Th is the most common digraph in english and it would be useful to have a key for it!
Example:
Q W K R J Y U I O P
A S D F G H T E L N
Z X C V B ThMA bit of ergonomics are added (E and T) and this page was written using this layout!
Source: Mini-Th in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Klalkity/Layouts
I didn't learn Colemak because i'm 10 years old and i need to go to school.
Banned from Colemak
In a similar vein - One of the ideas I briefly considered when first encountering the Colemak HE difficulty was the idea of using AltGr as a "common bigram" key.
So for example you could map:
AltGr-H -> HE
AltGr-T -> TH
I rejected it pretty quickly though, Colemak is generally very good for most bigrams. And of course the DH/curl mod fixes HE and TH quite nicely.
Perhaps the idea might be more useful for users of unmodified Qwerty, since for them T and H are in relatively awkward places !?
Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.
It rather reduces typing time as Th don't need to be typed with 2 keys, only 1 key.
Banned from Colemak
Although, ð key makes sense from a certain perspective.
not Dh key, only Th (þ).
Banned from Colemak
The problem with using IPA is that those letters mean something in other languages so it'll be a bit messy. As Piotr says, the 'eth'/þ represents the 'th' (unvoiced dental fricative) while the 'ed'/ð represents the 'dh' (voiced dental fricative) sound in old writing. In today's English the formerly unvoiced fricatives are now voiced but still written 'th' so it's a mess. But in Icelandic for instance, the letters are still used "right": Til þrívnað fyrir öll er royking bannað i hesum höli.
I do think it's a pity that we lost those two letters though. In Norwegian they fell into disuse around the 13th century I think, as the fricative sounds hardened.
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Haha, thanks for reminding me of that hysterically funny vid! :-D
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Piotr, I'm not sure it'll improve typing speed that much (could anyone do an analysis on how that'd work?). For most typists I imagine it'll be hard to learn and require a bit of thought to use. Also, if you get used to it then typing on an unmodded machine will be that much harder.
For that matter, maybe a trigram key with THE would be even nicer? This is the most common word and trigram in English (TH is around 2.7%, THE is around 1.8%), and 3-for-1 packs more of a punch... if it's common enough to warrant it. I'm not convinced.
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Not that "th" is all that important in the other languages.
Either way, size matters.
Nice!
But what is the optimal number of letters? You could argue fewer is better. The Greeks only have 24! Would make for simpler keyboards!
Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.
But what is the optimal number of letters? You could argue fewer is better. The Greeks only have 24! Would make for simpler keyboards!
But greeks also have diacritics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_diacritics
Banned from Colemak
The thing that stands out there, with th, is this: th is actually a pleasure to type (under Dvorak). And even my rusty old digits are quite chipper with the combo. I'd rather get rid of simultaneous key presses (for capitals and some funny chars). Or something else that would give me more immediate gain.
See stenotype.
--
Physicians deafen our ears with the Honorificabilitudinitatibus of their heavenly Panacaea, their sovereign Guiacum.
Or that oddball idea, the "double" key that repeats your last key press to avoid same-finger bigrams. If that helps...
TH is nice under Colemak too, especially Colemak-Curl. And THE is lovely using Colemak-Curl but a little irksome with standard Colemak.
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