PDF (Online Text) - EURAC

This creates a word list containing six-letter words, including digraphs.
• Some combinations of characters can be a digraph or two separate
letters.
Bangor = (compound word of ban + côr) pronounced ‘n-g’
angor ( meaning anchor) pronounced ‘ng’
Fortunately, digraph look-up lists had previously been developed at Canolfan
Bedwyr in order to correctly sort dictionaries according to the Welsh alphabet (ng
follows g in the Welsh alphabet, so ng and n are sorted quite differently). These
look-up lists could then be used to prevent confusion between digraphs and similar
character combinations.
• Inputting letters using the keyboard becomes more complicated.
Designing an online interface that can differentiate elegantly between an inputted
d and an inputted dd is a challenge. There is no support for digraphs in Welsh’s UTF-
8 character set, and no specific Welsh keyboard that has digraph keys (UK English
QWERTY keyboards are generally used). In practice this makes a keyboard-based
approach to inputting awkward, especially when playing against the clock as in many
of the Ieithgi games.
It was decided that a visual interface would be devised in order to allow the user to
input these characters quickly and efficiently. This came in the form of an on-screen
keyboard featuring all the letters of the Welsh alphabet. Although the keyboard takes
up some of the game’s screen space, it gives the player valuable feedback such as
which letters have been chosen and which letters remain, as well as serving as a
visual reminder to users more familiar with the English alphabet that Welsh considers
digraphs to be single letters.
The on-screen keyboard is used in Cybolfa, Diarhebol and Pos Croeseiriau in addition
to Dic Penderyn, shown below:
316