GoldenDict Forum

I am formatting a Bolivian Guarani dictionary to use in GoldenDict and StarDict. Guaraní has two letters which don't exist in any standard keyboard: ɨ (U268) and ɨ̈ (U268, U308)
Both are Unicode characters. That second character is a created with a Unicode diacritical mark overlaid on top of the first character.

In StarDict, I can insert Unicode characters in the search box without any problem. I just press CTRL+SHIFT+U and then the number code for the character. In GoldenDict, however, there seems to be no way to insert Unicode characters in the search box in either Windows or Linux. In most Windows programs, I can insert Unicode characters by pressing ALT and entering the Unicode number in the number pad, with the number preceded by a zero. For example, ALT+0268 to get ɨ. However, this doesn't work in GoldenDict in Windows. GoldenDict in Linux also doesn't allow you to type Unicode characters in the search box. This is probably because the QT toolkit used by GoldenDict doesn't have Unicode character input.

See these bug reports:
http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=39343
https://bugreports.qt-project.org/browse/QTBUG-8

The only thing that I can do is cut and paste Unicode characters into the GoldenDict search box from another program.

It would be really cool if GoldenDict could implement the typing of Unicode characters. If that isn't possible, GoldenDict should have an option to allow the user to search for a Unicode character using another character. For example, I would like to be able to configure GoldenDict to find the characters "ɨ" and "ɨ̈" when I search for "i". For example, if I search for "ivi", GoldenDict would return "ivi" and "ɨvɨ̈" in the list of matching words.

GD does support transliteration, though currently it basically only has several hard-coded tables for some languages. The only way to add a new one is to add another .hh/.cc file right now, which is not the best. Though you can always hack the source file for any language you don't care about and add there mappings for your language instead.

I don't think we need transliteration for Guaraní language. @amosbatto, correct me if I'm wrong but ɨ (U268) and ɨ̈ (U268, U308) are not letters of the Guaraní alphabet. I have checked here http://www.omniglot.com/writing/guarani.htm to confirm. Instead, it's an IPA phonetic symbol as detailed here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_cent ... nded_vowel There is even an example with a Guaraní word.

ɨ (U268) and ɨ̈ (U268, U308) don't exist in Paraguayan Guarani, but they do exist in Bolivian Guarani. I am currently trying to format two Bolivian Guarani dictionaries to use in GoldenDict. (By the way, I am trying to get the Bolivians to switch to the Paraguayan alphabet, but I don't have much hope.)

Amos, do you have any documentation to share that explains the differences among Bolivian, Paraguayan and Argentinian Guaraní? We might be able to implement a transliteration in GoldenDict for the whole Guaraní language family.

Thanks