Tsakonian Digital
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Tools for writing Tsakonian with Kostakis' orthography

1) Tsakonian dictionary for Gboard

For Android phones with the Gboard keyboard. No extra app needed.

Type on the regular Greek keyboard using the Simple Kostakis orthography, and Gboard suggests the word in Kostakis' orthography in the suggestion bar. The dictionary holds about 25,800 Tsakonian words from the Digital Dictionary and from openly available texts.

Installation

  1. Download the file tsakonian_kostakis_gboard.zip. Do not unzip it.
  2. Open the Gboard settings: Settings → Dictionary → Personal dictionary.
  3. Tap the ⋮ menu at the top right and choose Import.
  4. Select the zip file from your Downloads.
  5. Wait a few minutes until all the words are loaded.

Usage

Type the whole word with its accent, then tap the Kostakis form in the suggestion bar.

You type Suggested
κχκ̔
τθτ̔
πφπ̔
ξξσ̌
ζζζ̌
τσστσ̑
νςν̇
λςλ̣
νιν̂

Examples: κχάρα → κ̔άρα, ξξίνα → σ̌ίνα, τσσαι → τσ̑αι, κάλςι → κάλ̣ι, γονςία → γον̇ία

  • For ν̇ and λ̣ the dictionary uses final ς (κάλςι) instead of the Simple Kostakis apostrophe (κάλ'ι), because Gboard treats the apostrophe and the Greek question mark as the end of a word.
  • For ν̂', type νι, pick ν̂, then type the apostrophe.
  • The suggestion appears only once you have typed the whole word. Words not in the dictionary are typed as usual.
  • Gboard for iPhone does not allow importing dictionaries.

2) Keyman keyboard

For mobile phones and tablets.

Keyman is a mobile app that lets you type Tsakonian using dedicated keys for the characters of the Kostakis orthography.

Steps:

  1. Install the Keyman app from the Play Store on your Android device.
  2. Then, visit the link https://keyman.com/keyboards/tsakonian .
  3. Press the Install Keyboard button to add the Tsakonian keyboard.

After installation, you can select the Keyman keyboard and easily type the special characters of Tsakonian.

3) AutoHotKey keyboard extension

For computers (Windows).

The extension allows typing the characters of the Tsakonian dialect on a Greek-language keyboard. It is available for all newer Greek-language keyboards that support the input of polytonic characters.

The extension is based on the Tsakonian dialect orthography proposed by Ioannis Kamvysis in his book Για να κ̔οντούμε τα γρούσσα νάμου (Leonidio, 2020) and on the AutoHotKey application.

Installation

  1. Download and install AutoHotKey:
  2. Download the extension from the link (Google Drive).
  3. Open the extension file.

Usage

You must reactivate the extension every time you restart your computer, since it runs as a separate program.

As a rule, type the desired letter and press the "/" key to add diacritics.

The characters of the Tsakonian dialect are entered using the following mapping:

Input Result
σ + /σ̌
ζ + /ζ̌
τ + /τ̔
π + /π̔
κ + /κ̔
ν + /ν̇
νι + /ν̂
λ + /λ̣
τσστσ̑

Mapping with uppercase characters also works.

Why a keyboard extension?

Previously, the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator was used to create custom keyboard layouts. However, this application is not compatible with Windows 11. Therefore, this AutoHotKey-based extension was a convenient alternative.