Very cool!

"Typing Culture with Keyboard: Okinawa - Reviving the Japanese Ryukyu-Language through the Art and Precision of Digital Input" by Daichi Shimabukuro (FediVerse: @daichi@social.nifeeden.com ) presented at #38c3:

https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-typing-culture-with-keyboard-okinawa-reviving-the-japanese-ryukyu-language-through-the-art-and-precision-of-digital-input#t=0

I realize, I am rather late to this, since it was originally presented on December 27th, 2024 and uploaded to media.ccc.de on 2025-01-08 apparently! However, this talk just showed up on the media.ccc.de YouTube channel. Probably better to not watch it on YouTube and contend with all their tracking and advertising?

Regardless, a fascinating exploration of the challenges of language preservation and a little bit of what goes into creating an IME (Input Method Editor/Engine) specifically as related to 琉球諸語「ryūkyūsyogo」which is to say Ryūkyūan language(s) (distinct, historically, politically and culturally from Japanese up until the late 1800s when Japan annexed the Ryūkyūan islands and began to culturally colonize them as well, no surprise that such efforts were linguistic too).

I am vaguely heartened to learn that while endangered, there are still living Ryūkyūan speakers with estimates numbered in the tens of thousands!

I know that Ainu (which Japan's government only officially recognized as Indigenous peoples circa 2008) had two of the three known dialects die off entirely? There were very few (maybe two?) living Ainu speakers last I checked. Ironically, though perhaps more endangered than the Ryūkūan language; I think Apple already includes an Ainu IME in macOS?

Hopefully Daichi's efforts to create an IME and carve out some sections of Unicode to Ryūkyūan orthography will help with language preservation and revitalization!

#DaichiShimabukuro #Ryūkyū #Ryūkyūan #琉球諸語 #琉球語 #琉球語派 #琉球諸語 #島言葉 #Lewchewan #Luchuan #38c3 #ChaosCommunicationsCongress #Languages #IME #InputMethodEngine #InputMethodEditor #Unicode #Typography

I set my name on LinkedIn to end with a 0-width right-to-left unicode character, so everything after it is flipped, and it's *still* paying dividends 😂

Some Pac-Man and other alien space invadery type symbols now in Unicode, via this Symbols for Legacy Computing Supplement: https://unicode.org/charts//PDF/Unicode-16.0/U160-1CC00.pdf