traditional Mongolian script support

Peter_V_Saveliev · January 9, 2012, 9:08pm

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Hello!

Is there any info on traditional Mongolian scripting support by libreoffice, or plans, or something like that?

Thanks!

igaidhlig · January 10, 2012, 1:30am

Interesting, that's a top to bottom script, no? A bit like Chinese used to be.

Michael

09/01/2012 21:09, sgrìobh Peter V. Saveliev:

Peter_V_Saveliev · January 10, 2012, 2:48am

Top-to-bottom, with rows going from left to right.

It is the main difference from Chinese or Japanese. Another is that traditional Mongolian has no horizontal scripting form, unlike Chinese.

Because of absence of horizontal scripting, traditional Mongolian — imho — can not be used in UI without strong UI modification. But it would be nice at least to have an ability to write texts in traditional script.

Javier_Sola · January 10, 2012, 3:37am

I seem to remember that it is a verticalized for of Arabic script. The only solution would be to turn the fonts 90 degrees, and type it as a right to left script. you would see it turned 90 degrees in the screen, but you could type it and print it (you can always turn your monitor 90 degrees ).

igaidhlig · January 10, 2012, 11:50am

Have you ever tried typing (Latin) text turned 90 degrees? Not really a sensible undertaking.

It would be good, perhaps, to hear what it would require to enable that sort of thing, both for typing and the UI, perhaps with a view of building a taskforce with Peter's help?

Michael

10/01/2012 03:20, sgrìobh Javier Sola:

Peter_V_Saveliev · January 10, 2012, 12:34pm

Have you ever tried typing (Latin) text turned 90 degrees? Not really a
sensible undertaking.

Actually, traditional Mongolian has nothing to do with Arabic So it's a joke, I think

It would be good, perhaps, to hear what it would require to enable that
sort of thing, both for typing and the UI, perhaps with a view of
building a taskforce with Peter's help?

1. UI

I think, it is really can not be done (with contemporary UI toolkits). Each text-oriented UI element has horizontal orientation. Traditional Mongolian has not. End of story.

2. Typing.

2.1. ISO standards.

The first problem is that ISO standard is quite strange. ISO 639-2:

bua — Buriat
xal — Kalmyk, Oirat
mon, mn — Mongolian

but this classification almost irrelevant.

2.1.1. Buriat mongols (bua) writes in Cyrillic, live compactly, easiest case. At first glance. But they have great cultural heritage — chronicles and historical records in traditional Mongolian.

2.1.2. Kalmyk mongols (xal) writes in Cyrillic, and they are *one* of Oirates. Oirates live in Mongolia (write in Cyrillic, but uses Mongolian language), in Inner Mongolia (write traditional Mongolian), and in Russia, where they speak Kalmyk language and write in Cyrillic. How the standard's authors made one category for all Oirates? It's almost the same as to put all Slavic languages (Czech, Russian, Polish etc.) into one category. Even worse, 'cause Slavic languages use only «Western» alphabets, though different ones.

2.1.3. Mongolian (mon) people speak in many dialects of Mongol language. But they can be divided into two categories: people that use Cyrillic (Mongolia) and that use traditional Mongolian script (Mongolia, Inner Mongolia [China]).

And, after all, there are several different forms of Mongolian (худум бичиг for Mongolia, тодо бичиг for Oirates, now almost not used, and other). But all traditional Uyghur (not Arabic Uyghur, but Mongolian Uyghur), Mongolian, Oirates scripts share same features:

* only vertical orientation
* top-to-bottom, with rows left-to-right

2.2. Different scripting support vs. Languages.

As you can see, one «language» (in terms of ISO, and, as I understand right, in terms of LibreOffice) can use different scripts. These different scripts are not only different alphabets. These are quite different *languages*, that share many syntax rules, but use different grammatic. E.g., one word «a mighty warrior»:

* in contemporary Mongolian: баатар, roughly == «baatr»
* in translit from traditional Mongolian, it'd be «baghatur»

So, the spell checking would be different for these scripts, despite one «language».

The big problem here is that these scripts can be *mixed* in one document. I can easily imagine an attempt to create a materials for a school lesson in Mongolia, where all service text will be done in Cyrillic and exercises will be in traditional script (now they do a lot to revive traditional script in Mongolia).

I found a related work in AOO:

https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=91226

Maybe, the «right thing» for me would be to look into the code. But I'm scared by C/C++ I write only in Python, and there can be not so much help from me, I'm afraid. But I'll try, anyway.

Christian_Lohmaier · January 10, 2012, 1:09pm

Hi Peter, *,

[snip]
I found a related work in AOO:

That already was in OpenOffice.org, and is present in LibreOffice

https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=91226

Code is there, but has been disabled in UI:
mba: "It was decided to integrate the changes if all tests are passed, but not
activate the new writing direction in the user interface. So no additional
testing is required now." &
sba: "Verified in CWS mongolianlayout. Traditional mongolian writing
direction can
not be set via UI any more."

So LO has the same "support" for it as OOo/Apache OOo has. The changes
from the issues are integrated, but it had too much problems to be
exposed in the UI - but that should be a starting point.

ciao
Christian

Peter_V_Saveliev · January 10, 2012, 1:17pm

So LO has the same "support" for it as OOo/Apache OOo has.

Has it? Excuse my ignorance, I thought that LO is forked from OOo and share not every feature. Ok, I'm to check it in the repo.

The changes
from the issues are integrated, but it had too much problems to be
exposed in the UI - but that should be a starting point.

Ok, we'll see. Thanks.

Christian_Lohmaier · January 10, 2012, 1:29pm

Hi Peter, *,

<skip />

So LO has the same "support" for it as OOo/Apache OOo has.

Has it? Excuse my ignorance, I thought that LO is forked from OOo and share
not every feature. Ok, I'm to check it in the repo.

The overlap between OOo and LO is very big - and as it shares a common
history, the stuff that was added before the split is available in LO
as well.
See e.g.
http://opengrok.libreoffice.org/s?hist=91226&project=core

(search for commits that refer the bug 91226 in the commit)

But of course since the changes are >2years old, it might be that they
need some adaption - but this is the case anyway, be it OOo, LO or
Apache OOo

ciao
Christian

Peter_V_Saveliev · January 10, 2012, 1:32pm

The overlap between OOo and LO is very big - and as it shares a common
history, the stuff that was added before the split is available in LO
as well.
See e.g.
http://opengrok.libreoffice.org/s?hist=91226&project=core

(search for commits that refer the bug 91226 in the commit)

But of course since the changes are>2years old, it might be that they
need some adaption - but this is the case anyway, be it OOo, LO or
Apache OOo

Thanks. I'm cloning the repo and will try to check it this week.