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Yiddish Pasekh (deprecated) Keyboard Help

© 2002-2009 Gyula Zsigri. All rights reserved.


Overview
Keyboard Layout
Quickstart
Troubleshooting
Technical Information
Product Information
Copyright and Terms of Use

Overview

This keyboard layout is designed to type Yiddish by transliteration.

This keyboard layout works best with a QWERTY (English) keyboard. It uses standard Unicode fonts. Many common Windows fonts support Yiddish, including Times New Roman and Arial. Use the Font Helper in Keyman Desktop to find more fonts that work with Yiddish.

Keyboard Layout

Quickstart

This keyboard layout works intuitively with the QWERTY (English) keyboard. Type Yiddish by transliteration: type ש (shin) with sh or אײַ (pasekh tsvey yudn) with ay.

You can use idle keys to speed up typing but you do not have to:

KeyAlternate methodYiddishNote
ctsץFrom Eastern European orthographies
jeyײThe name of j rhymes with ey
wshשLooks like
xkhךPhonetic symbol

Khof, mem, nun, fey and tsadek are shaped automatically:  they take their final forms at the end of words and their regular forms otherwise.  Isolated final forms can be typed with shifted keys:

KeyYiddishNote
[SC]ץFinal tsadek
[SX]ךFinal khof

Shtumer Alef is automatically inserted before ay, ey, i, oy, or u at the beginning of words.  You can type a word-internal shtumer alef with [SA]

Occasionally, you may need initial ay, ey, etc. without a shtumer alef, e.g. when you want to list the letters of the alefbeys.  You can type them with the following key combinations:

KeyYiddishNote
[SE]ײ
[SI]י
[SJ]ײThe name of J rhymes with ey
[SO]ױ
[SU]ו
[SY]ײַThe name of Y rhymes with ay

Hebrew-specific letters are typed with shifted keys, too:

KeyHebrewNote
[SB]בֿveys
[SH]חkhes
[SK]כּkof (Hebrew kaf)
[SS]תsof
[ST]תּtof
[SW]שׂsin

Geresh is typed with [SG] and curly double quotes are typed with the q key.  The opening quotation mark is low if Q is unshifted and high if shifted.

The \ key functions as a temporary place holder to separate letters or parts of compound words.  Type s\h to output סה (samekh hey) instead of ש (shin), or type ge\aylt to insert a shtumer alef between the ayen and the pasekh tsvey yudn.

The - key outputs a makef after a Yiddish letter and a hyphen otherwise.  If, for some reason, you need a hyphen after a Yiddish letter, press the hyphen key twice.

A hyphen after a hyphen turns the hyphen into an en dash.
A hyphen after an en dash turns the en dash into an em dash.
A geresh after a geresh turns the geresh into gershayim.

Troubleshooting

If you are having trouble with Yiddish text appearing left-to-right or re-ordering unexpectedly, review Tavultesoft KB article KMKB0041.

For any other questions, contact us.

Technical Information

System Requirements

It is recommended that you use an English QWERTY hardware keyboard with this keyboard.

Unicode Version

This keyboard complies with Unicode 5.1

Product Information

Version 1.6 released 18 December 2009. Includes automatic configuration, On Screen Keyboard and updated documentation.
Version 1.5 released in 2002.

All Documentation Versions