Diacritics and the US intl with dead keys keyboard layout

Marcos Dione — Sat, 04 Jan 2025 11:52:33 GMT

Two days ago https://norcal.social/@superball asked about generating smart quotes on Linux. I never got to understand what they meant with 'smart quotes', but I answered with a reference to the US intl with dead keys keyboard layout. I have been using it for ages. This allowed me to write proper Spanish with a US layout and it just mimicked my experience when learning to type with a Olivetti Lexicon 80.

I knew for a long while that I gloat, yes, gloat, about being able to write 'weird' letters, but it seems like I never really wrote them all. So today I sat down to waste, yes, waste a couple of hours, as in more than two, compiling the following table:

glyph	name	letters	key combo
`	grave	ẁèỳùìòàǹm̀	`
~	tilde	ẽỹũĩõãṽñ	`Shift+`
˝	double grave	űő	`Alt-Gr+Shift+2`
¯	macron¹¹	ēȳūīōāḡǖ¹¹⁰	`Alt-Gr+Shift+3`
¸	cedilla²	ȩŗ¹⁰¹⁶ţşḑģ¹⁰ḩķ¹⁰¹⁶ļ¹⁰¹⁶çņ¹⁰¹⁶	`Alt-Gr+Shift+5`
^	circumflex	ŵêŷûîîôâŝĝĥĵẑĉ	`Shift+6`
̛⁴	horn	ơ	`Alt-Gr+Shift+7`
˛	ogonek	ęųįǫą	`Alt-Gr+Shift+8`
˘	breve¹¹	ĕŭĭŏăğ	`Alt-Gr+Shift+9`
°	overring	ẘẙůå⁹	`Alt-Gr+Shift+0`
̣ ̣⁵	underdot	ẉẹṭỵụịọạṣḍḥḳḷẓṿḅṇṃ	`Alt-Gr+Shift+-`
´	acute	ẃéŕýúíóṕáśǵj́ḱĺźćǘ¹¹⁰ńḿ	`'`
¨	'two dots'⁶	ẅëẗÿüïöäḧẍ	`Shift+'`
˙	overdot	å⁷⁹¹⁰é¹⁰ṙṫẏı¹²ȯṗȧṡḋḟġḣȷ¹²ŀ¹³żẋċḃṅṁ	`Alt-Gr+.`
ˇ	caron	ěřť¹⁰ǔǐǒǎšď¹⁰ǧȟǰǩľ¹⁰žčǔň	`Alt-Gr+Shift+.`
¹⁵	¹⁴	ʠⱳẻɼƭỷủỉỏƥảʂɗƒɠɦƙȥƈʋɓɲɱ	`Alt-Gr+Shift+/`

The biggest surprises about it are:

Overdot is the most ~~used~~ writable diacritic, even when 5 of the letters use a different diacritic.
Underdot and caron get more than I expected.
Only one letter with horn? Was it worth it? Maybe I don't know how to use it?
Ogonoek is the best diacritic name. A shame is so underused :)
If it wasn't for the overdot, x would be the single letter that can't be combined.
Best symbol? I'm partial to ř because it's used to represent a Czech sound that is also present in the West North West part of my country, one ocean and one Equator apart. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDpVPj49R8w and, wow, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cZSKnfeigI.
But also ẋ and ơ for their different uniqueness.

Let me tell you about that last video. The guy is from Córdoba, from Cruz del Eje, so he has a mix of Cordobese accent but the ř sound from Traslasierra ('behind the mountains', referencing the Sierras Grandes) and La Rioja. Riojan people have another accent.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/153536?mlat=-30.7336&mlon=-64.7943#map=8/-30.188/-66.621.

Of course, these are not all diacritics (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diacritic), and probably not all the possible combinations. Not to mention that they can be accumulated; see both glyphs noted with ¹, but also https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zalgo_text.

Finally, diacritics are not the only thing you can write with this layout. These symbols are also writable without combining:

¡¹²³¤£€¼½¾‘’¥×÷ äåé®™þüúíóö«» áßðëïœø¶° æ·©¢ñµ±ç¿

and ^ combined with digits writes them superscripted:

¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹⁰

Definitely a very versatile layout. If you want to fully explore your keyboard layout, install tastenbrett¹⁸ and take a look.

Ah! And smart quotes are not actual glyphs but a feature (I completely forgot about it because I always deactivate them):

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quotation_marks_in_English#Smart_quotes.

With v. ↩↩↩
I can't quite see the glyph³, so I have to trust Python and unicodedata.name(). ↩
I'm getting old (almost 50!), presbyopia is hitting and these glasses are 1yo. Maybe it's also time I succumb and raise the minimum font size from 8 to 10. ↩
These ones are weird. At least on my editor they 'glue' to the character on its left and it becomes difficult to deal with. ↩
While typing these, I had to use Space to make them show in their isolated form. Fore this one I had to press it twice. Dunno why. ↩
Not 'double dots'? This symbol is used for both diaeresis (diæresis?) and umlauts⁸. ↩
With w. ↩
How come all these names don't have themselves in it?!?! "Ümlaut", there, I fixed it for you :) ↩
According to my editor and Python, these are both LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE. ↩↩
Notice how the diacritic applied is different to the one you're supposed to be pressing. ↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
Can't help myself; I pronounce these in French :) ↩↩
Notice that the diacritic is an overdot, but these letters 'naturally' have dots in them, so it removes it. ↩↩
Not sure if you see the same as me; I see a dot to the right of the l glyph. If this is the canonical representation, in some ways ¹⁰ applies. ↩
This modifier changes the letters in many different ways, and the result not always looks like an actual diacritic, but I included it for completeness. ↩↩
It doesn't show at all; maybe because of ¹⁴? ↩
These actually get an undercomma. ¹⁷ ↩↩↩↩
I have the impression that this post has more footnotes than actual text :) ↩
Literally 'keysboard' in German; 'tasten', keys; 'brett', board. ↩

.:: Marcos Dione/StyXman's glob ::. (Posts about keyboard)

Diacritics and the US intl with dead keys keyboard layout