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Tai Dam Latin (SIL) Keyboard Help

SIL's Tai Dam Latin keyboard has been optimized for typing the Tai Dam language in the Latin script. It can also be used for typing the Tai Dón language in the Latin scrit.

Fonts

No fonts are included in this keyboard package. The keyboard can be used with any font that includes coverage for the Vietnamese alphabet, plus two characters required for Tai Dam:

  • LATIN SMALL LETTER SALTILLO (U+A78C)
  • NON-BREAKING HYPHEN (U+2011)

and one character required for Tai Dón:

  • COMBINING MACRON (U+0304)

Any current version of SIL's Latin fonts, as well as many commercially available fonts, meet this requirement.

Keyboard features

SIL's Tai Dam Latin keyboard has been optimized for the Tai Dam language by moving three frequently used tone marks to the center of the keyboard. This was done to reduce the stress on the little fingers that occurs when the most frequently used characters are placed at the corners of the keyboard.

Another feature of the keyboard is that it uses context sensitivity to control the production of the tone marks used in Tai Dam, Tai Dón, and Vietnamese. Thus, the keys to which the Combining Acute, Combining Hook, Combining Dot Below, Combining Grave, Combining Tilde, and Combining Macron are assigned will produce those tone marks only after a vowel. In other contexts, the keys will produce the underlying default characters assigned to them.

Finally, any key that is remapped will produce its underlying default character if it is pressed twice.

Keyboard layout

Unshifted

`
`
1
1
2
2
3
3
4
4
5
5
6
6
7
7
8
8
9
9
0
0
-
‑
=
=
Backspace

Tab
Q
q
W
ê
E
e
R
ꞌ
T
t
Y
y
U
u
I
i
O
o
P
p
[
ô
]
]
\
\

Caps Lock
A
a
S
s
D
d
F
f
G
g
H
h
J
ư
K
k
L
l
;
;
'
ơ
Enter

Shift
\
Z
ă
X
đ
C
c
V
v
B
b
N
n
M
m
,
,
.
.
/
/
Shift

Ctrl
 
Alt
Alt
 
Ctrl

Shift

`
~
1
“
2
”
3
#
4
‘
5
’
6
^
7
&
8
*
9
(
0
)
-
_
=
+
Backspace

Tab
Q
Q
W
Ê
E
E
R
ꞌ
T
T
Y
Y
U
U
I
I
O
O
P
P
[
Ô
]
}
\
\

Caps Lock
A
A
S
S
D
D
F
F
G
G
H
H
J
Ư
K
K
L
L
;
:
'
Ơ
Enter

Shift
\
Z
Ă
X
Đ
C
C
V
V
B
B
N
N
M
M
,
<
.
>
/
?
Shift

Ctrl
 
Alt
Alt
 
Ctrl

Notes:

  • The red keys are context sensitive. In mosts contexts they will produce their default values (as shown above), but after a vowel (lower or upper case a ă â e ê i o ô ơ u ư) they will produce the following Combining Diacritical Marks:

Context Sensitive Keys
Output after vowels

Key Cap

Character

Character Name

Back Quote
(unshifted)

◌̀

Combining Grave Accent
(U+0300)

Tilde
(shifted)

◌̃

Combining Tilde
(U+0303)

Circumflex
(shifted)

◌̂

Combining Circumflex Accent
(U+0302)

Underscore
(shifted)

◌̄

Combining Macron
(U+0304)

D

◌̉

Combining Hook Above
(U+0309)

F

◌́

Combining Acute Accent
(U+0301)

Semicolon
or
Colon

◌̣

Combining Dot Below
(U+0323)
  • Press the Hyphen key to produce a Non-Breaking Hyphen (U+2011), which is preferred over the default Hyphen-Minus (U+002D) for multisyllable Tai Dam words. Press the key twice to Hyphen-Minus.
  • Press the sequence Left Parenthesis, Right Parenthesis (with nothing between them) to produce a dotted circle (U+25CC).
  • Press Ctrl+Shift+Space to produce a No-Break Space (U+00A0).
  • Press any remapped key twice to produce its default (unmapped) value.

All Documentation Versions

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