Alphabets, Languages and Keyboards

You can write in any language using the Roman, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic or Cyrillic alphabets. You can write a whole document using one alphabet or you can switch back and forth between different alphabets. Different alphabets can be used in Ibidem and Orbis as well as in the Nota Bene word processor. You can search in any of the supported alphabets by entering text in the Nota Bene search dialogs or in the Ibidem search dialogs or in the Orbis Query View screen.

To use Lingua effectively, it is helpful to understand the relationship between alphabets and languages. Of these two, languages are usually of the most immediate interest--it is particular languages that most Nota Bene users are interested in, not normally the larger alphabet to which that language happens to belong. Yet alphabets play a key organizing function in Nota Bene. Understanding how alphabets and languages (and the keyboard layouts associated with the latter) relate to each other will help you use Nota Bene more effectively.

Nota Bene Workstation supports Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew and Arabic as well as the Roman alphabet. In addition, optional modules for Akkadian, Syriac, Coptic, and Ugaritic are available.

When there is a one-to-one correspondence between alphabet and language (as there is, at least for most practical purposes, for Greek, Hebrew [although there is Yiddish], Akkadian, Coptic, Ugaritic, and Syriac [although there are different forms of the latter, of course]), there is nothing remarkable about the relationship. You can think of yourself as choosing either the alphabet, or the one language that uses it. The language code that goes into the file, as explained elsewhere, could be thought of as naming either the alphabet or the language.

However, matters are a little different when there are numerous languages that use a particular alphabet, as is the case with the Roman, Cyrillic, and Arabic alphabets. In the absence of a simple one-to-one link between alphabet and language, different rules apply.

In order to properly handle these more complicated cases, and to maintain a consistent structure throughout, Nota Bene provides an overarching structure that ties together alphabets and languages. In the simplist terms:

To set up the default language and keyboard combination for each alphabet, use Tools, Keyboards, Setup/Select Defaults. A list of the available keyboards, and the language that utilizes it, for the selected alphabet will be displayed. Select the one you want to have as the default--that is, the keyboard layout and language that will be activated when you choose that alphabet--and click Select.

•

Most of the files that control keyboard layout do not come already pre-built. If the desired keyboard layout/language option you want has only a series of dashes in the Filename (*.KBD) column, you will first need to have Nota Bene construct the file. To do so, select that layout/language and click Build.

•

Select Rebuild to rebuild a keyboard that already exists. This may be necessary in order to update an existing keyboard when new versions of Lingua are released. The rebuilding process will retain the familiar assignments of the character keys, but incorporate any changed function or other control keys.

2	Nota Bene will automatically select the default language for that alphabet (for example, for the Roman alphabet, this could be English, Swedish, or Polish; for Arabic, it could be Arabic proper, Farsi, or Urdu)

How you actually select a different language depends on the whether that language shares the same alphabet or not.

•

Activate a new keyboard for that language, and activate language («LA...») codes appropriate for that language. Nota Bene will insert these only when you type the next character in that language. Although this option properly inserts the appropriate language codes, it may not be the most efficient method of typing text in a different language, especially for a touch typist, since they would need to remember that--while almost all keys are likely similarly assigned in the new layout--certain keys now insert different characters. An alternative, likely easier, is to retain the current keyboard, and only change languages, as described below.

•

Activate a new keyboard for that language, but do not change the language («LA...») codes that will be inserted (i.e., retain the active language code). You could use this option if you wanted to minimize the presence of different language («LA...») codes in your file, while continuing to enter characters using the previously active keyboard layout. However, doing so will preclude automatic language-specific spelling and hyphenation (if these capabilities become available later).

•

Retain the same keyboard, but activate the language («LA...») codes appropriate for that language. Nota Bene will insert these only when you type the next character in that language. This option ensures that the proper language codes are inserted as you type text in a different language (thus encoding files in a way that allows for enhanced capabilities which may be available later, as noted above), while diminishing the confusion that may likely come from switching between keyboards that are largely similar, but that differ in a few crucial ways. Note that it is possible to retain the same keyboard, and still enter characters for other languages not natively supported on that keyboard, because Nota Bene's powerful F6 compose key lets you type virtually any character from any language that uses the same alphabet, including adding accents and other modifiers in virtually limitless combination, all without changing the layout of the active keyboard.

•

Insert language («LA...») codes immediately (without waiting for the next character to be typed). This option lets you insert language («LA...») codes that you may have deleted (either inadvertently, or intentionally), without changing the keyboard layout or activating that language code (for future typing). You can either (a) insert the specified language code directly at the cursor, or (b) change the active language code, whatever it may be, to the selected one.

3	To switch to a language that is not the default language of another alphabet, first switch to the other alphabet (step 1 above), and then switch from the default language in that alphabet (which is loaded automatically, as noted above) to the desired language (step 2 above).

Switching back and forth between the Roman, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets is fairly straightforward as these alphabets all use a left-to-right orientation. If you are going to use Hebrew (or Arabic or Syriac), you should understand a few simple principles that govern Nota Bene's management of a right-to-left language, particularly with regard to mixing a right-to-left language with a left-to-right language. Read Lingua: Hebrew before proceeding.

The Hebrew, Greek and Cyrillic keyboards are mnemonic, with letters assigned to keys on the English keyboard that will be easy to remember (e.g., the Greek alpha is assigned to the A key, beta to the B key, etc.). If you are accustomed to using a different keyboard, there are several alternate keyboards for these alphabets including national keyboards and keyboards that were used in the DOS versions of Nota Bene.

Unlike foreign language keyboards in the Roman alphabet (French, Italian, etc.), the Hebrew, Greek and Cyrillic keyboards are designed so that text entered in the menu dialogs is entered in the Roman alphabet, even if a Hebrew, Greek or Cyrillic keyboard is active. For example, if Hebrew is active, the name of the file typed in the Save As dialog will appear in the Roman alphabet, not in Hebrew.

A diagram showing the active keyboard can be displayed at any time by clicking Tools, Lingua, Keyboard Diagram or by pressing Ctrl+Shift+K. For more information including instructions on how to keep the keyboard diagram open while you type, see Keyboard Diagram.

Unlike most other Nota Bene commands, the position of the cursor is not important when you switch from one alphabet to another. When you use one of the above methods to switch to a new alphabet, you will see that the new alphabet is reflected in the drop down list, but, if you switch to Show Codes View, you will see that no command has been inserted in the document. You can move the cursor to any position you want, even in the middle of text previously typed in a different alphabet. As soon as you start typing in the alphabet you just selected, an LA (language) command will be inserted before the first character you type and a second LA command will be inserted after the last character you type. For example, suppose that you are typing in the Roman alphabet with the standard Nota Bene keyboard (English) loaded and you switch to the Greek alphabet and type a few words in Greek, Show Codes View will display «LAGreek» followed by the words that you typed and then «LAEnglish». These commands will be inserted in the document whenever and wherever you type in a different alphabet.

Many Lingua users find it helpful to be able to see in Page Layout view when a change has been made from one language to another. This is particularly helpful if you are mixing a right-to-left language like Hebrew with a left-to-right language like English. At your option, a non-printing marker can be displayed in Page Layout view (wherever one of the language-change markers [«LA...»] appears in Codes View). For more information, see Language Marker.