Tuesday, September 17, 2024
MacOS Sequoia and iOS 18: New Language Features
Apple has published info about the new features in the 2024 updates of MacOS and iOS.
As far as I can tell, the only new language features appear to be Hindi translation in both and Kazakh, Lithuanian, and Slovenian system languages in iOS only.
Monday, August 5, 2024
New Dhivehi Keyboard
A poster in the Apple Support Communities has pointed out that the MacOS Dhivehi keyboard has the wrong ounctuation characters for that script (LTR in instead of RTL). This custom layout fixes that.
Apple's iOS keyboard does not have this problem.
Tuesday, May 28, 2024
Typing Haitian Creole
For users who need to be able to type Haitian Creole on Mac devices, the normal US English keyboard should be sufficient. This language only uses one diacritic, the grave accent, which is available by doing press and hold on the base letter and choosing the accent you want from the popup menu that appears.
Apple does not yet offer spellcheck for KreyĆ²l. If you need that on an iphone or ipad, you can get it by installing the MS Swiftkey keyboard app. On a Mac, you can get the necessary files here. Some info on installing is here.
For translation, Google Translate is probably the best place to go.
Apple does not yet offer spellcheck for KreyĆ²l. If you need that on an iphone or ipad, you can get it by installing the MS Swiftkey keyboard app. On a Mac, you can get the necessary files here. Some info on installing is here.
For translation, Google Translate is probably the best place to go.
Saturday, December 16, 2023
MacOS: New Arabic Keyboard Layout
Thanks to Farid Alkorashy, there is a new Arabic keyboard for MacOS for those who need or prefer the Windows Arabic layout. Unlike Apple's "Arabic PC" input source, it puts Arabic numbers (instead of the Hindu form) on the top level, so there is no need to use Caps Lock to access them. You can download it here.
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
iOS 17: New Language Features
Apple's preview of iOS 17 indicates the following new language features:
QuickPath support added for Arabic, Hebrew, Korean, Polish, and Romanian keyboards.
Predictive text added for Hebrew, Polish, and Romanian keyboards.
Multilingual typing support added for Polish, Romanian, and Turkish keyboards.
New keyboard layouts: Akan, Chuvash, Hausa, Hmong (Pahawh), Ingush, Kabyle, Liangshan Yi, Mandaic, Mi’kmaw, N’Ko, Osage, Rejang, Tamazight (Standard Moroccan), Wancho, Wolastoqey, and Yoruba.
New transliteration keyboards: Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu
Japanese handwriting keyboard.
Expanded bilingual Siri for Indian languages: Siri for English (India) understands more requests that mix English with any of nine different Indian languages.
New dictionaries: Bulgarian, Catalan, English-Greek, English-Malay, English-Swedish, Greek, Malay, Polish, Punjabi, and Romanian.
New term of address languages: German and European Portuguese.
Vertical Live Text recognition. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
Vertical text support for Chinese and Japanese in apps like Contact Posters, Photos Memories, and Calendar widgets.
Arabic kashida support in apps like Contact Posters, Photos Memories, and Calendar widgets.
New Translation languages: Ukrainian.
As far as I can tell, there are no new system or spellcheck languages.
QuickPath support added for Arabic, Hebrew, Korean, Polish, and Romanian keyboards.
Predictive text added for Hebrew, Polish, and Romanian keyboards.
Multilingual typing support added for Polish, Romanian, and Turkish keyboards.
New keyboard layouts: Akan, Chuvash, Hausa, Hmong (Pahawh), Ingush, Kabyle, Liangshan Yi, Mandaic, Mi’kmaw, N’Ko, Osage, Rejang, Tamazight (Standard Moroccan), Wancho, Wolastoqey, and Yoruba.
New transliteration keyboards: Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu
Japanese handwriting keyboard.
Expanded bilingual Siri for Indian languages: Siri for English (India) understands more requests that mix English with any of nine different Indian languages.
New dictionaries: Bulgarian, Catalan, English-Greek, English-Malay, English-Swedish, Greek, Malay, Polish, Punjabi, and Romanian.
New term of address languages: German and European Portuguese.
Vertical Live Text recognition. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
Vertical text support for Chinese and Japanese in apps like Contact Posters, Photos Memories, and Calendar widgets.
Arabic kashida support in apps like Contact Posters, Photos Memories, and Calendar widgets.
New Translation languages: Ukrainian.
As far as I can tell, there are no new system or spellcheck languages.
MacOS 14 Sonoma: New Language Features
Apple's Preview of MacOS 14 Sonoma released 9/12/23 indicates the following new language features:
Predictive text added for Hebrew, Polish, and Romanian keyboards.
New keyboard layouts: Chuvash, Hmong (Pahawh), Ingush, Kabyle, Mandaic, Mi’kmaw, N’Ko, Osage, Rejang, Tamazight (Standard Moroccan), Wancho, and Wolastoqey
New transliteration keyboards: Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu
New dictionaries: Bulgarian, Catalan, English-Greek, English-Malay, English-Swedish, Greek, Malay, Polish, Punjabi, and Romanian.
New term of address languages: German and European Portuguese.
Vertical Live Text recognition: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
Expanded bilingual Siri for Indian languages: Siri for English (India) understands more requests that mix English with any of nine different Indian languages.
New Translation language: Ukrainian
As far as I can tell, there are no new system or spellcheck languages.
Predictive text added for Hebrew, Polish, and Romanian keyboards.
New keyboard layouts: Chuvash, Hmong (Pahawh), Ingush, Kabyle, Mandaic, Mi’kmaw, N’Ko, Osage, Rejang, Tamazight (Standard Moroccan), Wancho, and Wolastoqey
New transliteration keyboards: Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu
New dictionaries: Bulgarian, Catalan, English-Greek, English-Malay, English-Swedish, Greek, Malay, Polish, Punjabi, and Romanian.
New term of address languages: German and European Portuguese.
Vertical Live Text recognition: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
Expanded bilingual Siri for Indian languages: Siri for English (India) understands more requests that mix English with any of nine different Indian languages.
New Translation language: Ukrainian
As far as I can tell, there are no new system or spellcheck languages.
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
MacOS Ventura Update 13.3 Has New Keyboards
Apple's recent MacOS update 13.3 includes the following new language features:
+Transliteration support for Gujarati, Punjabi, and Urdu keyboards
+New keyboard layouts for Choctaw, Chickasaw, Akan, Hausa, and Yoruba
Although not mentioned in the release notes, this update also fixes a bug dating from MacOS 12 in the Unicode Hex input source which made certain characters unavailable.
+Transliteration support for Gujarati, Punjabi, and Urdu keyboards
+New keyboard layouts for Choctaw, Chickasaw, Akan, Hausa, and Yoruba
Although not mentioned in the release notes, this update also fixes a bug dating from MacOS 12 in the Unicode Hex input source which made certain characters unavailable.
Wednesday, March 8, 2023
Typing Sanskrit
While MacOS comes with a Sanskrit Devanagari keyboard, this lacks a number of characters that users of this language may require, including special symbols and Vedic accents and cantillation marks. If you need those, check out the Keyman app and its Vedic Sanskrit Devanagari Phonetic Keyboard.
This keyboard is also available for iOS and browser use.
If you need to type transliterated Sanskrit in Latin Script, Apple's ABC Extended Input Source is probably the best choice.
This keyboard is also available for iOS and browser use.
If you need to type transliterated Sanskrit in Latin Script, Apple's ABC Extended Input Source is probably the best choice.
Friday, December 16, 2022
MacOS: New Cuneiform Input Method
Thanks to Marco Sartori, a new input method is availble for typing Cuneiform script, which is used to write various languages of the ancient Middle East. It can be downloaded from this page.
Put the .inputplugin file in Library/Input Methods or Home/Library/Input Methods, logout/login, and then activate it via the plus button in System Settings > Keyboard > Input Sources. Look for it in the Simplified Chinese area. A Readme file should be included which explains how to use it. If you find problems or want to suggest improvements, you can contact Marco at sartma@gmail.com
Here is some earlier info on Cuneiform from this blog.
Put the .inputplugin file in Library/Input Methods or Home/Library/Input Methods, logout/login, and then activate it via the plus button in System Settings > Keyboard > Input Sources. Look for it in the Simplified Chinese area. A Readme file should be included which explains how to use it. If you find problems or want to suggest improvements, you can contact Marco at sartma@gmail.com
Here is some earlier info on Cuneiform from this blog.
Wednesday, October 19, 2022
MacOS 13 Ventura: New Language Features available Oct. 24
Apple plans to release MacOS Ventura on Monday, Oct. 24, and has published a new list of features. As far as I can tell, the new language features are the same as reported here earlier.
Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Apple Hardware Keyboards for Non-Latin Scripts
See this page for info on Apple's keyboards for Arabic, Bulgarian*, Greek*, Hebrew*, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Chinese (Zhuyin), Thai*, and Ukrainian. The keyboards marked with an asterisk are not available in the US online store and may be difficult to find outside the country where they are used.,
Tuesday, June 7, 2022
iOS 16: New Language Features
Apple has published a preview of the new features in iOS 16 to be released in the fall. For the language area these additions include:
System Languages: Bulgarian and Kazakh
Keyboard languages: Apache, Dzongkha, Samoan, Yiddish
Dictionaries: Bangla–English, Czech–English, Finnish–English, Hungarian–English, Kannada–English, Malayalam–English, and Turkish–English
Translation: Turkish, Thai, Vietnamese, Polish, Indonesian, and Dutch
Live Text: Japanese, Korean, and Ukrainian
VoiceOver and Text to Speech: More than 20 additional languages and locales, including Bengali (India), Bulgarian, Catalan, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese
Chinese: Cantonese input using Jyupting and other phonetic methods, Quickpath for Traditional Chinese Pinyin, Changyong layout for Shuangpin users, Sichuanese dialect support.
System Languages: Bulgarian and Kazakh
Keyboard languages: Apache, Dzongkha, Samoan, Yiddish
Dictionaries: Bangla–English, Czech–English, Finnish–English, Hungarian–English, Kannada–English, Malayalam–English, and Turkish–English
Translation: Turkish, Thai, Vietnamese, Polish, Indonesian, and Dutch
Live Text: Japanese, Korean, and Ukrainian
VoiceOver and Text to Speech: More than 20 additional languages and locales, including Bengali (India), Bulgarian, Catalan, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese
Chinese: Cantonese input using Jyupting and other phonetic methods, Quickpath for Traditional Chinese Pinyin, Changyong layout for Shuangpin users, Sichuanese dialect support.
MacOS 13 Ventura: New Language Features
Apple has published a preview of the new features in MacOS 13 Ventura to be released in the fall. For the language area these additions include:
System Languages: Bulgarian and Kazakh
Keyboard languages: Apache, Dzongkha, Samoan, Yiddish
Dictionaries: Bangla–English, Czech–English, Finnish–English, Hungarian–English, Kannada–English, Malayalam–English, and Turkish–English
Translation: Turkish, Thai, Vietnamese, Polish, Indonesian, and Dutch
Live Text: Japanese, Korean, and Ukrainian
VoiceOver and Text to Speech: More than 20 additional languages and locales, including Bengali (India), Bulgarian, Catalan, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese
Chinese: Cantonese input using Jyupting and other phonetic methods, Sichuanese dialect support, Changyong input for Shuangpin users.
System Languages: Bulgarian and Kazakh
Keyboard languages: Apache, Dzongkha, Samoan, Yiddish
Dictionaries: Bangla–English, Czech–English, Finnish–English, Hungarian–English, Kannada–English, Malayalam–English, and Turkish–English
Translation: Turkish, Thai, Vietnamese, Polish, Indonesian, and Dutch
Live Text: Japanese, Korean, and Ukrainian
VoiceOver and Text to Speech: More than 20 additional languages and locales, including Bengali (India), Bulgarian, Catalan, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese
Chinese: Cantonese input using Jyupting and other phonetic methods, Sichuanese dialect support, Changyong input for Shuangpin users.
Tuesday, May 17, 2022
MacOS 12.4: New Icons for Keyboard Layouts
The latest update of MacOS 12 Monterey replaces the remaining multicolor country flag icons for different language keyboard layout with black/white symbols containing idenfying characters for the language.
Users who want to keep the traditional flags can make a customized layout with any icon they want with Ukelele.
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
Apple Ukrainian Keyboards
Apple has recently started selling stand-alone Ukrainian keyboards, which I don't remember ever being offered before. For more info see this page.
Friday, March 11, 2022
MacOS: New Hungarian Qwerty Keyboard
The Hungarian Qwerty input source that comes with MacOS does not have any semicolon. Here is a version which has that character and others in the same position as the normal Hungarian (Qwertz) input source.
Tuesday, February 22, 2022
MacOS: Russian Keyboard Layouts Without Russian Flag
Apple has long provided English keyboard layouts with an ABC icon for English speakers who prefer not to have the US or other country flag in the top right corner of their screen all the time. Here you can find a set of Russian language keyboards that have a generic Cyrillic "ŠÆ" icon instead of a national flag.
(Install the .bundle file in /Library/Keyboard Layouts or Home/Library/Keyboard Layouts and then activate via System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources > + )
For a Russian layout with a Ukrainian flag icon, see this page.
(Install the .bundle file in /Library/Keyboard Layouts or Home/Library/Keyboard Layouts and then activate via System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources > + )
For a Russian layout with a Ukrainian flag icon, see this page.
Friday, February 11, 2022
MacOS: Russian PC Keyboard Layout Error
A poster the Apple Support Communities has pointed out that the Russian PC keyboard layout supplied with MacOS and iOS has an error: The key which is supposed to produce Š (U+0401, Cyrillic Capital Letter IO) actually produces Ć (U+00CB, Latin Capital Letter E with Diaresis). A custom layout that corrects this for MacOS can be found here.
It's not possible yet to make custom hardware layouts for iOS, so the problem cannot be fixed there.
Wednesday, November 3, 2021
MacOS: Hardware Language Keyboard Availability
Apple produces a large number of different keyboards for specific languages, but which ones you can get depends on where you live. Each country has its own selection of them for sale, and Apple stores do not ship outside their own country, so getting a particular keyboard can be frustrating.
Even the US online store only has about half the total variety of keyboards. Those not available in the US are English International, Belgian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, French Canadian, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Swedish/Finnish, Thai, and Turkish.
Even the US online store only has about half the total variety of keyboards. Those not available in the US are English International, Belgian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, French Canadian, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Swedish/Finnish, Thai, and Turkish.
Thursday, October 28, 2021
Mac OS 12 Monterey Released: New Language Features
MacOS 12 Monterey was released October 25, 2021. There are no new system languages or spell check languages, but several new language keyboards: Amharic (Ge'ez), Assyrian (Syriac), Fula (Adlam), Igbo, Navajo, and Rohingya.
The keyboard shortcut to bring up the Character Viewer (Emoji & Symbols) has been changed to Fn E.
A list of help articles for Monterey on language issues can be found at this page.
Other new features according to Apple’s notes are:
+New dictionaries for India: Urdu–English, Tamil–English, Telugu–English, and Gujarati–English.
+New thesaurus and idiom dictionary for China mainland
+New dictionaries for Hong Kong: a Traditional Chinese–English dictionary of Cantonese colloquialisms and a Traditional Chinese dictionary of Standard Mandarin with Cantonese pronunciations.
+Suggestions for Cantonese and Shanghainese: Type words and phrases in Cantonese and Shanghainese more easily when using the Simplified Chinese keyboard.
+Magic Keyboard now supports keyboard shortcuts for over 100 layouts, automatically adapting them for the layout you’re using.
+On-device dictation: Available in Arabic (Saudi Arabia), Cantonese (Hong Kong), English (Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, UK, U.S.), French (France), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (Korea), Mandarin Chinese (China mainland, Taiwan), Russian (Russia), Spanish (Mexico, Spain, U.S.), Turkish (Turkey), and Yue Chinese (China mainland).
+Neural text-to-speech voice in more languages: Swedish (Sweden), Danish (Denmark), Norwegian (Norway), and Finnish (Finland).
+Mixed English and Indic language support in Siri: You can ask Siri to play your favorite song, call a friend, and more using a mix of Indian English and your native language. Nine languages are supported: Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, and Punjabi.
+A new SF Arabic system font features a refined, contemporary design that is integrated with the SF font, providing a clear, cohesive reading experience.
The keyboard shortcut to bring up the Character Viewer (Emoji & Symbols) has been changed to Fn E.
A list of help articles for Monterey on language issues can be found at this page.
Other new features according to Apple’s notes are:
+New dictionaries for India: Urdu–English, Tamil–English, Telugu–English, and Gujarati–English.
+New thesaurus and idiom dictionary for China mainland
+New dictionaries for Hong Kong: a Traditional Chinese–English dictionary of Cantonese colloquialisms and a Traditional Chinese dictionary of Standard Mandarin with Cantonese pronunciations.
+Suggestions for Cantonese and Shanghainese: Type words and phrases in Cantonese and Shanghainese more easily when using the Simplified Chinese keyboard.
+Magic Keyboard now supports keyboard shortcuts for over 100 layouts, automatically adapting them for the layout you’re using.
+On-device dictation: Available in Arabic (Saudi Arabia), Cantonese (Hong Kong), English (Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, UK, U.S.), French (France), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (Korea), Mandarin Chinese (China mainland, Taiwan), Russian (Russia), Spanish (Mexico, Spain, U.S.), Turkish (Turkey), and Yue Chinese (China mainland).
+Neural text-to-speech voice in more languages: Swedish (Sweden), Danish (Denmark), Norwegian (Norway), and Finnish (Finland).
+Mixed English and Indic language support in Siri: You can ask Siri to play your favorite song, call a friend, and more using a mix of Indian English and your native language. Nine languages are supported: Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, and Punjabi.
+A new SF Arabic system font features a refined, contemporary design that is integrated with the SF font, providing a clear, cohesive reading experience.
Tuesday, June 8, 2021
iOS: New Language Features in iPadOS 15
Apple has released a preview of new features in iPadOS 15 to be issued later this year. Below are the parts of interest in the language area:
+Vietnamese VNI and VIQR keyboards
+QuickPath for more languages: Dutch, Hindi (Latin), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, and Vietnamese.
+New keyboard layouts: Ainu, Amharic, Fula (Adlam), Igbo, Navajo, Rohingya, Syriac, and Tigrinya .
+Enhanced 10-key layout for Chinese Pinyin: Lets you quickly switch to QWERTY, access symbols more easily, and type words that share the same keys with greater accuracy by allowing you to select the exact Pinyin for more than just the first syllable in the phrase.
+Smart Replies for new Indic languages: Urdu, Bangla, Tamil, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, and Odiya.
+Neural text-to-speech voice in more languages: Swedish (Sweden), Danish (Denmark), Norwegian (Norway), and Finnish (Finland).
+Mixed English and Indic language support in Siri: Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, and Punjabi.
+New Voice Control languages: Mandarin Chinese (China mainland), Cantonese (Hong Kong), French (France), and German (Germany).
+New dictionaries for India: Urdu–English, Tamil–English, Telugu–English, and Gujarati–English.
+New idiom dictionary for China mainland
+New dictionaries for Hong Kong: A Traditional Chinese–English idiom dictionary, a Traditional Chinese–English dictionary of Cantonese colloquialisms, and a new Traditional Chinese dictionary.
+Dialect lexicon support for Cantonese and Shanghainese: Type words in Pinyin using native Cantonese or Shanghainese dialectal spellings.
+On-device dictation in more regions and languages, including Arabic (Saudi Arabia), Cantonese (Hong Kong), English (Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, UK, U.S.), French (France), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (Korea), Mandarin Chinese (China mainland, Taiwan), Russian (Russia), Spanish (Mexico, Spain, U.S.), Turkish (Turkey), and Yue Chinese (China mainland).
+Improved Japanese Support for Scribble and Note Taking.
+Various Improvements in Translation.app
+Vietnamese VNI and VIQR keyboards
+QuickPath for more languages: Dutch, Hindi (Latin), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, and Vietnamese.
+New keyboard layouts: Ainu, Amharic, Fula (Adlam), Igbo, Navajo, Rohingya, Syriac, and Tigrinya .
+Enhanced 10-key layout for Chinese Pinyin: Lets you quickly switch to QWERTY, access symbols more easily, and type words that share the same keys with greater accuracy by allowing you to select the exact Pinyin for more than just the first syllable in the phrase.
+Smart Replies for new Indic languages: Urdu, Bangla, Tamil, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, and Odiya.
+Neural text-to-speech voice in more languages: Swedish (Sweden), Danish (Denmark), Norwegian (Norway), and Finnish (Finland).
+Mixed English and Indic language support in Siri: Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, and Punjabi.
+New Voice Control languages: Mandarin Chinese (China mainland), Cantonese (Hong Kong), French (France), and German (Germany).
+New dictionaries for India: Urdu–English, Tamil–English, Telugu–English, and Gujarati–English.
+New idiom dictionary for China mainland
+New dictionaries for Hong Kong: A Traditional Chinese–English idiom dictionary, a Traditional Chinese–English dictionary of Cantonese colloquialisms, and a new Traditional Chinese dictionary.
+Dialect lexicon support for Cantonese and Shanghainese: Type words in Pinyin using native Cantonese or Shanghainese dialectal spellings.
+On-device dictation in more regions and languages, including Arabic (Saudi Arabia), Cantonese (Hong Kong), English (Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, UK, U.S.), French (France), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (Korea), Mandarin Chinese (China mainland, Taiwan), Russian (Russia), Spanish (Mexico, Spain, U.S.), Turkish (Turkey), and Yue Chinese (China mainland).
+Improved Japanese Support for Scribble and Note Taking.
+Various Improvements in Translation.app
MacOS: New Language Features in MacOS 12 Monterey
Apple has released a preview of new features in MacOS 12 Monterey, which will be issued in the fall of 2021. Below are the parts that relate to languages.
+New keyboard layouts: Ainu, Amharic, Fula (Adlam), Igbo, Navajo, Rohingya, Syriac, and Tigrinya
+New Voice Control languages, including Mandarin Chinese (China mainland), Cantonese (Hong Kong), French (France), and German (Germany).
+New dictionaries for India, including Urdu–English, Tamil–English, Telugu–English, and Gujarati–English.
+New Simplified Chinese idiom dictionary for China mainland
+New dictionaries for Hong Kong, including a Traditional Chinese–English idiom dictionary, a Traditional Chinese–English dictionary of Cantonese colloquialisms, and a new Traditional Chinese dictionary.
+Dialect lexicon support for Cantonese and Shanghainese: Type words in Pinyin using native Cantonese or Shanghainese dialectal spellings.
+On-device dictation, available in Arabic (Saudi Arabia), Cantonese (Hong Kong), English (Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, UK, U.S.), French (France), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (Korea), Mandarin Chinese (China mainland, Taiwan), Russian (Russia), Spanish (Mexico, Spain, U.S.), Turkish (Turkey), and Yue Chinese (China mainland)*.
+Neural text-to-speech voice in more languages: Swedish (Sweden), Danish (Denmark), Norwegian (Norway), and Finnish (Finland)*.
+Mixed English and Indic language support in Siri for Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, and Punjabi.
*Requires Mac with M1 chip
+New keyboard layouts: Ainu, Amharic, Fula (Adlam), Igbo, Navajo, Rohingya, Syriac, and Tigrinya
+New Voice Control languages, including Mandarin Chinese (China mainland), Cantonese (Hong Kong), French (France), and German (Germany).
+New dictionaries for India, including Urdu–English, Tamil–English, Telugu–English, and Gujarati–English.
+New Simplified Chinese idiom dictionary for China mainland
+New dictionaries for Hong Kong, including a Traditional Chinese–English idiom dictionary, a Traditional Chinese–English dictionary of Cantonese colloquialisms, and a new Traditional Chinese dictionary.
+Dialect lexicon support for Cantonese and Shanghainese: Type words in Pinyin using native Cantonese or Shanghainese dialectal spellings.
+On-device dictation, available in Arabic (Saudi Arabia), Cantonese (Hong Kong), English (Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, UK, U.S.), French (France), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (Korea), Mandarin Chinese (China mainland, Taiwan), Russian (Russia), Spanish (Mexico, Spain, U.S.), Turkish (Turkey), and Yue Chinese (China mainland)*.
+Neural text-to-speech voice in more languages: Swedish (Sweden), Danish (Denmark), Norwegian (Norway), and Finnish (Finland)*.
+Mixed English and Indic language support in Siri for Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, and Punjabi.
*Requires Mac with M1 chip
Saturday, May 1, 2021
MacOS: ABC Extended Keyboard Further Extended
A poster in the Apple Support Communities (ASC) has pointed out that Apple's ABC Extended keyboard layout lacks the ability to produced chracters with the diaeresis below diacritic. This is useful for certain romanization systems for the Arabic script used in a wide range of languages. A custom ABC Extended layout which includes Combining Diaeresis Below at Option-Shift R is available here.
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
MacOS 11: New Language Features
Apple's
documentation indicates that Big Sur should have at least the following new language
features:
+New bilingual dictionaries include French–German, Indonesian–English, Japanese–Simplified Chinese, and Polish‑English.
+New fonts for India include 20 new document fonts. In addition, 18 existing fonts have been upgraded with more weights and italics
+Enhanced predictive input for Chinese and Japanese results in more accurate and contextual predictions
I have found 4 additional items on the spellcheck language list compared to Catalina: Irish, Romanian, Punjabi, and Telugu.
Big Sur also lets you switch keyboards via the Fn key, which has a globe printed on it on the latest hardware.
+New bilingual dictionaries include French–German, Indonesian–English, Japanese–Simplified Chinese, and Polish‑English.
+New fonts for India include 20 new document fonts. In addition, 18 existing fonts have been upgraded with more weights and italics
+Enhanced predictive input for Chinese and Japanese results in more accurate and contextual predictions
I have found 4 additional items on the spellcheck language list compared to Catalina: Irish, Romanian, Punjabi, and Telugu.
Big Sur also lets you switch keyboards via the Fn key, which has a globe printed on it on the latest hardware.
Friday, August 21, 2020
MacOS: Extra Spellcheck Dictionaries
Users who need MacOS spellcheck dictionaries for languages not yet covered by Apple should check this site.
Tuesday, August 4, 2020
MacOS: Portuguese PC Keyboard Layout
The Apple and Windows layouts for Portuguese differ considerably, and Apple has not yet provided a "Portuguese PC" input source for those wishing to use a Windows keyboard with their Mac. This page may provide a custom layout that meets these needs.
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
iOS 14: New Language Features Promised
See the sections on Translate, Siri, Safari, International, and Keyboard in this Apple note for info on new language features expected in iOS 14 to be released later this year.
Here is more info on the new Translate app.
Here is more info on the new Translate app.
Thursday, June 11, 2020
MacOS: Switching Input Source Automatically for External Keyboard
Some laptop users want to have different language input sources for their internal keyboard and an external one the use for certain purposes. Normally switching input sources requires using the mouse or a keyboard shortcut every time.
Such users may be interested in this app, which makes the input source switch automatically according to the keyboard being used.
Another possibility can be found here.
Such users may be interested in this app, which makes the input source switch automatically according to the keyboard being used.
Another possibility can be found here.
Sunday, May 3, 2020
MacOS: New Spellcheckers
I don't know exactly when they were added, but I have just noticed that my current version of MacOS Catalina has the following new (and very welcome) spellcheckers which I am pretty sure were not there when it was first released:
Arabic
Najdi Arabic
Czech
Greek
Hindi
Hungarian
Vietnamese
Arabic
Najdi Arabic
Czech
Greek
Hindi
Hungarian
Vietnamese
Monday, February 24, 2020
MacOS: New Mongolian Cyrillic Keyboard
MacOS 10.15 Catalina includes a new Mongolian Cyrillic keyboard, but it does not do the Command level correctly, so that common shortcuts for copy/paste, etc. do not work. A custom keyboard which fixes this problem can be found here.
Thursday, February 13, 2020
MacOS: Customizing the Accent Popup Menus
For a good and up-to-date instruction on how to customize the press and hold popup menus in MacOS, see this page.
Thursday, January 16, 2020
MacOS: Fix for Apple Brazilian ABNT2 Keyboard Layout
It appears that the Brazilian ABNT2 input source provided by Apple can have the characters to the left of the 1 key and to the left of the Z key switched from what users expect. A custom layout that fixes this problem can be gotten here.
Saturday, December 7, 2019
MacOS: Typing Cantonese
A new feature of MacOS 10.15 Catalina is Cantonese Chinese input, which is explained in this Apple doc..
So far it is only possible via Cangie and Sucheng codes and Stroke. For those who want to use pinyin-style input, some 3rd party alternatives can be found at this earlier blog entry.
So far it is only possible via Cangie and Sucheng codes and Stroke. For those who want to use pinyin-style input, some 3rd party alternatives can be found at this earlier blog entry.
Friday, November 22, 2019
MacOS: Windows Canadian French Keyboard
French Canadian users switching from Windows to Mac who want to keep using the Windows Canadian French keyboard mapping will need to install a custom layout. One can be found here.
Saturday, November 2, 2019
MacOS: Old Turkic Keyboards and Fonts
For users need to work in Old Turkic, keyboards and other resources can be found at this site.
Thanks to Emir YĆ¢sin SARI for this info.
Thanks to Emir YĆ¢sin SARI for this info.
Sunday, October 13, 2019
Main Page Updated For Catalina
I have updated the main Multilingual Mac page to cover Catalina.
Comments/corrections from readers are welcome.
Comments/corrections from readers are welcome.
Saturday, October 5, 2019
MacOS: New Language Features in MacOS 10.15 Catalina
From the International section of Apple's Catalina Features Page.
+Cantonese keyboard predictions: The new Cantonese predictions for Traditional Chinese Cangjie, Sucheng, Stroke, and Handwriting keyboards bring more relevant character and emoji predictions to Cantonese users.
+Improved Japanese predictions: A new neural language model takes words typed earlier in the sentence into account, so predictions are more grammatically consistent and relevant to the subject matter.
+New fonts for Indian languages: Get 34 new fonts, including four system fonts and 30 document fonts, for languages like Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Odia, Punjabi, and many more.
+New Indian English Siri voices: All-new Indian English male and female Siri voices allow Siri to be more natural and expressive.
+New dictionaries: New dictionaries include Thai-English and Vietnamese-English.
The interface language of individual apps can now be changed independently of the system language.
Also it appears that Siri can now do translation.
Plus I found new keyboards for Lao, Assamese, Bodo, Cantonese, Dhivehi, Dogri, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Manipuri, Marathi, Mongolian, Odia, Sanskrit, Santali, and Sindhi (but still no Amharic).
+Cantonese keyboard predictions: The new Cantonese predictions for Traditional Chinese Cangjie, Sucheng, Stroke, and Handwriting keyboards bring more relevant character and emoji predictions to Cantonese users.
+Improved Japanese predictions: A new neural language model takes words typed earlier in the sentence into account, so predictions are more grammatically consistent and relevant to the subject matter.
+New fonts for Indian languages: Get 34 new fonts, including four system fonts and 30 document fonts, for languages like Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Odia, Punjabi, and many more.
+New Indian English Siri voices: All-new Indian English male and female Siri voices allow Siri to be more natural and expressive.
+New dictionaries: New dictionaries include Thai-English and Vietnamese-English.
The interface language of individual apps can now be changed independently of the system language.
Also it appears that Siri can now do translation.
Plus I found new keyboards for Lao, Assamese, Bodo, Cantonese, Dhivehi, Dogri, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Manipuri, Marathi, Mongolian, Odia, Sanskrit, Santali, and Sindhi (but still no Amharic).
Friday, October 4, 2019
Using Apple Hardware Language Keyboards With Windows
Because Mac and Windows keyboard layouts for many languages are slightly different, it can be confusing to use an Apple hardware keyboard with Windows which has been installed on a Mac. The usual fix is to find, inside the WIndows install, a layout which has (Apple) after the normal name. Where that does not exist, you have to download and install a custom layout in the Windows system. A source for these is
https://magicutilities.net/magic-keyboard/help/keyboard-layouts
For Arabic, try
https://github.com/downloads/Bishoy/Mac-Ar-Layout-for-Win/ar_mac.zip
To make custom layouts in Windows, you can use
http://kbdedit.com
https://magicutilities.net/magic-keyboard/help/keyboard-layouts
For Arabic, try
https://github.com/downloads/Bishoy/Mac-Ar-Layout-for-Win/ar_mac.zip
To make custom layouts in Windows, you can use
http://kbdedit.com
Saturday, September 21, 2019
iOS 13 Has Lots Of New Language Features
See the sections on Language Support, China, and India in this Apple note.
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
MacOS: Using Two Keyboards With Different Layouts
If you want to use two keyboards and have the mac automatically switch input sources depending on which one is active, try this app.
Monday, July 29, 2019
MacOS: US Keyboard Layout With Tilde Under ESC On ISO Keyboard
Users who have to switch from the standard US ANSI keyboard to the European ISO version, which has an additional key between Shift and Z, are sometimes annoyed because the Tilde character moves from under ESC to that extra key. Here is a custom keyboard layout which puts Tilde back under ESC.
MacOS: New Slovenian Keyboard Layouts
The poster mitjam in the Apple Support Communities has created two custom Slovenian keyboard layouts which readers who use that language may find useful.
Slovenian - @, which is equal to original mac Slovenian one, except there are exchanged key combinations for characters @ and ™. You get '@' with keys ⌥ + 2.
Slovenian - PC, which is a mac Slovenian keyboard layout, useful for Slovenian PC keyboard. The basis is original mac Slovenian layout, whereas there are visible engraved characters from PC keyboard (that are different from Slovenian Mac layout) appropriately attached to particular key combinations. And keyboard is QWERTZ instead of QWERTY, to correspond to PC layout.
You can get these here.
Slovenian - @, which is equal to original mac Slovenian one, except there are exchanged key combinations for characters @ and ™. You get '@' with keys ⌥ + 2.
Slovenian - PC, which is a mac Slovenian keyboard layout, useful for Slovenian PC keyboard. The basis is original mac Slovenian layout, whereas there are visible engraved characters from PC keyboard (that are different from Slovenian Mac layout) appropriately attached to particular key combinations. And keyboard is QWERTZ instead of QWERTY, to correspond to PC layout.
You can get these here.
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
MacOS: Armenian Phonetic Keyboard
For users wishing to supplement the Armenian keyboards supplied by Apple with a "phonetic" version like the one that comes with Windows, here is a source.
Sunday, February 24, 2019
iOS: Custom Keyboard Layouts
While MacOS has had apps enabling ordinary users to easily make custom keyboard layouts (e.g. Ukelele) for a long time already, the same is not true for iOS. Users still have to rely on apps produced by developers and offered via the app store. Below is some info on how these can be made by people with the necessary skills. The first link relates to making files for the Keyman app, which have to then be compiled on a Windows machine. The other 3 are tutorials for iOS programmers.
These links are only for screen keyboards. Development of hardware keyboard layouts remains a mystery.
https://help.keyman.com/developer/10.0/guides/develop/tutorial/
https://medium.com/swift-india/creating-a-custom-keyboard-in-ios-a75e7d5cc5ef
https://medium.com/mackmobile/custom-keyboard-tutorial-ef0c50906f5e
https://www.raywenderlich.com/49-custom-keyboard-extensions-getting-started
If you can make do with somewhat more limited custom input functionality, have a look at Unicode Pad Pro.
These links are only for screen keyboards. Development of hardware keyboard layouts remains a mystery.
https://help.keyman.com/developer/10.0/guides/develop/tutorial/
https://medium.com/swift-india/creating-a-custom-keyboard-in-ios-a75e7d5cc5ef
https://medium.com/mackmobile/custom-keyboard-tutorial-ef0c50906f5e
https://www.raywenderlich.com/49-custom-keyboard-extensions-getting-started
If you can make do with somewhat more limited custom input functionality, have a look at Unicode Pad Pro.
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Fix for "Wrong" Chinese Character Display
In a recent discussion in the Apple Support Community (ASC) a user complained that a certain Chinese character was not being displayed correctly. As it turned out, it was one of those where the Chinese and Japanese forms are quite different, and his phone was displaying the Japanese version. This is caused by the device using a Japanese font, instead of a Chinese one, whioh will happen if Japanese is higher than Chinese in the Preferred Languages list. The particular character was the one for "drink":
For other examples of characters where this can occur, see the chart labeled "Same code point, different language tags" on this page.
Monday, February 11, 2019
MacOS: Inputting Cantonese
Apple's Chinese Input Methods do not yet include one for Cantonese. Those who need this should check the following pages for some options:
http://www.cantonese.tools/mac.html
https://medium.com/@chaaak/how-to-type-cantonese-on-macos-with-squirrel-3d620f7d04c
https://github.com/ache051/mac_cantonese
https://carriear.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/how-to-type-chinese-with-jyutping-ē²µę¼-on-mac/
http://www.cantonese.tools/mac.html
https://medium.com/@chaaak/how-to-type-cantonese-on-macos-with-squirrel-3d620f7d04c
https://github.com/ache051/mac_cantonese
https://carriear.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/how-to-type-chinese-with-jyutping-ē²µę¼-on-mac/
Sunday, October 28, 2018
Main Page Updated for Mojave
I have updated the main Multilingual Mac page to cover MacOS 10.14 Mojave here.
Comments and Corrections Welcome
Comments and Corrections Welcome
MacOS 10.14 Mojave: Fonts and User Guide
Apple's list of fonts included in Mojave can be found here.
Also available is an online User Guide.
And a list of Basic Support Articles for using languages.
Also available is an online User Guide.
And a list of Basic Support Articles for using languages.
Saturday, October 6, 2018
MacOS: Typing Kurdish
A poster in the Apple Support Communities (ASC) has pointed out that the Kurdish input source provided with MacOS does not have the mapping officially promoted by the Kurdish Regional Government. For one that does conform to this, go here. Another version can be found on this page.
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