African alphabets and the QWERTY Keyboard problem

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Ade Sawyerr 12 years ago

How come it works here
? ?, ?, ?, ƒ, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?

How come it works here
? ?, ?, ?, ƒ, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?
Joey Boadi Attafuah 12 years ago

I have also had problem with people struggling to construct dialects with the QWETRY keyboard. It's very pathetic to realize that till now we have no technical men who can help solve this dilema which has crippled our ability ...
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I have also had problem with people struggling to construct dialects with the QWETRY keyboard. It's very pathetic to realize that till now we have no technical men who can help solve this dilema which has crippled our ability to communicate in our various dialect with the computer. It is my fervent hope and wish that your cry to Dr. Allotey would be heard by other technical knowhowers who would rally around and help solve this pressing problem. Like you rightly pointed out,3(three)cannot represent "er" which sound people want to use in place of that Twi letter. Thanks for this revealing article, Ade.
agyabroni 12 years ago

JUST LET PEOPLE KNOW WHAT ANSWERS YOU HAVE NOT TO PRESSING ISSUE.SOME GOOD TECHNICAL MEN IN AUSTRALIA HAVE..
Hw? Hw? Hw? Look Look Look.
B?T?, BAG. B??LO.BALL.I am not a Ga or whatever,I suppose '?' and '?' are in the Ga la ...
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JUST LET PEOPLE KNOW WHAT ANSWERS YOU HAVE NOT TO PRESSING ISSUE.SOME GOOD TECHNICAL MEN IN AUSTRALIA HAVE..
Hw? Hw? Hw? Look Look Look.
B?T?, BAG. B??LO.BALL.I am not a Ga or whatever,I suppose '?' and '?' are in the Ga language. For more info as to how to use the ? and ? send email to dbroni@netzero.com Free of charge.
EFO KOKU 12 years ago

The Chinese have done theirs. So have Indians and the Arabs. Africans with their degrees are waiting for the white man. Oh when? It's so sad.

The Chinese have done theirs. So have Indians and the Arabs. Africans with their degrees are waiting for the white man. Oh when? It's so sad.
Naa odarkaa Zogbemeh 12 years ago

I googles virtuak keyboard in ga and foung this website called Gate2home.There ie a keybourd on line that you can use to type Ga.May be you can try that

I googles virtuak keyboard in ga and foung this website called Gate2home.There ie a keybourd on line that you can use to type Ga.May be you can try that
Hamid 12 years ago

This very important issue has been coming up now and then on ghanaweb throughout the 20 years of the existence of this portal. The latest, perhaps, was Kwesi Atta Sakyi's Fantse piece on Dec. 28: Not many people took up the d ...
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This very important issue has been coming up now and then on ghanaweb throughout the 20 years of the existence of this portal. The latest, perhaps, was Kwesi Atta Sakyi's Fantse piece on Dec. 28: Not many people took up the discussion of the technical issue of the letters.

It is really not technically difficult to get a vernacular alphabet to incorporate into Microsoft's OS. After all, Ghana’s vernacular alphabets are based on the same Latin alphabet with a few additions and subtractions. This is what many other languages that are incorporated into Microsoft's and Macintosh have done – the Scandinavian languages, German, and even languages using Slavic or Cyrillic alphabets. Even language systems like Japanese, Chinese, and even Arabic have also done it. So we too can do it. Moreover, in Ghana we have the advantage that the additions to the basic Latin alphabet are similar in the major languages. This is not surprising since the same European professor worked on the formation of the Akan, Ewe, Ga alphabets.

I understand people have already created Ghanaian vernacular keyboard for incorporation into Microsoft and Macintosh. It's only now left for it to be launched. If Wolof, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Setswana, Sesotso, Kinyrwanda, Hausa, Igbo, Kiswahis, Yoruba all there in Microsoft complete with their dictionaries, why not Twi, Ewe and Ga?

Even if you succeed in typing the vernacular letters on your computer you will not be able to get ghanaweb to put them that way. That is because the CMS the webmaster uses does not allow for those letters. But he could present them if he wanted to. He will have to go into the article and manually change those letters individually. It can be a very tedious process and he doesn't have time for it. He used to do so 15 years ago but these days there are so many feature articles that he doesn't even read any of them before posting. If you send this article to joyonline and beg the webmaster to maintain the vernacular letters, he will do so if he has time or think your article particularly useful. Modernghana allows you to place your own articles and format it. So you may be able to achieve the same there too and hope they hold. But not ghanaweb.

Ade, you've been an old contributor to ghanaweb and should know this. You should not have attempted to “impose” the vernacular letters on ghanaweb. They will come off as ????s which is worse than the 3333s or ))))s that people use here. It doesn't work even in the forum section..

I leave the rest of the discussion to the linguists to tell us more...
Benny 12 years ago

Good search. This problem is there but nobody carse,they are all geard towards stealin of ballot papers and boxes. Thank you mister you need to get a noble price.

Good search. This problem is there but nobody carse,they are all geard towards stealin of ballot papers and boxes. Thank you mister you need to get a noble price.
RK 12 years ago

Stop talking about it and invent the goddamn thing!

Stop talking about it and invent the goddamn thing!
Yaw Berko 12 years ago

There you go Ade, "noble price" for you!!

There you go Ade, "noble price" for you!!
Kwami Bright 12 years ago

pLEASE BE INFORMED THAT ALPHABET IS AN UNCOUNTABLE NOUN, WHICH NEEDS NO 'S', SO WE DO NOT HAVE ALPHABETS, BUT ALPHABET. YOU MAY SAY A LETTER OF THE ENGLISH ALPHABET, NOT ALPHABETS.

pLEASE BE INFORMED THAT ALPHABET IS AN UNCOUNTABLE NOUN, WHICH NEEDS NO 'S', SO WE DO NOT HAVE ALPHABETS, BUT ALPHABET. YOU MAY SAY A LETTER OF THE ENGLISH ALPHABET, NOT ALPHABETS.

GhanaLuv Dallas 12 years ago

No offence for your grammatical correction. I will rather appreciate your time in suggesting the appropriate solution.

No offence for your grammatical correction. I will rather appreciate your time in suggesting the appropriate solution.
Akwele 12 years ago

We should do something about being able to get our alphabets on the keyboard

We should do something about being able to get our alphabets on the keyboard
danesh 12 years ago

It is not the perfect solution to the special character problems, but at least it would make your life easier if you have an android phone. though it is still in beta version, I would say it is one of the best android phone k ...
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It is not the perfect solution to the special character problems, but at least it would make your life easier if you have an android phone. though it is still in beta version, I would say it is one of the best android phone keyboard that I've tried, vowels are lined up and its buttons are finger tip shaped. why don't you try dextr keyboard , a perfect solution for QWERTY problems.
Naa odarkaa Zogbemeh 12 years ago

Try this web site Gate2home .It has a virtual key board that can be used to send emails,tweet and also go on facebook.

Try this web site Gate2home .It has a virtual key board that can be used to send emails,tweet and also go on facebook.

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African alphabets and the QWERTY Keyboard problem

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