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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Yâsin SARI for this info.

Main Page Updated For Catalina

I have updated the main Multilingual Mac page to cover Catalina.

Comments/corrections from readers are welcome.

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).

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

iOS 13 Has Lots Of New Language Features

See the sections on Language Support, China, and India in this Apple note.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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-粵拼-on-mac/

Main Page Updated for Mojave

I have updated the main Multilingual Mac page to cover MacOS 10.14 Mojave here.

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.

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.

MacOS 10.14 Mojave: Japanese Input

One of the new features in MacOS 10.14 Mojave is supposed to be "romanized keyboard input for Japanese" or "romanized English input for Japanese Keyboard".

I had a hard time figuring out what this referred to, but thanks to info provided by Magnus Lewan it appears to be a feature making it easier to type English words in the middle of Japanese text.  Some explanation in Japanese is here.

iOS 12: New Language Features

+New definition dictionary for Hebrew, and bilingual dictionaries for Arabic/English and Hindi/English.

+Siri translation of phrases in more languages, with support for over 40 language pairs

+More natural and expressive voice for Irish English, S. African English, Danish, Norwegian, Cantonese, and Mandarin (Taiwan).

Comments from readers welcome regarding any others.

World Communication Languages

Some fascinating maps of the languages used in international communications are available at

https://seekinganewpath.github.io/world-communications/

MacOS Mojave 10.14: Possible New Language Features

From the Apple site:

Mac is more fluent than ever.  MacOS Mojave adds UK English, Australian English, Canadian French, and Traditional Chinese for Hong Kong language options; improved maps for China; and romanized keyboard input for Japanese.

MacOS: Fixing Mixed Localizations

A good number of users have been reporting that their user interface is showing some menus or dialogues in two different languages.   A possible fix for this can be found on this page.

iOS 11.3: New Language Features

Adds two new Shuangpin keyboard layouts

Adds support for connected hardware keyboards using the Turkish F keyboard layout

Improves Chinese and Japanese keyboards for better reachability on 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch devices

Fixes an issue that could cause the Thai keyboard to incorrectly switch to the numeric layout when in landscape mode

Numbers App Gets Right - to - Left Tables for Arabic/Hebrew

Numbers 5.0 released by Apple March 27 finally includes a setting for "Table Direction" which lets Arabic/Hebrew users start spreadsheets which read from right to left in column order.

Language Learning in the USA

More info on K-12 and College Level.

MacOS: Windows US International Keyboard

The US International keyboard layout used in Windows differs considerably from Apple's US International PC layout on the option/alt level.  You can get a test version of one for Mac which conforms to the Windows layout here.

iOS: Screen Keyboard with Full Hardware Layout

Among the many 3rd party screen keyboards available for iOS, I recently found one called PADKEYS that imitates the normal hardware keyboard layout, with a number/punctuation row at the top, an option key for symbols and accents,  cursor keys, etc.  Covers English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.

MacOS Keyboard Language Switching Bug

In MacOS 10.13.2, it appears that you cannot switch directly from Chinese/Japanese/Korean to Cyrillic/Arabic/Hebrew/Greek keyboard layouts.  In order to get the correct results, you must first switch to US or another Latin input source.

It's possible other keyboards are involved, but these are the ones where I have seen complaints and tested myself.

Hopefully this bug will be fixed in a future update.

(Appears to be fixed in 10.13.4)

MacOS High Sierra: Missing Input Sources and Character Viewers

Quite a few users have reported missing Chinese and other input sources after updating to MacOS 10.13 High Sierra.   I've found that a Safe Boot often fixes this.  If not, Apple has published an article that should do the trick.

Main Page Updated for High Sierra

I have updated the main Multilingual Mac web page to cover MacOS 10.13 High Sierra here.

Comments and corrections welcome.

iOS 11 Keyboard Layouts

A list of screen and hardware keyboards provided with iOS 11 can be found here. 

iOS 11 Arabic Font Problem

I have seen a number of complaints by Arabic users that the font used in iOS 11 has changed to the nastaliq calligraphy style often found in Urdu text, which they find very hard to read.  A possible fix is to go to Settings > General > Language and make sure that Arabic is higher than Urdu in the list of Preferred Languages.

Useful Resources for Data on Characters, Languages, and Keyboards

The Character Usage Lookup Page will let you find info regarding the characaters used by any particular langauge, or the languages which use any particular character.

The Unicode CLDR Keyboards Database will let you find which keyboard layouts produce which characters for a variety of computer platforms.

MacOS 10.13 High Sierra: New Language Features

So far I have found the following:

+One new system localization -- Hindi

+A nastaliq Arabic font for those who want to use this in Urdu or elsewhere

+New bilingual English dictionaries for Russian and Portuguese

+Caps Lock language switching now works for Greek, Cyrillic, and Armenian (not the case in Sierra)

I don't see any new spellcheckers or new language coverage via keyboards -- Lao and Amharic are still missing, even though Apple does provide fonts for these.

A language setting in the Format preferences, removed in Sierra, is still missing.

MacOS Siri cannot do translation like the iOS version can.

If readers find others, please comment.

Displaying Old Korean

Korean text produced before the orthography reforms of early 20th century can contain various archaic Hangul forms.  Archaic_and_obsolete_letters  Not all fonts will support correct display of these.  Three which do are

+NotoCJKkr
+SourceHanSansK
+HCRDotum

A test page which includes these forms and their various combinations can be found here.

iOS 11: New Language Features

+Siri translation from English into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Spanish (beta)

+Hindi and Shanghainese dictation

+New keyboards for Armenian, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Georgian, Irish, Kannada, Malayalam, Maori, Odia, Swahili, and Welsh

+English input on the 10-key Pinyin keyboard

+English input on the Japanese Romaji keyboard

+Russian-English bilingual dictionary

+Portuguese-English bilingual dictionary

+Arabic system font support

MacOS: Reading and Writing Linear B Script

Linear B was used for writing the earliest forms of Greek used by the Mycenaean civilization.

For a Unicode Font, download Aegean from this page.

For a Unicode keyboard, go to this page.

Another input option is a character picker:

https://tomer.github.io/characterPicker/#?load=0x10080-linear_b_ideograms.json

https://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/fui.html8

For online resources for studying Linear B, see e-ni-jo-te.

(I recommend you not use the old non-Unicode Clark fonts which map Linear B to Latin, as everyone should be using Unicode for text exchange these days) 

New Apple File System: Possible Language Issues

Apple's new APFS file system (replacing HFS+) has been implemented in iOS 10.3 and will also become standard in MacOS 10.13 when it is released this fall.   It changes the way Unicode Normalization is handled for file names, which could have implications for various languages where the same filename can have different forms depending on the normalization applied.

Whether that will matter in practice I don't know, but readers interested in this complex topic may want to have a look at these two articles and their comments:

https://eclecticlight.co/2017/04/06/apfs-is-currently-unusable-with-most-non-english-languages/

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2017/03/24/apfss-bag-of-bytes-filenames/

See this page for updated info from Apple about problems that can arise with file names in iOS during the period before certain normalization issues are fixed via the updating process.

Here is a report of such a problem.

Apple TV To Support Arabic/Hebrew With tvOS 11

According to this article, tvOS 11 will include support for RTL languages like Arabic and Hebrew.  This will be welcomed by many users who have been waiting for it for 10 years now.

Better Arabic/Hebrew Support In iWork Apps

The info provided with the iWork app updates released June 13 by Apple says that "improved support for Hebrew and Arabic" is included in Pages and Keynote for MacOS and Keynote for iOS.

I don't know yet what that entails, but it apparently does not include the availability of RTL spreadsheets in Numbers, which many users of these languages have been waiting for.

Hands-On Neural Network Translation

I was intrigued by Apple's announcement last week of its new Core ML system for incorporating trained machine learning models into apps for iOS and MacOS.  Anyone interested in how such models for neural network language translation can be produced may want to check out this Google tutorial.

MacOS: Better Khmer Fonts

If you find that the Khmer fonts supplied by Apple (Khmer, Khmer Sangam) have bugs, try these other ones from SIL.  I think they should also work OK in Word for Mac 2016.

iOS 11: New Language Features

During the WWDC Keynote June 5, Apple announced some new language features that will be available in iOS 11 and the new iPad Pro:

+Siri will include voice translation, starting with English to Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

+The Smart Keyboard for the iPad Pro will be produced in 30 language variations, including Chinese and Japanese.

From a separate source, it appears that iOS finally will have a Persian keyboard (according to this.)

MacOS: Alternative Input Methods for Asian Languages

Some users find Apple's input methods for Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, or Indic Scripts are not to their liking.  Here are some links to alternatives which may be useful:

Chinese:

http://rime.im

http://qq.pinyin.cn

http://pinyin.sogou.com/mac/

http://www.funinput.com/mac

http://www.macqim.com/wordpress/

https://qingg.im


Japanese:

http://www.google.co.jp/intl/ja/ime/


Vietnamese:

http://zepvn.com/NAKL/index_en.html


Indic Scripts:

https://github.com/ratreya/Lipika_IME/wiki


Suggestions from Readers for others are welcome.

iOS: Alternative Keyboard for Indic Scripts

Users needing an iOS keyboard for typing the scripts used in the languages of India, or transliterations of them, should have a look at Lipikaboard.

MacOS: Language Improvements in 10.12.4

Update 10.12.4, released March 27, 2017, includes the following language related improvements:

• Adds Dictation support for Shanghainese.
• Improves right-to-left language support for the Touch Bar, toolbar, and visual tab picker in Safari.

MacOS: AZERTY - Qwerty Command Keyboard

If you use an AZERTY layout to type French, but are more confortable with the QWERTY layout for the Command shortcuts for menu items, you can find a keyboard which implements that here.

MacOS: New Mongolian Script Keyboard

A new keyboard for typing the Todo (Clear)version of Mongolian used in Oirat and traditional Kalmyk is available on this page.