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This document points to resources for the layout and presentation of text in languages that use the N’Ko script. The target audience includes developers of Web standards and technologies, such as HTML, CSS, Mobile Web, Digital Publications, and Unicode, as well as implementers of web browsers, ebook readers, and other applications that need to render N’Ko text.
This document points to resources for N’Ko script layout and text support on the Web and in eBooks. These requirements provide information for Web technologies such as CSS, HTML and digital publications about how to support languages written using the N’Ko script. The information here is developed in conjunction with a document that summarises gaps where the Web fails to adequately support the N’Ko script.
The editor's draft of this document is being developed in the GitHub repository African Language Enablement (afrlreq), with contributors from the W3C Internationalization Interest Group. It is published by the Internationalization Working Group. The end target for this document is a Working Group Note.
To make it easier to track comments, please raise separate issues or emails for each comment, and point to the section you are commenting on using a URL.
Some links on this page point to repositories or pages to which information will be added over time. Initially, the link may produce no results, but as issues, tests, etc. are created they will show up.
Links that have a gray color led to no content the last time this document was updated. They are still live, however, since relevant content could be added at any time. When the document is updated, links that now point to results will have their live colour restored.
Introduction
Contributors
The initial version of this document was prepared by Richard Ishida.
See also the GitHub contributors list for the African Language Enablement project, and the discussions related to N’Ko script.
About this document
This document points to resources for N’Ko script layout and text support on the Web and in eBooks. These resources provide information for developers of Web technologies such as CSS, HTML and digital publications, and for application developers, about how to support languages written using the N’Ko script. They include requirements, tests, GitHub discussions, type samples, and more,
The document focuses on typographic layout issues. For a deeper understanding of the N’Ko script and how it works see N’Ko Orthography Notes, which includes topics such as: Phonology, Vowels, Consonants, Encoding choices, and Numbers.
Gap analysis
This document should be used alongside a separate document, N’Ko Gap Analysis, which describes gaps in language support for users of the N’Ko script, and prioritises and describes the impact of those gaps on the user.
Gap reports are brought to the attention of spec and browser implementers, and are tracked via the Gap Analysis Pipeline. (Filter for N’Ko script items)
Other related resources
The document Language enablement index points to this document and others, and provides a central location for developers and implementers to find information related to various scripts.
The W3C also has a repository with discussion threads related to the N’Ko script, including requests from developers to the user community for information about how scripts/languages work, and a notification system that tracks issues in W3C working groups related to the N’Ko script. See a list of unresolved questions for N’Ko experts. Each section below points to related discussions. See also the repository home page.
N’Ko script overview
The N’Ko script is an alphabet. Both consonants and vowels are indicated by letters.
N’Ko text is written right-to-left in horizontal lines. Unlike other RTL scripts, such as Arabic and Hebrew, numbers are also written right-to-left.
Words are separated by spaces.
The script is normally cursive, but in certain circumstances a non-joining font style may be used.
N’Ko has 19 native consonant letters. Use of 3 different diacritics results in letters for 22 more sounds used in foreign and loan words (mostly French or Arabic). There is also a nasal syllabic, and 2 'abstract' characters
N’Ko doesn't have corresponding letters for g, ŋ, and z used in the Latin orthographies of Manding languages. Also, plurals that are written by appending a w to a word in Bamanan are generally written in N’Ko by adding a free-standing particle such as ߟߎ߬ lù or ߠߎ߬ nù.
An unusual feature is that if two adjacent consonants are followed by the same vowel, the vowel is omitted after the first consonant.
N’Ko has 7 vowel letters. A diacritic is used to create 3 more letters for foreign sounds.
Another diacritic produces nasalisation of the vowel sound.
N’Ko also has a letter to indicate the absence of a vowel, which is used regularly.
N’Ko has 7 combining tone marks and 2 tone letters. Several of these have more than one use, indicating vowel length in addition to tone.
N’Ko has it's own set of digits, which, unlike Arabic, are written right-to-left.
All topics
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
Text direction
Writing mode
N’Ko text runs right to left in horizontal lines.
Bidirectional text
- Requirements
-
- Additional Requirements for Bidi in HTML
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Text direction
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Glyph shaping & positioning
The orthography has no case distinction, and no special transforms are needed to convert between characters.
Fonts & font styles
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Font styles
- Generic font families (unjoined)
- List of system fonts
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Context-based shaping & positioning
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Context-based shaping & positioning
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Cursive text
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Cursive shaping
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Letterform slopes, weights, & italics
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Letterform slopes, weights, & italics
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Case & other character transforms
Not applicable.
Typographic units
Characters & encoding
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Vowels • Consonants
- Character usage
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
-
- W3C type samples
- r12a type samples: consonants • vowels
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Grapheme/word segmentation & selection
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Word boundaries • Graphemes
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Punctuation & inline features
Phrase & section boundaries
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Phrase & section boundaries
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
-
- W3C type samples
- r12a type samples: phrases
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Quotations & citations
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Quotations & citations
- Wikipedia: Quotation mark
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Emphasis & highlighting
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Emphasis & highlighting
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Abbreviation, ellipsis & repetition
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Abbreviation, ellipsis & repetition
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Inline notes & annotations
- Requirements
-
- tbd
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Other text decoration & inline features
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Other inline features
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Line & paragraph layout
Line breaking & hyphenation
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Line breaking & hyphenation
- Approaches to line-breaking
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Text alignment & justification
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Text alignment & justification
- Approaches to full justification
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Text spacing
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Text spacing
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Baselines, line height, etc.
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Baselines, line height, etc.
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Lists, counters, etc.
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Counters, lists, etc.
- Ready-made Counter Styles: N’Ko
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Styling initials
- Requirements
-
- tbd
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Page & book layout
General page layout & progression
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: General page layout & progression
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Grids & tables
tbd
Footnotes, endnotes, etc
tbd
Page headers, footers, etc
tbd
Forms & user interaction
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Layout direction
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Change log
- Applied new template.
- Fixed various links.