Dzongkha smells like "incense burning under a starlit sky"

I first wrote about the Dzongkha perfume in 2011. I recently bumped into "Perfumes: The A-Z Guide" at the local library. This is a fat perfume "bible" which contains reviews of (almost) every perfume on the planet. I was happy to see that "Dzongkha" got a raving four-star review!

The benefits of a Dzongkha Typing Tutor: DzType 2.0 (Beta) released

With the growing reliance on computers for authoring documents, filling forms, writing essays, articles, books, etc., knowing how to type has become an essential skill. How does one learn how to type? You can take a course (IT classes at schools or courses at IT training institutes), or you can teach yourself.

Typing software (also called typing tutors or typing trainers) are a useful tool to self-learn using a keyboard for typing. There are plenty of options (free and paid, online and offline) for learning to type in English. In contrast, to the best of our knowledge, for Dzongkha there is only one: DzType, developed by our Rigsum Research Lab. DzType 1.0 was released in 2010 and DzType 2.0 (Beta) was released this week. DzType is a free, lightweight tool that can help complete beginners gain proficiency in a short time. It has a simple interface and takes the user gradually from simple to more complex (from single characters to words to sentences; from single-key pressing to key combinations). Color and audio cues are used to reinforce correct and incorrect typing.

Type the letter in gold; on-screen keyboard image shows which keys to press. Available at dztype.rigsum-it.com

Page used in classes

The need for a typing tutor in Dzongkha is especially dire, since it is more difficult to get started compared to, say, English: you can't simply look at the keyboard and hit the right key, because most keyboards in Bhutan do not have the Dzongkha letters etched on the keys. In most typing classes, students are given a printout with an image of a keyboard with the Dzongkha and English letters (with four keyboards, each with different symbols - see image), and they need to map each of the image keys to their keyboard. This means that to type some text you have to look at the text to be typed, then refer to the page with the keyboard image, then look at the keyboard, and finally at the screen to check your typing. Four sources! Not only is this slow, but it also requires space for all the extra paper. One workaround that avoids the extra keyboard image page is sticking small stickers with the Dzongkha Alphabet on the keyboard. However, because each key is used for multiple symbols, it requires multiple stickers per key, and stickers tend to wear off quickly.

Another aspect in which typing in Dzongkha is more complicated than typing in English is the prevalence of key combinations in Dzongkha typing. To type most text in English, one needs to press a single key. For capital letters, we hold the SHIFT key and press another key. In contrast, to type most text in Dzongkha, one needs to learn not only single-key pressing (called "normal keyboard") but also combinations while holding the SHIFT key ("Shift keyboard"), while holding the left-ALT key, and even holding both the SHIFT and the left-ALT keys while pressing other keys.

DzType 2.0 can be used by perfect beginners as well as by those who want to upgrade from two-finger typing to "touch typing" where you use all fingers and don't stare at the keyboard.

DzType 2.0 (Beta) is available online for free. The offline version will be packaged with the forthcoming Rigsum Sherig Collection 3.0. We welcome your feedback on the DzType Facebook page.

Think About Your Customers

When you design a website, think about your visitors and how they going to use your website. Too often, webmasters do not put themselves in the position of the people who are going to use their websites.

Here's an example. The BBS website has two editions: English and Dzongkha. Toward the top of each page there are two links that allow you to switch editions.

Say a visitor speaks only English, but happens to land on a Dzongkha news page. Where does she click to escape into the English site? Everything's in Dzongkha, even the link to the English edition. That's not a good idea.

Here is the website as it looks today:

Uh? What do I  click now?

Here is a more usable version. Notice the difference?

Phew...

The same issue also exists in the English version. There's a link to the Dzongkha edition, but it's in English.

Lost in translation - an update (get your offline dictionary)

In November 2012, we posted about many missing entries from the DDC's online Dzongkha-English dictionary which do exist in the original soft-cover dictionary. We are glad to share our discovery: from a cursory check it appears that the links to missing files have been silently fixed and the empty files populated.

The good news is that the online version now seems identical to the soft-cover. The bad news is that the dowloadable version (linked from the bottom of page dzongkha.gov.bt/online/dictionaries/dz-en-dict/, as shown in the image below) has still not been updated and unfortunately still has the missing and empty files.

Until DDC updates the downloadable zip file, here are possible solutions for those who want to browse the corrected dictionary offline:

1. Low-tech solution: If you need some fresh air, walk over to the DDC office and ask for a CD with the new files.
2. Slightly tedious workaround (no walking needed): Download the old zip file and unzip it. Then, download the HTML files one-by-one from http://dzongkha.gov.bt/online/dictionaries/dz-en-dict/Contents/ and place them in the old folder called Contents, thereby replacing the old files.
3. Easy and fast workaround: We downloaded the files and packaged them into a fresh zip file for immediate use. Just download the zip file, unzip and use.

Dzongkha on Windows Phone 8

This morning, on the topic of "Dzongkha on mobile phones", we have some good news and some bad news. 

The good news: We can verify that Microsoft's latest operating system for mobile devices, Windows Phone 8, supports the rendering of Dzongkha Unicode. Users can view documents and webpages in Dzongkha. We are attaching a browser screenshot from the slick new Nokia Lumia 920 displaying a webpage from the Dzongkha Development Commission's website. 

The bad news: A Dzongkha keyboard is not supported. Also, there is no Tibetan keyboard. Thus, there is no way to type Dzongkha (or Tibetan) letters. Hopefully, future updates will add a Dzongkha keyboard to Windows Phone 8.

Devices running Windows Phone 8 include the Nokia Lumia series, the Samsung Ativ and HTC Window Phones. 

The DDC website, as viewed on a Nokia Lumia 920

Lost in translation

2002 soft cover

A Dzongkha-English dictionary is an invaluable resource for students and anyone studying Dzongkha. The DDC produced three versions that are supposed to be identical: a 2002 soft-cover edition, an online version, and a CD version (also downloadble from the DDC website). It appears that the two digital (online and CD) versions were created by simply copying the entries from the 2002 soft-cover. However, the replication was less than perfect, resulting in a major error: complete entries are missing from the digital versions. There are two types of missing information: One is due to files that do not exist on the server, leading to error pages in the online version but not the CD (see screenshot).

Error #1: Broken links due to missing pages

The other error is trickier and occurs in both online and CD versions: the file exists, but it is mistakenly empty! This leads to the impression that there are no words starting with that letter. An example is shown in the screenshot below, where it seems as if there are no words starting with ལོ ("Lo").

Error #2:  Empty pages. No words starting with ལོ ("Lo")?

No words starting with "lo" is clearly incorrect (the 2002 soft-cover lists over 50 such words). Several other pages also erroneously list empty pages.

The needed fix: DDC should upload the missing files, should update the erroneously empty files and carefully test each and every webpage. Unfortunately, new CDs will have to be burned.

A note about usability: While the erroneous missing webpages reflect an oversight, there are indeed cases where there are no words (at least in the 2002 soft-cover) starting with that letter. An example is ཙེ ("Tse"). In such cases, rather than displaying an empty page, a comment is in place such as "there are no words starting with this letter".

Usability: When no entries exist for some letter, a clarifying comment is in place.

Does Windows Phone 8 support Dzongkha?

HTC's new 8X, running Windows Phone 8

Dzongkha on mobile phones still presents a major challenge. The Dzongkha-enabled Nokia N900 that we developed back in 2009 as a proof-of-concept is still the only phone that has full support of both the official Dzongkha keyboard and perfect rendering of Dzongkha/Tibetan fonts.

HTC and Nokia have recently announced new phones running Windows Phone 8, Microsoft's recent attempt to grab some market share for mobile devices.

Will Windows Phone 8 support Dzongkha keyboard or display? Well, not according to the specs. Here are the official lists of languages:

Display. The following display languages are supported: Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (UK and US), Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Russian, Spanish, and Swedish. The specific display languages that are included in your phone are chosen by your mobile operator or phone manufacturer.

On-screen keyboard. The following on-screen keyboard languages are supported: Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (UK and US), Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Ukrainian. These input languages are available on all phones, regardless of which display languages your mobile operator or phone manufacturer chose to include.

None of the supported Display languages requires complex rendering (such as letter stacking), which might hint that Windows Phone 8 has no support for complex scripts. Whether the support is there but just not enabled remains to be seen. In the meantime, if what you need is a Dzongkha-enabled mobile phone, don't count on Windows Phone 8.

How to cast a vote in Dzongkha?

Dzongkha is lacking a modern vocabulary, so new words must constantly be invented. Mr. Tshering Dhendup of Bhutan's National Council has spearheaded a bi-lingual Glossary of Parliamentary Terms which will be distributed to all National Council members in the upcoming session. More information is available in Tshering's blog post.

This reminds me of the revival of the Hebrew language. Hebrew ceased its existence as a day-to-day language in the 2nd century CE. In the 19th century - almost 2,000 years later - a unique revival process started taking place, and today millions of Israelis speak (and dream!) in Hebrew. As part of this highly successful experiment, thousands of new Hebrew words were invented, and modern dictionaries were written. However, words and dictionaries were not enough: there were no reading materials in modern Hebrew. Thus books, short stories, newspapers, poems, plays etc. were written in and translated to Hebrew.

Back to Dzongkha: Dictionaries are essentials, but there seems to be a lack of reading materials, especially for children. Translating children's classics (most of which are royalty-free) to Dzongkha can be a good first step.

Dzongkha on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch

A few months ago we demonstrated the first Dzongkha-enabled smartphone, the Nokia N900. The list of supported devices has since expanded. If you own an iPhone or iPad (or an iPod Touch), you will be glad to learn that these devices now fully support Dzongkha (Update: some stacking combinations are not available as this is a Tibetan keyboard. Our N900 currently remains the only smartphone with 100% support as well as a DDC keyboard). 

In a recent operating system update (iOS 4.2, November 2010), Apple added a Tibetan keyboard as well as the ability to display Tibetan/Dzongkha letters correctly. Note: Apple's Tibetan keyboard layout is different from the DDC's Dzongkha keyboard layout, as can be seen in the image below. You can find more information here.

If you own one of these devices, you are now able to browse Dzongkha websites (such as www.bbs.com.bt/bbs/dzongkha, see below), type emails in Dzongkha, and - if you have an iPhone - send an SMS in Dzongkha.

To enable the Tibetan keyboard, go to Settings → General → Keyboard → International Keyboards → Add New Keyboard ... → Tibetan.

Hopefully, built-in support for Tibetan/Dzongkha keyboard is in the works also for Google's Android, which is destined to become the most popular operating system for smartphones in upcoming years.

The BBS Dzongkha Website

The Tibetan Keyboard

Spray some Dzongkha!

While some people think Dzongkha stinks and is a hoax, other claim it contains darker notes. No, we're not talking about the national language of Bhutan.

Dzongkha Rendering on the N900

I got the following email from one of our readers in China, which I read on the Nokia N900. Here's a screenshot of the email on the N900. The answer, apparently, is in the screenshot!

Dzongkha on Amazon Kindle E-Book Reader

An e-book reader is an electronic gadget that is used to read digital books. The most popular e-book reader is the Amazon Kindle. Here's an example of reading Dzongkha on the Kindle. The Kindle uses "electronic ink", which means the content can be viewed in direct sunlight, much like a real book.

A new poll. Topic: BBS News.

Our Facebook poll is now closed. 42% of participants - almost half - check their FB account more than once a day. 29% of users check their FB about once a day. 19% log on to FB less than once a day. And only 10% do not have an FB account.

And now to this month's poll: BBS news. We are interested to know which editions of the news, if any, you watch. The English version, The Dzongkha one, both, or neither?

N900 Dzongkha support now included in ukeyboard

We previously blogged about Dzongkha support for the N900 smartphone. Some more good news: Our Dzongkha keyboard is now included as one of the standard languages in the popular ukeyboard package for the N900.

Mr. Roman Moravcik, the developer of ukeyboard, has kindly agreed to include Dzongkha in the software package.

You're probably asking yourself, what does this mean? Well, this means that if you have the N900 phone, you can easily and simply enable its Dzongkha capabilities by simply installing the ukeyboard application. No special tweaking or hacking required!

Here are some more Frequently Asked Questions the N900 and Dzongkha:

1. You keep mentioning the N900. Can this work on other phones?
   Unfortunately, the answer is no. N900 runs Linux which supports the rendering of Dzongkha and easily programmable keyboards. These features are not currently available on most other phones, including the iPhone, Android-based phones, and most other Nokia phones.
   
2. Can you send an SMS in Dzongkha to other phones?
   You can send an SMS in Dzongkha, but the receiver - unless he or she also has a Dzongkha-enabled Nokia N900 - will probably not be able to read it, since most phones cannot display Dzongkha characters. The Dzongkha characters in these phones will usually appear as empty squares.
   
3. Where can I get the N900?
   Nokia started selling the N900 in India a few months ago. The MRP is a whopping Rs 25,000 (around US$570 in today's exchange rates). The price of the N900 in the U.S. is "only" $399 (about Nu 17500). Hopefully the price of Dzongkha-supporting mobile phones will become affordable in the upcoming years.
   
4. What about those cheap Nu. 1500 Nokia handsets that are sold in the market?
   Most cheap-and-best Nokia phones (and also the more expensive ones) do not support Dzongkha. Technically, these handsets have enough computing power to support Dzongkha rendering, but it basically up to Nokia to provide this support.

Want to learn how to use the Dzongkha keyboard? DzType is here!

We are glad to announce the launch of DzType, a first-of-its-kind web-based application that aids in teaching the Dzongkha Unicode keyboard.

Learning to type Dzongkha using DzType is fun and easy. As you move from one unit to the next, you learn how to master more keys on the keyboard. By the end, you will be a pro.

The software is free for all. You can run it online or offline (download the package here). Installation is simple and does not require high computing power. Even old and slow computers can be used.

The audience for the tool includes schools (today's students love technology!), colleges, monasteries, and any government, corporate or private organization where individuals can benefit from knowing how to type in Dzongkha.

This is the first project of the Rigsum Centre for Advanced Learning Technologies (CALT), who's mission is to research and develop technologies for advancing education and learning in Bhutan.

Disclosure: The writers of this blog are the directors of CALT (the low rate of blog posts in the last days was due to the DzType launch - we will now resume to our usual blogging rate.)

More Dzongkha Smartphone Screenshots

Here are some more screenshots of the first-ever smartphone with Dzongkha support. Note: The Nokia N900 is available in India with a a price that hovers around Rs 25,000.

SMS in Dzongkha (Cont'd)

Warning: This post is more technical than usual.

My post on mobile Dzongkha drew quite a lot of attention. I also received requests asking for technical implementation details. Here's a short explanation on enabling Unicode Dzongkha on the Nokia N900.

The Nokia N900 is a mobile computer with phone functionality. It comes preloaded with Maemo (a distribution of Linux). Now be warned: the N900 does not compete with iPhone or most other smartphones for that matter. This is not a sleek and sexy machine. It's more of an experimental (and rather bulky) gadget oriented to geeky folks (like me!) that like to experiment with software and hardware. As such, it is not a very popular device, but it does have its following.

Enabling Dzongkha Unicode on a computer usually involves three parts:

• Dzongkha font file. This is a file that contains the various glyphs for the Dzongkha characters. 
• Rendering engine. Usually part of the operating system, a rendering engine is a program that makes sure the characters are displayed correctly. While English is simple to render - just put each character to the right of the previous one - Dzongkha is much more complicated, due to vowels and stacking of letters.
• Dzongkha keyboard. This is a way to translate keystrokes into the various Dzongkha characters.

The most recent version of the N900 operating system already has a good rendering engine for Dzongkha, so the two missing parts were the font and the keyboard. Adding a font was easy. I downloaded a Dzongkha font from the DDC website (initially Jomolhari, but later replaced by Uchen), and copied it to one of the phone's font directories (~/.font). This is similar to installing a font in Windows.

The more tricky part was adding a keyboard. The N900 has two keyboards: a hardware slide-out keyboard with three rows of keys, and a "software" touch screen keyboard. I decided to focus on the touch screen keyboard, since it is easy to change the key labels when they are displayed on the screen. To add a new software keyboard, I used the ukeyboard open source utility, which uses "keyboard definition files". A keyboard definition file maps the keys to characters. In the case of Dzongkha, I used the DDC's Dzongkha keyboard layout. Here's an excerpt from the keyboard definition file, showing one of the rows:

row {
key ཀ alpha
key ཁ alpha
key ག alpha
key ང alpha
key ི alpha
key ུ alpha
key ེ alpha
key ོ alpha
key ཅ alpha
key ཆ alpha
key ཇ alpha
key ཉ alpha
key ཝ alpha
}

To summarize: It's relatively simple to enable full Dzongkha functionality on the N900, mainly due to the fact that it's running Linux with all the trimmings, and the availability of a keyboard utility. Since the N900 is not a phone for the masses, this is more a proof of concept than a practical product. The DDC plans to bring Dzongkha to more popular platforms, such as iOS (Apple's operating system for the iPhone) and Android.

SMS in Dzongkha

Is this the world's first Dzongkha-enabled smartphone? Perhaps. I've been playing recently with the Nokia N900, a smartphone cum mobile computer running Linux. After installing a Dzongkha font (Jomolhari, created by Chris Fynn) and tweaking the on-screen keyboard, the prototype was complete. I was then able to surf Dzongkha-enabled websites, read and write Dzongkha emails, and even send text messages (SMS) in Dzongkha. This is not a product, but rather a proof-of-concept: Dzongkha can be used on existing mobile devices. Now let's wait for one of the mobile operators to offer a daily zakar SMS service in Dzongkha...

Sending an SMS in Dzongkha

Surfing the DDC's website

Online Dzongkha-English-Dzongkha dictionary

One of the biggest and heaviest books found on the shelves of Thimphu bookstores is the Dzongkha Development Commission's (DDC) 2006 Dzongkha-English-Dzongkha dictionary. While it is fun to browse such dictionaries, it is often more efficient to take advantage of digital capabilities such as search. Luckily, the DDC created a very nice online resource. It includes 4 components: searchable Dzongkha-English, English-Dzongkha, and Dzongkha-Dzongkha dictionaries, as well as a listing of Dzongkha-English entries, organized alphabetically (shown in the picture). Click on a letter at the top to see the words starting with that letter. Then choose an option from the second set of options (rows 6-8 in the picture) to see words starting with that letter/vowel combination.