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| Our Families at their Farewell Party. |
Showing posts with label Dzongkha Keyboard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dzongkha Keyboard. Show all posts
26 May 2014
Good Bye ThimphuTech.com
The couple who authored Thimphutech.com-the blog that kept Bhutan informed about everything regarding telecommunication technology so far said good bye to Bhutan this morning. The couple, Boaz Shmueli and Galit Shmueli and their daughter Michal, whom I fondly call Bhutan Baby after her blog title, lived in Bhutan for many years working with Rigsum Institute where they worked on developing software solutions. Their last project and memorable one was the Rigsum Sherig Collection, which is a collection of 28 GB of Educational resources for students that is freely distributed. It was this project that brought us together and when they left they had launched RSC 3.0.
Readers of K2 Magazine every Saturday will miss their regular column Ask Boaz because there is no more asking Boaz from this Saturday, he said though he could write from his new place of work but he won't be able to deliver accurate answers to Bhutanese questions from overseas. Thank you Boaz for all the contribution you made to Bhutan. Hope your wonderful family will return to Bhutan someday and continue the journey. We will miss you guys.
05 February 2013
Interesting Respond from a Reader
Following is an email from a reader, Namgay Thinley, who shares very good insight on Dzongkha and technology relationship. He wrote it in Dzongkha so that his words carry their weight through. You should have dzongkha fonts installed on your device to read the following:
སློབ་པ་སངས་མཆོག
ཞུ་དོན། ད་རེས་ཁམས་ཅིག་ཁར་ ང་གིས་ངོ་ཤེས་མི་ཆ་རོགས་ཅིག་གི
ད་རེས་ནངས་པ་ རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ནང་མི་ལ་ལུ་ཅིག་གི་ ཝི་ཀི་པི་ཌི་ཡ་ནང་ཡང་ རྫོང་ཁ་བཙུགས་ས་མཐོང་ཅིག་ དེ་འབདཝ་ད་ཁོང་ལུ་ ཆ་རོགས་འབད་དགོཔ་ལེ་ཤ་མཐོངམ་མས། ཆ་རོགས་འབད་དགོཔ་འདི་ཡང་ གཙོ་བོ་ གནད་དོན་དང་ གནས་ཚུལ་ཚུ་མངམ་མེད་པའི་དཀའ་ངལ་
ང་ར་ལས་ མིང་ཚིག་གསར་རྩོམ་སྐོར་ལས་ དུམ་གྲ་ཅིག་ཞུ་བ་ཅིན་ ང་བཅས་རྫོང་ཁ་ལུ་ མིང་ཚིག་གསར་རྩོམ་ལེ་ཤ་འབད་དགོ
བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས།
རྣམ་རྒྱལ།
Thank you Namgay for writing to me, I hope this will go on to help lots of people besides me. And I also hope you don't mind me posting your email message here!
02 February 2013
Blue Chili on Dzongkha Google
The saddest part of training Dzongkha teachers is at the end when they ask us if what we just taught could be done in Dzongkha- it's 'No' most of the time. They have to know a little bit of English anyway. I take the blame on my self for failing to be powerful and efficient enough to make computer Dzongkha-ready though I spent much of my life dealing with computer. I didn't have mark enough to pursue computers abroad nor did I have money enough to go on my own. God knows what those Bhutanese computer experts are doing.
The title of my post emerged when we were mocking the new Dzongkha words, which even the Dzongkha teachers find it hard to tolerate. We were all on one side when it came to disagreeing with formation of new Dzongkha words that are combination of existing words- like the names of things like computer, TV, football, tape recorder, type writer, vehicle, etc. We can't create new words, we are just connecting old words to make new ones, and land up making it very uneasy for our tongue.
However there are a few things we discovered as we desperately struggled together to make sense of internet through Dzongkha.
If you have the Dzongkha Keyboard installed then you can type in the search key word in Dzongkha, and Google is smart enough to find us whatever in available accordingly.
If you have the Dzongkha Keyboard installed then you can type in the search key word in Dzongkha, and Google is smart enough to find us whatever in available accordingly.
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| Googling in Dzongkha |
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| Google Dzongkha Results |
Then one lopen asked me to translate Ema Hoem to English, which I instantly could- Green Chili, then he asked me to go word by word and do the translation again, which is when I realized Ema hoem is actually Blue Chili. We discussed it at length to understand how such word could be very subtle to notice because of its usage over time. I searched Ema Hoem (typed in Dzongkha) in Google and following is what I got!
Wikipedia is available in all the language you can think of, and when I say so my 20 Dzongkha teachers look at me in full glow, but then I have to say, Except Dzongkha! I apologize as if it was my fault again. But I also ask them to put half the blame on Dasho Shrub, the man who is responsible for the development of Dzongkha Language (or are we all equally responsible?). Later I discovered that among hundreds of language on Wikipedia there is Boed Weig, meaning Tibetan Language- Bingo. With Tibetan Dzongkha teachers are more comfortable than English.
The following is how Wikipedia looks once we switch to Tibetan Language mode and this brings internet closer to our Dzongkha lopens.
What and how much will to take to make Google and Wikipedia possible in Dzongkha is the question I have been asking myself for quite sometime, and today with this post I ask you the same question. Let's also ask who will do that?
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| When you search for Ema Hoem on Google! |
Wikipedia is available in all the language you can think of, and when I say so my 20 Dzongkha teachers look at me in full glow, but then I have to say, Except Dzongkha! I apologize as if it was my fault again. But I also ask them to put half the blame on Dasho Shrub, the man who is responsible for the development of Dzongkha Language (or are we all equally responsible?). Later I discovered that among hundreds of language on Wikipedia there is Boed Weig, meaning Tibetan Language- Bingo. With Tibetan Dzongkha teachers are more comfortable than English.
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| Wikipedia Doesn't have Dzongkha but look for Boed Weig (Tibetan) |
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| Most Dzongkha Teachers can read, write and understand Tibetan! |
28 January 2013
Dzongkha Teachers and Computers
You have no idea what it means to dare teaching twenty Dzongkha teachers how to use computer but I am not new to this challenge. This batch of language teachers we have in Punakha Center mostly began their career before many parents fell in love and some talks about my grandfather being their contemporary. Now imagine how I would look standing there doing this job of teaching them.
We were never trained to handle this nor the course was designed to suit them. The computers are just the ones we are using-everything on the machine is in English and even the text book and the presentation slides are in English. The problem is not with them, they are highly educated and very confident and ready to learn. The issue is with the computer- they'd heard a lot about this super machine but they are upset that the machine is just another stupid box that won't understand Dzongkha. I assured them that computer can be programmed to display everything in Dzongkha but the problem is I was not trained enough to do so much and rest didn't have the passion. (Point to be noted, My lord lol)
The best adjustment we can do for them was to install Dzongkha Unicode on their computers so that they could at least used computer to type text in Dzongkha. It's a simple two part process; first install Dzongkha Keyboard and then install Dzongkha Fonts followed by a few steps to Add Dzongkha Keyboard on Language Bar but to do it on so many computer took me and my partner Tshewang Rinzin one precious hour.
That's the beginning of another problem; there are a few teachers who never went to Dzongkha Unicode training and therefore they need another course to understand what we just did. Without Dzongkha characters printed on the keyboard it takes ages to get a word on the screen. (Point to be noted, My lord lol)
By afternoon we made some progress with some people and rest are waiting for me to bring them the printed copy of Dzongkha Keyboard tomorrow. But like all the batches we met we had fun being mischievous and with Dzongkha teacher like them I never forget to share my dirty jokes and make them cough their doma out. During the breaks I listen to their wisdom and bother them with my endless questions on history. I am looking forward to eight more days with them!
Note: This is not intended to class whole species of Dzongkha Teachers in Bhutan as alien to English language or computers, I am just talking about this group of senior teachers who didn't go to English medium school and therefore resulting in the gap. Dzongkha Teachers now are highly versatile, they have mastery over Dzongkha and does equally well in English- and to surprise the hell out of all my vice principal,Lop Melam, who is also a Dzongkha Teacher is an expert in both computer hardware and software including Mac stuffs.
We were never trained to handle this nor the course was designed to suit them. The computers are just the ones we are using-everything on the machine is in English and even the text book and the presentation slides are in English. The problem is not with them, they are highly educated and very confident and ready to learn. The issue is with the computer- they'd heard a lot about this super machine but they are upset that the machine is just another stupid box that won't understand Dzongkha. I assured them that computer can be programmed to display everything in Dzongkha but the problem is I was not trained enough to do so much and rest didn't have the passion. (Point to be noted, My lord lol)
The best adjustment we can do for them was to install Dzongkha Unicode on their computers so that they could at least used computer to type text in Dzongkha. It's a simple two part process; first install Dzongkha Keyboard and then install Dzongkha Fonts followed by a few steps to Add Dzongkha Keyboard on Language Bar but to do it on so many computer took me and my partner Tshewang Rinzin one precious hour.
That's the beginning of another problem; there are a few teachers who never went to Dzongkha Unicode training and therefore they need another course to understand what we just did. Without Dzongkha characters printed on the keyboard it takes ages to get a word on the screen. (Point to be noted, My lord lol)
By afternoon we made some progress with some people and rest are waiting for me to bring them the printed copy of Dzongkha Keyboard tomorrow. But like all the batches we met we had fun being mischievous and with Dzongkha teacher like them I never forget to share my dirty jokes and make them cough their doma out. During the breaks I listen to their wisdom and bother them with my endless questions on history. I am looking forward to eight more days with them!
Note: This is not intended to class whole species of Dzongkha Teachers in Bhutan as alien to English language or computers, I am just talking about this group of senior teachers who didn't go to English medium school and therefore resulting in the gap. Dzongkha Teachers now are highly versatile, they have mastery over Dzongkha and does equally well in English- and to surprise the hell out of all my vice principal,Lop Melam, who is also a Dzongkha Teacher is an expert in both computer hardware and software including Mac stuffs.
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