Esperanto, the penguin, and me

[patchin_house]

Karaj gesamideanoj!

Yes, I am addressing any and all Esperantistoj (Esperantists) who might be using the Forums...

My question, basically, is: What do you prefer doing when you absolutely have to use the special characters (ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, ŭ) so prevelant in Esperanto? (That is, the moments when "c+x" or "g+h" simply won't do.)

Yes, I know the "Insert > Special Characters" drill when it comes to Mozilla Thunderbird or OpenOffice, and I have the Character Map in the Accessories sub-menu -- but both seem a little klunky to me.

On top of that, I won't be limiting myself to OO or Thunderbird. (I use the GIMP a lot, for instance.)

When it comes to Esperanto and graphics apps such as Inkscape, mtPaint, and Xara (or subtitling apps, for that matter!), how do you make the two work together?

For now, I'm looking at making two seperate charts — one with HTML codes for the special characters, and another with Ubuntu/Linux-specific keystroke combos. I'm wondering if that'll be the right approach...

Elkoran dankon kaj ĝis poste!

Philip David
la 7an de julio 2008 (Tanabata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanabata_Festival) en Japanio)

[altariel]

why not set your keyboard layout to Esperanto?
:confused:

[cpetercarter]

I sometimes need to use German characters (umlauted vowels etc). I have installed the character palette applet on the lower panel. The trouble with the character palette is of course that you have to hunt through it for the characters you want. But it is possible to create a new character line containing just the characters you need and to have that display on the panel. Use the character palette to make a list of needed characters in gedit (eg äÄöÖüÜß) - clicking on the character puts it in the clipboard, then ctrl+v to transfer it to gedit. Then right click on the character panel applet > preferences > add and copy and paste your custom character list into the box which appears.

[patchin_house]

Kara geamikoj!

It took a while for this to dawn on me, but it finally did: I installed the wine package and then installed UniRed (http://www.esperanto.mv.ru/UniRed/UTF8/), a text editor I've used on Windows machines. That finally resolved the issue of wanting to quickly create Esperanto text without having to resolve to the Character Map.

Now all I need to do is to tweak Mplayer so it works correctly with the MP3 and WAV files in the Kurso de Esperanto (http://www.ikurso.net/) program (yes, there is a penguin port).

For altariel: My one reason for not making changes to the keyboard layout is because I had installed SCIM for the times when I might want to create text in Japanese. The last thing I needed was a needless headache. Just so you know.

Philip David
(still learning to master my inner penguin, and loving it)
2008.07.11-12

[LaRoza]

http://www.koffice.org/kword/euro.php

Sorry it isn't specific, I just happened to read that. You can make it so a keycombination will enter those letters.

[patchin_house]

Actually, that is something else I should set aside time to try. I might need that symbol soon. Elkoran dankon (thank you).

Philip David
(every little piece of info helps)
2008.07.14

[hugmenot]

Personally I have made myself a customized keymap and added that as a language variation to the xkb system.

But for you, I found a copy & paste solution in an old post on this forum:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=313950&postcount=8

[pbpersson]

Hmm.....well, there was a time when I wanted Linux, Esperanto, and kilts for men to take over the world.

It is a joke with my friends - I say that someday men everywhere will be wearing kilts, speaking Esperanto, and Linux will be on every desktop.

It has been SO LONG since I have heard anyone mention Esperanto, I thought it was dead. :(

How in the world is Esperanto doing in the 21st century? :)

[Sef]

Moved to Community Cafe.

[billgoldberg]

I never got the whole esperanto thing.

Why not simply learn another language like spanish, french, ...

That way you actually get some real life use out of it.

[Masoris]

Karaj samideanoj, mi longtempe ne uzis esperanton do me ne povas skiribi bone esperante tie chi. Do mi skribu per la angla.

I never spoken Esperanto during recent few years, but I didn't forget it. So I can understand every your sentences in Esperanto. :)

When you type Esperanto in Windows, just use Esperanto keyboard Ek! (http://www.esperanto.mv.ru/Ek/) It's the best. (I'm not sure does Ek! work on wine)
You are true that default Esperanto keyboard in Linux, is some what headache, for people who have hardness to learn new keyboard, or for people who use SCIM like you.
I hope someone make more easier Esperanto keyboard layout for linux. I want to do that, but I don't know how.
SCIM also should support function that automatically change keyboard setting on real time, when keyboard layout was changed.

こんにちは。僕も日本語習ったことがありますが、日本語のほうも使えなかったのが何年なのでよくできません 。日本語はアメリカ人にすごく難しい言語なのり、できるってすごいですね。＾＿＾

[pbpersson]

I never got the whole esperanto thing.

Why not simply learn another language like spanish, french, ...

That way you actually get some real life use out of it.

Esperanto is a language that MAKES SENSE and is therefore much easier to learn than any other language on the earth. Also, it is not tied to a particular country - some people refuse to learn English because they feel as though they are being "dictated to" by the United States or England or something. You know the type - people who don't want to use Windows because it was invented and is sold by an American company.....

There was a time long ago when it was thought Esperanto was going to be the one standard global language. The United Nations attempted to adopt it to do away with all the translators they use.....however none of this ever came to pass.

[LaRoza]

I never got the whole esperanto thing.

Why not simply learn another language like spanish, french, ...

That way you actually get some real life use out of it.

If you don't know it, you aren't qualified to judge it ;)

Esperanto is a language not meant for daily use (like using it at home), but for being a universal language. So imagine a language that the average person can learn to a degree of near fluency in 3 months. People can get to a conversational level in Esperanto in a month, and there are many online communities for it.

[Ian Clark]

I never got the whole esperanto thing.
Why not simply learn another language like spanish, french, ...
That way you actually get some real life use out of it.

I know a lot of people who have learned Spanish, French and the like, and can't speak it for the life of them.

Esperanto is fun and easy. There are activities everywhere where you can meet and communicate like crazy with people from all over the world. You just don't get the bang for your buck like that with French et. al.

We also get more bang for our buck by using Ubuntu. Ubuntu is also a minority community that is nevertheless very well-distributed, very-well supported, and based on an architecture which is much more logical than a popular, bloated, and illogical competitor.

Both Ubuntu and Esperanto utilize more fully the potential of the internet. For Esperanto, the communities have become very specialized and multiplied. If you search for communities on Yahoo, Orkut or others, you'll get thousands of results. You can find groups for Catholics who like camping and speak Esperanto. You can find Esperanto rock musicians' groups. Esperanto is featured in Google, as a major language group in Wikipedia, as an operating system language in Ubuntu, and is the subject of what is clearly the most advanced language learning web page on the internet today, lernu.net (http://lernu.net). Esperanto is a minority language, but it is the most popular auxiliary language.

There are also flavors of Ubuntu for everyone, from the Christian Ubuntu to the arts-community Ubuntu. There are Ubuntu clubs and groups all over the world. Ubuntu is featured on all the major web portals. Ubuntu is a minority operating system, but is the most popular Linux distribution, and so on. Ubuntu and Esperanto are "over-represented" on the web, because they make sense.

re: layouts

I use the Esperanto layout in Ubuntu's keyboard layouts, and it's quite easy to figure out. I can't believe anyone would go through the trouble of using wine and getting to some M$ program to do this. Ĉu li ŝercis? I just hit shift+alt and I get all the cirkumfleksoj (Esperanto circumflexes).

system-->preferences-->keyboard preferences-->layout-->add-->choose Esperanto
For more details see this (http://bertilow.com/komputo/linukso.html). (Esperanto document by Bertilo)

-Ian Clark

[brallan]

Kara geamikoj!

My one reason for not making changes to the keyboard layout is because I had installed SCIM for the times when I might want to create text in Japanese. The last thing I needed was a needless headache. Just so you know.



well, if you've got SCIM, why not use it with one of the esperanto keyboard combinations provided in the repos?

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=5751130

good luck! bonŝancon!