GFF Geʾez Manuscripts

The Geʾez Frontier Foundation Keyboard for Geʾez Manuscripts

Introduction

This is a Geʾez (ግዕዝ, ISO-639-2 gez) language mnemonic input method. They keyboard is designed to work with the EMUFI project’s “Geʾez Manuscript Zemen” font (v1.2) which in turn provides numerous punctuation, numerals, and letter forms found in manuscripts but not yet available under the Unicode standard.

In essence, this is the GFF Geʾez Keyboard with the added ability to type over 1,000 additional symbols found in Geʾez manuscripts. See the typing manual for a detailed review of how to type these additional symbols. See the basic manual for instructions on typing basic Geʾez letters, punctuation and numbers.

The following section is a summary review of the advanced typing, the pdf manual covers typing in full detail.

Numeral Variations

The specialized numerals can be entered by typing a regular number followed by the “Tab” key. Each number will have a selection “menu” available. Menus appear on screen in list within square brackets [ ] and an index number. Type the number that corresponds to the desired numeral form to select it. For example:

The table below depicts the typing of available numeral forms using the regular numeral ፩ as an example. The initial “menu” that appear (as seen in Step 1 above) is presented vertically as a simplification:

The complete set of available numeral forms appear in the following table:

Punctuation & Marks

In the same way that a TAB is used to reveal menus for the numbers, it can similarly be used with punctuation marks. The index number will appear in a different style, for example:

and are special cases where a rubricated style has become the default appearance (typed with ‘::’ and ‘;’ respectively). In these cases, the modern style (። and ፤) becomes the first option. Available punctuation:

A number of the punctuation marks can be extended with a combining “stylus drag” mark by typing “-” (minus) following the punctuation mark:

Rubricated full stop chaining is possible using the special joiner mark, , which is available in the “=” symbols menu:

Ligatures

Ligatures may be typed by entering the individual letters followed by a “@”. For example, with the “Geʾez Manuscript Zemen” font selected:

Variants

Variants can be typed in the same way as ligatures:

Anqetse Haleita Bēt Markers

Similar to the ligatures, Bēt marks can be entered by typing the letter sequence followed by “=”. For example:

Marginal Markers

Marginalia are entered identically as with Bēt:

Zaima Qirts

The extended qirts may be entered by typing one of the regular basic notes followed by the TAB key, then selection of the desired complex qirts from the “menu” that appears. The “menu” based composition works just as it did for numbers and punctuation. Most marks will have for several menu levels. For example:

Viewed another way, the selection process for typing is depicted in this tabular view:

The Complete Qirts Input Tree

Extending Hidets

Some hidets can be extended by typing a “-” (minus) sign following the mark, for example:

Typing Letters

Only the letters used in the Geʾez language may be typed with this keyboard (i.e. no extra letters for Amharic, Tigrinya, etc. are typeable). To type additional Ethiopic letters used by other languages, please download a keyboard for the language needed or the language-neutral keyboard that supports composition of all Ethiopic symbols found in Unicode 14.

Special Notes:

• Apostrophe, ' , is a terminator following a ሳድስ (6th form) letter. For example: mel'ak becomes መልአክ , melak becomes መላክ .
• The keystroke of ‘x’ is added for the ‘ኀ’ family in agreement with classic Geʾez phonology and modern transliteration conventions.
• The keystroke of ‘D’ is added for the ‘ፀ’ family in agreement with classic Geʾez phonology.

Consonant and Vowel Marks

Punctuation

Typing Numerals

Typing Zaima Qirts (የዜማ፡ቅርጽ፡)

License

This keyboard is copyright © Geʾez Frontier Foundation, 2022-2023. It is distributed under the MIT free software license:

All Documentation Versions

• GFF Geʾez Manuscripts 1.0.1
• GFF Geʾez Manuscripts 1.0