Telex (input method)
Telex, also known in Vietnamese as Quốc ngữ điện tín (lit. "national language telex", is a convention for encoding Vietnamese text in plain ASCII characters. Originally used for transmitting Vietnamese text over telex systems, it has since been standardized as an input method on computers.
As a variable-width character encoding, Telex represents a single Vietnamese character as one, two, or three ASCII characters. By contrast, a byte-oriented code page like VISCII takes up only one byte per Vietnamese character but requires specialized software or hardware for input. However, as Unicode largely supplanted language-specific encodings on modern computer systems and the Internet, Telex gained popularity as an input method, converting Telex keystrokes to either precomposed or decomposed Unicode text as the user types.
Rules
Because the Vietnamese alphabet uses a complex system of diacritical marks, Telex requires the user to type in a base letter, followed by one or two characters that represent the diacritical marks:
| Character | Keys pressed | Sample input | Sample output |
|---|---|---|---|
| ă | aw | trawng | trăng |
| â | aa | caan | cân |
| đ | dd | ddaau | đâu |
| ê | ee | ddeem | đêm |
| ô | oo | nhoo | nhô |
| ơ | ow | mow | mơ |
| ư | uw | tuw | tư |
To write the pair of keys as two distinct characters, the second character has to be repeated. For example, "beer" produces "bể", while "beeer" becomes "beer".
| Tone | Keys added to syllable | Sample input | Sample output |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ngang (level) | z or nothing | ngang | ngang |
| Huyền (falling) | f | huyeenf | huyền |
| Sắc (rising) | s | sawcs | sắc |
| Hỏi (dipping-rising) | r | hoir | hỏi |
| Ngã (rising glottalized) | x | ngax | ngã |
| Nặng (falling glottalized) | j | nawngj | nặng |
If more than one tone marking key is pressed, the last one will be used. For example, typing "asz" will return "a". (Thus z can also be used to delete diacritics when using an input method editor.) To write a tone marking key as a normal character, one has to press it twice: "her" becomes "hẻr", while "herr" becomes "her".
History
The Telex input method, also known as Quốc ngữ điện tín (lit. "national language telex"), is based on a set of rules for transmitting accented Vietnamese text over telex (máy điện tín) first used in Vietnam during the 1920s and 1930s. Telex services at the time ran over infrastructure that was designed overseas to handle only a basic Latin alphabet, so a message reading "vỡ đê" ("the dam broke") could easily be misinterpreted as "vợ đẻ" ("the wife is giving birth"). Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh, a prominent journalist and translator, is credited with devising the original set of rules for telex systems.[1]
Later in 1980s and 1990s, Telex was adopted as a way to type Vietnamese on standard English keyboards. Bked editor was one of the first editors to use the Telex typing method.[citation needed] This use of Telex was standardized as part of TCVN 5712 in 1993.
See also
External links
- Guide to inputting Vietnamese text at the Vietnamese Wikipedia
- Learn To Type Vietnamese at YourVietnamese
References
- ^ Thu Hà (2010-09-12). "Nhớ "người Nam mới" đầu tiên". Tuổi Trẻ (in Vietnamese). Hồ Chí Minh Communist Youth Organization. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|trans_title=ignored (|trans-title=suggested) (help)