Typing Tones On My Computer

[billzant]

Dear Forum,

I am attempting to type English character translations of Thia words on my computer. For example the word mai with rising tone. I don’t know whether this will come out on the board

ma΄i

I hope you can see that the rising tone lies between the a and i rather than above the a. (I can see it on the preview)

Has anyone tried to deal with this problem?

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best

Bill Z

[meadish_sweetball]

There are different solutions to that... It's easy enough in Microsoft Word - just go to Insert / Insert symbol and pick the Caron (which is the name of the diacritic) from the symbol list.

In web forums such as this, it is harder. That is why we tried (unsuccessfully) here to use tone designations after the words instead, so that word would be mai[R]. Some systems use mai+...

[billzant]

Dear meadish,

Thanks for that, it half solved the problem. Using Font (complex script text) and Subset Combining Diacritical marks I was able to deal with low ̀ and high́, but couldn’t find anything for falling and rising tones.

Any further suggestions?

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best

Bill Z

[Richard W]

Dear meadish,

Thanks for that, it half solved the problem. Using Font (complex script text) and Subset Combining Diacritical marks I was able to deal with low ̀ and high́, but couldn’t find anything for falling and rising tones.

Font support for combining caron is rather poor. However, simply typing the character entity for it (& # 7 8 0 ;, but without the spaces) seems to work, e.g. ǐ for a rising tone on /i/. This may not display on everyone's screen - a work around is to use a combining breve - decimal code 774.

Support for combining circumflex (decimal code 770) is generally better, e.g. î for a falling tone on /i/. I am getting a slight display problem - the accents are being displaced rightwards from the vowel and the dots aren't being stripped from the 'i'.

[billzant]

Dear Richard,

I am missing something straight forward where do I type these codes you are referring to?

In Word I type “i” followed by “̌”, and I get ǐ.

In Word I type “i” insert symbol character code ̌ insert, and I get iw.

Please can you help.

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best

Bill Z

[Oswulf]

For typing in Microsoft Word, I've written a macro that changes, for example, a/ into á. It also handles the IPA characters usually used for Thai such as ŋ. The attached file includes a copy of the macro, installation instructions and a list of the keystrokes for each accented letter and IPA symbol.

IPA_Macro.doc

[Richard W]

I am missing something straight forward where do I type these codes you are referring to?

In Word I type “i” followed by “̌”, and I get ǐ.

In Word I type “i” insert symbol character code ̌ insert, and I get iw.

Just type them as 'normal' text when you compose a reply. Remember the terminating semicolon, and do preview the post before you submit it. Apart from the rising tone, I find the simplest method of entering the tone marks is to use the 'US International' keyboard, at least as defined by Microsoft. It is not enabled on everyone's computer, but comes available for enabling with Windows XP.

[billzant]

Dear Richard,

In Word I type “i” followed by “̌”, and I get ǐ.

I have a UK keyboard so I think that is why I sent the above gibberish.

The code you sent ( & # 7 8 0 ; ) showed the above in the mesage board but I just saw the character code in Word - i 780; (without the space). If I miss out the space that sentence becomes

but I just saw the character code in Word - i ̌ on the message board.

I am still confused.

Two questions - what are the codes for rising and falling tones for the UK keyboard?

How do I enter the codes so that I can see the symbol cdes from within Word?

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best

Bill Z

[billzant]

Dear Forum,

I found this in Microsoft help

To do this Press

à, è, ì, ò, ù,

À, È, Ì, Ò, Ù

CTRL+` (ACCENT GRAVE), the letter

á, é, í, ó, ú, ý

Á, É, Í, Ó, Ú, Ý

CTRL+' (APOSTROPHE), the letter

â, ê, î, ô, û

Â, Ê, Î, Ô, Û

CTRL+SHIFT+^ (CARET), the letter

That leaves me with the rising tone.

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best

Bill Z

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best

Bill Z

[billzant]

Dear Oswulf,

How are you?

I downloaded your document, tried to follow it and blew it - sorry.

I have not used macro-editor before.

I opened the editor Tools->macro-> Macros, and made sure it was blank. Typed ipaize in the macroname, made sure it was normal.dot and then clicked create.

The following text was in the viewer:-

Sub ipaize()

'

' ipaize Macro

' Macro created 10/2/2006 by billz

'

End Sub

I deleted it and copied your text.

I then copied

Sub ipaize()

'

' ipaize Macro

' Replaces standard characters with IPA symbols

'

Call ipa("á", "á")

Call ipa("à", "à")

Call ipa("â", "â")

Call ipa("ǎ", ChrW(462))

Call ipa("é", "é")

Call ipa("è", "è")

Call ipa("ê", "ê")

Call ipa("ě", ChrW(283))

Call ipa("í", "í")

Call ipa("ì", "ì")

Call ipa("î", "î")

Call ipa("ǐ", ChrW(464))

Call ipa("ó", "ó")

Call ipa("ò", "ò")

Call ipa("ô", "ô")

Call ipa("ǒ", ChrW(466))

Call ipa("ú", "ú")

Call ipa("ù", "ù")

Call ipa("û", "û")

Call ipa("Č", ChrW(268))

Call ipa("ɛ́", ChrW(603) & ChrW(769))

Call ipa("ɛ̀", ChrW(603) & ChrW(768))

Call ipa("ɛ̂", ChrW(603) & ChrW(770))

Call ipa("ɛ̌", ChrW(603) & ChrW(780))

Call ipa("ɛ", ChrW(603))

Call ipa("ə́", ChrW(601) & ChrW(769))

Call ipa("ə̀", ChrW(601) & ChrW(768))

Call ipa("ə̂", ChrW(601) & ChrW(770))

Call ipa("ə̌", ChrW(601) & ChrW(780))

Call ipa("ə", ChrW(601))

Call ipa("ʉ́", ChrW(649) & ChrW(769))

Call ipa("ʉ́", ChrW(649) & ChrW(769))

Call ipa("ʉ̂", ChrW(649) & ChrW(770))

Call ipa("ʉ̌", ChrW(649) & ChrW(780))

Call ipa("ʉ", ChrW(649))

Call ipa("ɔ́", ChrW(596) & ChrW(769))

Call ipa("ɔ̀", ChrW(596) & ChrW(768))

Call ipa("ɔ̂", ChrW(596) & ChrW(770))

Call ipa("ɔ̌", ChrW(596) & ChrW(780))

Call ipa("ɔ", ChrW(596))

Call ipa("ŋ", ChrW(331))

End Sub

Sub ipa(f As String, t As String)

ActiveDocument.Content.Find.Execute FindText:ʉf, ReplaceWith:ʉt, Replace:ʉwdReplaceAll

End Sub

I then clicked save normal, and closed Word.

I then opened word again typed a/ and nothing happened - stayed as a/.

I open the macro editor again ipaize is present.I click edit and I can see your code.

Confused.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best

Bill Z

[billzant]

Dear Forum,

I thought ansii or unicode was supposed to make these issues straight forward? I thought it wa sthe purpose of such standards

Find a code and then type alt+X

or type alt and then code and you have the characters.

What is the complication?

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best

Bill Z

[billzant]

Dear Forum,

After a frustrating morning I have been able to get all the tones I want with keyboard shortcuts such as ctrlF1a to give me à. I have used a combination of "Insert symbol" , international character codes, autocorrect and equation editor.

I cannot display them on the message board.

What a frustrating morning!

The characters I want are for the book Thai for Beginners by Banjawan Poomsan Becker.

It appears that others have a much simpler system eg the macro, but if anyone wishes to know what I have done I will type it up and send it to them. I won't bother if I'm not asked.

Thanks for your help.

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best

Bill Z

[billzant]

Dear Oswulf,

How are you?

I am new to learning Thai so please be patient.

A big frustration I have is the different English versions of the Thai script in translation to English typified by eu and u.

It is obvious to me that you are aware of this problem as I am sure are many others.

Is there some sort of standardisation or an attempt at standardisation?

I am guessing IPA is some such?

Please advise.

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best

Bill Z

[billzant]

Dear Forum,

I thought ansii or unicode was supposed to make these issues straight forward? I thought it wa sthe purpose of such standards

Find a code and then type alt+X

or type alt and then code and you have the characters.

What is the complication?

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best

Bill Z

I have now found that typing the code followed by alt+x works - I don't know what happened before

eg low tone 0300 alt+x . Cannot show it on the message board.

Ah well

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best

Bill Z

[Richard W]

I thought ansii or unicode was supposed to make these issues straight forward? I thought it wa sthe purpose of such standards

Unicode defines the codes; the problem is in entering them. One solution is to have a versatile enough keyboard - though if you have too many control keys that can be frustating in itself.

Find a code and then type alt+X

This is the solution in Word. Indeed, I frequently resort to entering the code this way in Word and then cutting and pasting. That generally works.

What is the complication?

Not everyone has a recent enough version of Word. Word 2002 seems to be the oldest version that will work this way. Of course, you can use insert symbol - a truly painful method.

The other problem that Unicode does not of itself solve is displaying the characters. You need to have an ecompassing enough font (or set of fonts). Some browsers do better than others at finding the characters from the fonts on one's computer.

At present I still think an ASCII (just possibly Latin-1) solution is the only one that will work. Unfortunately that would need zealous policing by someone not afraid to be seen as a pedant. It doesn't need to be a moderator, just someone bold enough to go round standardising all the transliterations. It can be difficult because there are many cases where a good knowledge of Thai is needed - most dictionaries cannot be trusted when Thai spelling is vague as to vowel length.

[billzant]

Dear Richard,

How are you?

Interesting.

At present I still think an ASCII (just possibly Latin-1) solution is the only one that will work. Unfortunately that would need zealous policing by someone not afraid to be seen as a pedant. It doesn't need to be a moderator, just someone bold enough to go round standardising all the transliterations. It can be difficult because there are many cases where a good knowledge of Thai is needed - most dictionaries cannot be trusted when Thai spelling is vague as to vowel length.

I don't fully understand this. How would ASCII code be used and how would I access the codes?

I don't understand your reference to "zealous policing". It seems common-sense to have a standardised approach it makes learning so much easier not just for Farangs but for Thais going the other way. It appears that Thai kids just accept the confusion and muscle their way through. Maybe it is contribution as to why years of learning are not resulting in significant use of English.

On rereading I am wondering whether you are just referring to message boards? I am wondering whetehr there is a standard approach in Thailand, equivalent to Pinyin in China?

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best

Bill Z

[meadish_sweetball]

Hi Bill

The only standard approach that exists is the Royal Institute System, which does not specify some crucial aspects of the language, such as vowel length, tone and in some cases even vowel and consonant sound values (โ and อ are both transcribed as o, and along the same lines, จ and ช are transcribed as 'ch'). The system also tends to include letters which are silent in Thai so that /thanon+ jàgphong/ will be transcribed as Thanon Chakrapongse.

Apart from this, Thai language linguists will use a few variations of IPA-based systems, which are generally similar to the one you are now trying to use. In their publications, they will typically specify the transcription by use of a legend, or at least mention any deviations to other systems, in order to avoid confusion.

I think Richard's comment was a suggestion for how to handle transcription on this Thai language forum, not a suggestion for how to solve typing of tones and transcription standards for the entire Internet which is probably what you were asking about...?

I agree a uniform approach would be desirable, but I am doubtful we have somebody who has both the required knowledge and the time needed to edit all posts to ensure consistent transcription.

If there are any takers, please PM me.

[Oswulf]

I then opened word again typed a/ and nothing happened - stayed as a/.

I think you missed a critical paragraph in the instructions:

Then, when you’ve finished typing, select Tools  Macro  Macros, then select ipaize and Run. This will convert all your typed symbols to the corresponding IPA character.

In other words, my macro doesn't change the symbols as you type - you type first, and then, when you're finished, you run the macro to convert all the IPA characters.

Hope this helps.