Diacritics and the US intl with dead keys keyboard layout

Source

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
¯ macron3 ēȳūīōāḡǖ14 Alt-Gr+Shift+3
¸ cedilla5 ȩŗ46ţşḑģ4ḩķ46ļ46çņ46 Alt-Gr+Shift+5
^ circumflex ŵêŷûîîôâŝĝĥĵẑĉ Shift+6
̛7 horn ơ Alt-Gr+Shift+7
˛ ogonek ęųįǫą Alt-Gr+Shift+8
˘ breve3 ĕŭĭŏăğ Alt-Gr+Shift+9
° overring ẘẙůå8 Alt-Gr+Shift+0
̣ ̣9 underdot ẉẹṭỵụịọạṣḍḥḳḷẓṿḅṇṃ Alt-Gr+Shift+-
´ acute ẃéŕýúíóṕáśǵj́ḱĺźćǘ14ńḿ '
¨ 'two dots'10 ẅëẗÿüïöäḧẍ Shift+'
˙ overdot å1184é4ṙṫẏı12ȯṗȧṡḋḟġḣȷ12ŀ13żẋċḃṅṁ Alt-Gr+.
ˇ caron ěřť4ǔǐǒǎšď4ǧȟǰǩľ4žčǔň Alt-Gr+Shift+.
14 15 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 tastenbrett2 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.

  1. With v. ↩↩↩

  2. Literally 'keysboard' in German; 'tasten', keys; 'brett', board. ↩

  3. Can't help myself; I pronounce these in French :) ↩↩

  4. Notice how the diacritic applied is different to the one you're supposed to be pressing. ↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  5. I can't quite see the glyph16, so I have to trust Python and unicodedata.name(). ↩

  6. These actually get an undercomma. 18 ↩↩↩↩

  7. These ones are weird. At least on my editor they 'glue' to the character on its left and it becomes difficult to deal with. ↩

  8. According to my editor and Python, these are both LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE. ↩↩

  9. 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. ↩

  10. Not 'double dots'? This symbol is used for both diaeresis (diæresis?) and umlauts17. ↩

  11. With w. ↩

  12. Notice that the diacritic is an overdot, but these letters 'naturally' have dots in them, so it removes it. ↩↩

  13. 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 4 applies. ↩

  14. It doesn't show at all; maybe because of 15? ↩

  15. 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. ↩↩

  16. 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. ↩

  17. How come all these names don't have themselves in it?!?! "Ümlaut", there, I fixed it for you :) ↩

  18. I have the impression that this post has more footnotes than actual text :) ↩