreed to use dots under rather than the small vertical line for standard Yoruba (the latter could be used as an option that we dubbed "classic Yoruba" but that is merely a suggestion). Basically there are some standardization issues with regard to handling Yoruba text for which there are to my knowledge no "official" decisions/guidelines.

One other point: If you're not aware of it, there is a pretty well established project for the conversion of legacy fonts to Unicode funded by Agence Intergouvernementale de la Francophonie called RIFAL. They have a lot of experience in this issue with other languages of West Africa, though not Yoruba I'm sure, but might be worth contacting if you haven't already.

Also a quick request. Would it be possible to contribute the info that you gather to a wiki page on Yoruba at http://www.bisharat.net/wikidoc/pmwiki.php/PanAfrLoc/Yoruba ? It would be most appreciated.

Thanks for letting us know about this.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Isaac, Thanks for your question (ref /m189). Although this message board mainly deals with information technology & Yoruba language, there are some language learning sites that have been mentioned. Feel free to browse or search the board for information. Below are a couple of references - we'd be interested in knowing about more web-based Yoruba language instruction initiatives, and how they present Yoruba text online.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Learn Yoruba
http://www.learnyoruba.com

Yoruba at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
http://lang.nalrc.wisc.edu/nalrc/yoruba/index.html

QT - BisharatNet wrote:
> Also a quick request. Would it be possible to contribute the
> info that you gather to a wiki page on Yoruba at
> http://www.bisharat.net/wikidoc/pmwiki.php/PanAfrLoc/Yoruba ? It
> would be most appreciated.

I should be able to get an OK to do that (and I'll have a look at what's already there).

BTW, I did a fair amount of googling on Friday, looking for Yoruba language news sites, and came up empty handed. The only thing seems to be Change Radio, and they apparently haven't added anything since around 2002. By "news sites" I mean on-line versions of newspapers, magazines etc., such as exist in abundance in English (including many English-language newspapers in Nigeria). My guess is that there aren't any, because English is the domimant language in Nigeria and other countries where Yoruba is spoken; and although there are some Yoruba-language print newspapers, there is no market for on-line versions in Nigeria (or elsewhere). I would expect the same holds true for Igbo and Hausa. But I would love to be proved wrong! --
 Mike Maxwell
 Linguistic Data Consortium
 maxwell@ldc.upenn.edu

Mike, Thanks for your note (/m194). Re news sites and newspapers in Yoruba, or the lack of same, I would not make too much of this. Journalistic enterprises in Africa live very much on the edge financially, so go with the mass market such as it is. Which means for print, that even if most people don't speak/read English (or French) in a country, most of the people who can read and might pay for a paper know this language. In the case of Yoruba the main mass market would have to be radio. A website of a radio with Yoruba content might include Yoruba text (and some newspapers elsewhere have had sections online in African languages) but that takes a lot of effort to keep up to date. But there too, I think that a lot of Yorubaphones who might create a market of sorts for Yoruba text online can't access the internet for one reason or another, or if they can, the cost may be an issue. Another factor certainly is the relative lack of attention to first language literacy in schools.

One might see such an issue as an emerging one. As internet becomes more accessible the natural tendency is for first language content - and localized software - to get more interest and show its practical value. In the case of Yoruba we're talking of course about tens of millions of speakers, which is on a par with some European languages.

At the same time, English as the official language of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as a LWC (language of wider communication) and as a "language of the belly" (i.e., people see it as a ticket to opportunity) can't help but retain its importance.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

QT - BisharatNet wrote:
> Mike, Thanks for your note (/m194). Re news sites and newspapers
> in Yoruba, or the lack of same, I would not make too much of
> this. Journalistic enterprises in Africa live very much on the
> edge financially, so go with the mass market such as it is.
> Which means for print, that even if most people don't speak/read
> English (or French) in a country, most of the people who can
> read and might pay for a paper know this language. In the case
> of Yoruba the main mass market would have to be radio. A website
> of a radio with Yoruba content might include Yoruba text (and
> some newspapers elsewhere have had sections online in African
> languages) but that takes a lot of effort to keep up to date.

Two follup-questions to all this, if I may.

1) Does anyone know of any radio sites that have significant amounts of Yoruba text (preferably transcripts, although that seems unlikely)? I know of Change Radio, which does have significant amounts of text.
2) How are newspapers in Nigeria produced? Are they typeset on
computers? If so, it might be possible to negotiate with the publisher for rights to the use of the electronic form of the text, even though this is not on-line.

BTW, we have a fewer older (c. 2001) Yoruba newspapers, and it appears that in the text, although not in the headlines, the underdots have been added in by hand. None of these papers marks tone, except in the name of the newspaper itself, at the top of the front page.
--
 Mike Maxwell
 Linguistic Data Consortium
 maxwell@ldc.upenn.edu

 "When I get a little money I buy books;
           and if any is left I buy food and clothes."
 --Erasmus

Edited by author 08-10-2005 12:13 AM
Mike, Sorry for the slow reply...

You asked (here in italics):
1) Does anyone know of any radio sites that have significant amounts of Yoruba text (preferably transcripts, although that seems unlikely)? I know of Change Radio, which does have significant amounts of text.

No, unfortunately. It may not be a priority of organizations involved in other media to maintain such internet sites with Yoruba news.

Marcel Diki-Kidiri and Edema Atibakwa Baboya, in an article on the presence of African languages on the web in Cahiers du Rifal No. 23 (Nov. 2003) http://www.rifal.org/cahiers_rifal/rifal23.pdf had a list of 24 sites relating in one way or another to Yoruba, but not a lot of text among them:

• Mention (5)
• http://www.aladura.de/english.htm
• http://www.cean.u-bordeaux.fr/gdr931.html
• http://profiles.iagora.com/gaijinjanaii/bio.html
• http://membres.lycos.fr/houles/Porto.html
• http://www.nuffic.nl/prisma/pers/pp008526.htm
• Documentation (6)
• http://65.107.211.206/post/nigeria/yorubaov.html
• http://www.eit.bj/golfefm.htm
• http://www.languages-on-the-web.com/links/link-yoruba.htm
• http://babel.alis.com/langues/iso639.htm
• http://www.culture.fr/culture/dglf/bpi/list-langues.html
• http://www.fiu.edu/~africana/conferences/yoruba/program.htm
• Description (2)
• http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/monde/famnigero-congolaise.htm
• http://www.culture.fr/culture/dglf/bpi/yoruba.html
• Échantillon (4)
• http://agora.legratos.org/?rubrique=religion
• http://www.yoruba.org/education.htm
• http://www.anet.net/~ifa/
• http://www.religioustolerance.org/voodoo.htm
• http://sites.uol.com.br/odetumbi/
• Textes (2)
• http://monarch.gsu.edu/nutrition/Yoruba.htm
• http://www.greatcom.org/laws/yoruba/
• Cours (3)
• http://african.lss.wisc.edu/yoruba/
• http://www.learnyoruba.com/
• http://african.lss.wisc.edu/yoruba/YLTF/
• LC-F (9)
• http://www.eit.bj/golfefm.htm
• http://www.aladura.de/english.htm
• http://babel.alis.com/langues/iso639.htm
• http://www.culture.fr/culture/dglf/bpi/yoruba.html
• http://agora.legratos.org/?rubrique=religion
• http://www.cean.u-bordeaux.fr/gdr931.html
• http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/monde/famnigero-congolaise.htm
• http://www.culture.fr/culture/dglf/bpi/list-langues.html
• http://membres.lycos.fr/houles/Porto.html
• LC-A (14)
• LC-O (1)
• http://sites.uol.com.br/odetumbi/index_pt.htm

2) How are newspapers in Nigeria produced? Are they typeset on computers? If so, it might be possible to negotiate with the publisher for rights to the use of the electronic form of the text, even though this is not on-line.

I don't know for sure, but I would imagine from what I've gathered in Mali and Niger (without having investigated the question) that all newspapers in Africa use computers for typesetting. Getting rights to use copy is another issue. If you haven't checked AllAfrica.com, they have links or contact info for a lot of papers, but mainly in English and French. You could ask through a list like H-West-Africa for more info.

The only other thing I can think of is to put you in touch with an old contact at Michigan State, Folu Ogundimu, a journalism professor who would have much more relevant information and contacts in this area.

You also wrote:
BTW, we have a fewer older (c. 2001) Yoruba newspapers, and it appears that in the text, although not in the headlines, the underdots have been added in by hand. None of these papers marks tone, except in the name of the newspaper itself, at the top of the front page.

Interesting. Having said that the typesetting is computerized didn't of course mean that the systems are cutting-edge. As for the tone marks, it would be interesting to know how readers find the texts. Probably a fluent speaker/reader would sort out the context at least most of the time. Are there a few tone marks - seemingly random to the non-speaker but probably for disambiguation - or none at all?

The issues surrounding production of Yoruba text with available typesetting or desktop systems, which is to say the inconvenience of dealing with the diacritics (dots or tone marks) when one is not aware of systems, fonts, or keyboards that facilitate use of same, would seem to be a factor in hindering more (& better) production.

Hope this helps.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

QT - BisharatNet wrote:
>> BTW, we have a fewer older (c. 2001) Yoruba newspapers, and it
>> appears that in the text, although not in the headlines, the
>> underdots have been added in by hand. None of these papers marks
>> tone, except in the name of the newspaper itself, at the top of
>> the front page.
>
>
> Interesting. Having said that the typesetting is computerized
> didn't of course mean that the systems are cutting-edge. As for
> the tone marks, it would be interesting to know how readers find
> the texts. Probably a fluent speaker/reader would sort out the
> context at least most of the time. Are there a few tone marks -
> seemingly random to the non-speaker but probably for
> disambiguation - or none at all?

None (except in the name of the newspaper, on the front page). Of course these are older papers, so it may be that the underdots and/or tone marks are now added.

--
 Mike Maxwell
 Linguistic Data Consortium
 maxwell@ldc.upenn.edu

Donald Osborn--I forgot to say, thank you! (And I'm saying it here, so it's public!)
--
 Mike Maxwell
 Linguistic Data Consortium
 maxwell@ldc.upenn.edu

I'm converting Yoruba text that uses a hacked font into Unicode, and I have a question concerning normalization (specifically, Unicode
normalization form C = Composition). There was some previous discussion of this on the kabissa list, see
http://lists.kabissa.org/lists/archives/pu...forum/msg00144.html.
In Yoruba, as you all know there are two vowels that use a dot under (or a vertical bar, but for the moment I'm using the dot under). These can also occur with acute or grave accent, as can the plain (dotless) vowels.
Unicode includes the vowels (in both upper and lower case) with the dot under (and also the 's' with the dot under), and it also includes vowels with either acute or grave accent. But it does not include any
characters with both an accent and a dot under (and is not likely to in the future).

Thus, I could represent the e-dot-accent and the o-dot-accent in any of four ways:

(1) e + dot + accent
     (U+0065 U+0323 U+0301)
(2) e + accent + dot
     (U+0065 U+0301 U+0323)
(3) dotted e + accent
     (U+1EB9 U+0301)
(4) accented e + dot
     (U+00E9 U+0323)

(and likewise for the 'o' and the upper case variants)

First, I believe (1) is the correct Unicode Normalization Form D (= Decomposition) (and therefore (2) is the INcorrect decomposition), because:
Dot under: U+0323, combining class 220
Acute accent: U+0301, combining class 230
   (again, there are other acutes, but they are definitely
   the wrong characters)
and 220 < 230.

(And similarly for the bar under and grave accent, which are
respectively parallel to the dot under and acute accent:
Bar under: U+0329, combining class 220
   (there is another bar under in the IPA area, U+02CC, but it
   has a combining class of zero, and is the wrong character
   to use for Yoruba)
Grave accent: U+300, combining class 230
   (again, there are other graves, but they are definitely
   the wrong characters)
)

Given that (1) is the correct decomposition, that implies that (3) is the correct Unicode Normalization Form C (= Composition), and (4) is INcorrect.

Does anyone see any holes in my reasoning?
--
 Mike Maxwell
 Linguistic Data Consortium
 maxwell@ldc.upenn.edu