Family History

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Found the stresica!

Finally! I figured out that pesky little diacritical mark! That little "v" that sits on top of certain letters in Slovene. 

I need it in order to write some of my family names properly: Adamič and Kozlevčar. Or, for that matter, to properly title my welcome to this blog. It should have been like this: dobrodošli. 

It's called a "stresica" in Slovene, which means "little roof." It creates those three additional letters in the Slovene language: š, č, and ž. Pronounced "sh" and "ch" and "zh." 

 I must have spent half a day figuring out how to do this on my nice new Christmas MacBook. No, it's not rocket science. And it's certainly not the biggest hurdle in the Slovene language, which has incredible challenges I won't get into right now. But it took me a long time to figure out.

I thought it would be easy. I already know how to do the French accents, since I use them a lot. It's a simple code, a series of keys, and there you have it. But with that elusive little roof, you first need to alter the keyboard. With the extended US keyboard, you can use a series of keys to create that perky little hat. But I've already forgotten the formula, because now I have a better option: the Slovenian keyboard, which I can flip on whenever I want. So now I can write č and š an ž to my heart's content! I have arrived!

6 comments:

  1. Hi!

    There is another way to easily type Slovenian characters using English keyboard :)

    Just download one of the "+ Slovenian" keyboard layouts from http://www.slovenian-translations.com/community/keyboard-layouts.html

    You can continue using your US English keyboard layout, while typing the Slovenian characters using right Alt + corresponding base letter:
    AltGr + c = č
    AltGr + s = š
    AltGr + z = ž
    AltGr + d = đ
    AltGr + t = ć
    AltGr + e = €
    AltGr + 5 = €

    Srečno!

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  2. Thank you for reading and commenting, John! Maybe it's time for another post!

    (Now what is your interest in these matter? :-)

    Yes, I've come across that approach but I'm not sure it will work on a Mac.

    I actually kind of like having that little Slovenian flag at the top of my screen, whenever I use the Slovenian keyboard!

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  3. Hi!

    The solution from http://www.slovenian-translations.com/community/keyboard-layouts.html only works on Mac if you run it in Mac Parallels Desktop, that is using MS Windows.

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  4. It's a V, not an inverted V. The inverted V is used in Esperanto.

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    Replies
    1. You are right, of course! Thanks for pointing out my slip. Evidently I couldn't decide whether to call it an inverted roof or a V and ended up with fusion that makes no sense. I will change it.

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    2. The inverted V is also used in Portuguese. Known as 'acento circunflexo'. Examples: lâmpada (lamp), tênis (tennis), ômega (omega). We also have the acento agudo as in cálice (chalice) and Márcia (Marcia) and the grave accent used in kraesis only. And the til (plural tis) for nasalisation. Mamãe (mother), pão (bread) and pães (breads).

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