Normal Keyboard
Typing Tibetan Characters
Typing Tibetan characters with the Tibetan Language Kit for OS X is pretty straightforward — for the most part, entering Tibetan text follows the written order. There are, however, a few things you should know.
In general, the kit makes no assumptions about possible valid sequences although there is a limit to the number of stacks and ligatures supported.
Keyboard Driver
The Key Caps utility provided in OS X can be used to view the keyboard layout supplied with this version of the kit but because of the structure of the font, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to discern some of the characters. We’ve tried to rectify this with the following images.
Shift Keyboard
Option Keyboard
Shift+Option Keyboard
If you’d like to use another keyboard layout, it is possible to create your own. If the layout you’d like to use is relatively common or standard (e.g., typewriter), there's a good chance we’ll be adding it soon. You can also try designing one yourself with the help of keyboard generator at wordherd.com.
Note that the SHIFT keyboard also provides convenient access to alternate forms of subjoined /wa/, /ya/ and /ra/ used only to create specific stacks (see below). The OPTION keyboard also provides an additional fixed /ra/ currently used for specific stacks illustrated below.
Tsheg (Syllable Marker)
A non-breaking version of the tsheg is also available at SHIFT+OPTION+`.
Because the tsheg occurs after every syllable and the SPACE character is relatively rare, we have placed tsheg on the SPACEBAR key. If you need to type a traditional space, use SHIFT+OPTION+SPACEBAR.
Stacked Consonants
Stacked consonants occur with great frequency in Tibetan and it’s difficult to imagine even an elementary Tibetan text that uses none. Although this term is frequently used when referring to Sanskrit stacks, it also applies to a whole set of standard Tibetan sequences as well. For the purposes of this kit, we use the term to refer to any sequence of two or more consonants that are displayed as a single glyph.
Standard Tibetan Stacks
Sanskrit Stacks
The only way to type any such stack sequence correctly is by using the Tibetan halanta, or virama key. If you’re familiar with the implementation of most Indic scripts, you’ll have no trouble with this. The halanta can be found on the F key of the normal unshifted Tibetan-XTT keyboard and must be typed between every sequence of two consonants that comprise a stack.
For example:
Unsupported stacks will display the base character followed by a sequence of subjoined characters that corresponds to the number of consonants you typed. This situation complies with Unicode standards but can lead to inappropriate displays if an unsupported stack is needed.
If you need to type a stack that is not currently supported (you’ll know when this happens because you’ll see the subjoined character as illustrated above), we suggest you type the stack using a hard halanta, located at SHIFT+F. When you type a stack in this manner, your text is no longer considered "well-formed" by Unicode standards. We will however make periodic updates to support any necessary stacks that are not already included in the kit so be sure to email us with information about the stack you need.
For those who are curious, when you type a stack, the halanta key displays on screen solely as a visual aid to remind you that you’re creating a stack. Once you type the character to be subjoined, the halanta is removed from the text stream and the appropriate subjoined consonant is created which then results in the appropriate stacked glyph being displayed.
The Tibetan Language Kit for OS X supports more than 500 such stacks but you may find a need for one we don’t support, or you may prefer to display the default stack in a different manner for illustrative purposes. To stop the formation of a stack, you can use a hard halanta (SHIFT+F) as described above.
Exceptional Stacks
Several exceptional stacks use a non-standard form of subjoined /wa/, /ra/ and /ya/. These occur only in transliteration of foreign languages, predominantly Sanskrit. Unicode requires that separate codes be used for these exceptional forms so you can type them directly from the SHIFT keyboard, at W, R and Y respectively. However, there is some ambiguity about which characters require this under Unicode’s defintion and although you can type the alternate subjoined R, this kit does not support any stacks using this character. At present, the kit requires you to use these exceptional forms for the following glyphs only.
An alternate form of subscript /ra/ also exists at OPTION+R. This too is only used for exceptional stacks and the kit currently supports the following two stacks.
Once some of the confusion surrounding these glyphs is resolved, it will likely affect the operation of the kit so you should anticipate some changes that may affect texts you create using this character.
Ligatures
Technically, many things qualify as ligatures, including the stacked consonants discussed above but we use the term here to refer to glyphs that represent combinations of consonant(s) plus some other element. If you exclude stacked consonants, there’s really only a few other ligatures (shown below) included in the Tibetan Language Kit for OS X. There’s no need to concern yourself with this fact other than to know that they exist — they are formed automatically.
DOTTED CIRCLE
The dotted circle is included in many fonts already but we’ve supplied our own version because it fits well with our font’s structure. The most popular use for this glyph is to illustrate the placement of diacritics and other non-spacing marks. We have placed it on the OPTION+- (hyphen) key. You’ll see it used in the samples below.
You should, however, note that many applications show a default DOTTED CIRCLE glyph that is larger than needed for our font’s structure. In some applications you can override this by re-selecting the font [XenoType Tibetan] while other applications don't let you control this at all. This is part of the fallback mechanism utilized by some applications and is not under our control.
HARD HALANTA and ZERO WIDTH NONJOINER
Since all of the ligatures and stacked consonants that we currently support are mandatory for proper display, there is no way for you to disable the formation of ligatures directly. You can however inhibit the formation of a stack by typing a HARD HALANTA (SHIFT+F). (It’s important to remember that the halanta at SHIFT+F is handled differently by the kit than the HALANTA key located at unshifted 'f'.)
This technique can be used to illustrate the separate components of a given stack for pedagogical or illustrative purposes.
To inhibit the formation of a ligature, you can use the ZERO WIDTH NONJOINER, located at OPTION+=.
ZERO WIDTH JOINER
The ZERO WIDTH JOINER can be used to force the display of components like rango, sango, lango for illustrative purposes. Just type ZERO WIDTH JOINER, located at SHIFT+OPTION+- (hyphen), in place of the base consonant.
For example, to display sango, you would type the letter sa, followed by the halanta key and then ZERO WIDTH JOINER. Since there is no valid subjoined consonant for the ZERO WIDTH JOINER, you can use the normal halanta key or the shifted one in this particular instance and the kit will make the necessary transformation.
