Dakelh language to get standardized writing system for keyboard use

If you speak and read English, what you're looking at right now is easy to understand, with all the letters and punctuation easily accessible on keyboards. 

But not all languages are available on apps because their written characters haven't been included in standard international codes for writing — making it nearly impossible to send a text or type a story in many Indigenous languages.

That's why font designer and typography researcher Kevin King has been working with Indigenous language holders to create accurate syllabics for the Dakelh language, spoken by the Dakelh people in B.C.'s central Interior. The hope is to support language revitalization and preservation. 

"Communities were not able to even use their language in the way they wish to write it on an everyday basis," King told CBC's Daybreak North guest host Bill Fee. 

Every digital text writing system has to comply with the Unicode standard — a character coding system designed to support the worldwide exchange of written text. This allows the language to be accurately written and read. 

In the past, the standard was to incorporate Indigenous characters from multiple First Nations together, which caused problems as each language has unique symbols and subtleties that can drastically change communication. 

"Up to now, there's been so many different observations with it and attempts of translation and display that it was kind of getting confused," said Dakelh language holder Francois Prince, who lives in Fort St. James, B.C. 

Certain letters were lumped together, which has made it difficult for those trying to learn the language as it was intended. Additionally, some characters would end up half size — another unusual quirk. 

King, who is based in Toronto, successfully proposed the changes to Unicode.

Now that the syllabics have been developed, King said his team will be creating a standardized keyboard for Dakelh — something that doesn't currently exist. 

"We can't open up a Mac or an Android or Apple smartphone and ... select a Dakelh syllabic keyboard, which you could do for Inuktitut," King said. 

From there, they'll work with companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google to implement the keyboard on their devices.  

"We have fonts that are what we would call Unicode compliant to work with a keyboard that will also be Unicode compliant, so they will work in synchronicity together."