kur
(The initial translation table for a translation is determined by the selected template, and may be changed using the Document / Translation Tables menu. Using those menus does not involve explicit use of the table designator. However, in cases where it is necessary to switch to a different translation table partway through a file, the designator for the table being switched to is required; see the general description of the [lnb~...] command for further details.)
The Kurdish Uncontracted tables support print-to-braille translation of Kurdish-language literary text written in the Cyrillic alphabet. They are intended primarily for use in conjunction with Microsoft Word, or equivalent external facilities for composing and editing the print text that can then be imported into the Duxbury Braille Translator (DBT) for conversion into braille. English text may also be processed as a sub-language, and converted to contracted or uncontracted English braille (generally following British conventions in those minor instances where they differ from American ones). French, Bulgarian, Kazakh and Russian may also be processed as sub-languages.
Even though DBT from version 10.5 onward can display Cyrillic characters, it is usually more convenient to use an external word processor to compose and edit the print text that is to be translated. When doing so, is necessary to use a facility that encodes the text in Unicode so that it can be imported correctly to DBT. (Some methods of entering Cyrillic rely upon a variant "font" to display standard ASCII characters as Cyrillic. Those methods cannot be used, as those ASCII characters would be imported according to their standard interpretation, not as Cyrillic characters.)
Microsoft Word, properly used, fulfills the above requirements. Use the Lucida Sans Unicode font, or equivalent Unicode font, and a Kurdish (or Cyrillic) keyboard, when entering the Kurdish text.
True braille-to-print translation is supported only within any embedded English text, not in the Kurdish/Cyrillic text. This means that it is not generally useful to translate the Ukrainian braille file to print. It also means that the "translated line" will typically contain gibberish when viewing the braille file. You may prefer to turn off the "translated line" under the View menu, or even under Global/Default if you wish it to be off by default.
English text may be entered as a secondary language, and converted to contracted or uncontracted English braille. That is, the grade switches affect the translation of the English text even though the Kurdish text is always translated in grade 1 regardless of the grade setting in effect. In literary text, British conventions are generally followed, to the extent that they sometimes differ slightly from American ones.
French language text may be entered; it is brailled as uncontracted French braille, including the dots 46 capital indicator.
Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Kazakh and Russian language may also be entered; they are brailled in the same way as Kurdish.
There are no other secondary languages supported within the Kurdish table itself; however it is possible to switch to any of the available translation tables listed in DBT. (See the [lnb~...] code below.)
No technical braille codes are supported directly within the Kurdish table itself. However, it is possible to switch to any of the available translation tables listed in DBT (see the [lnb~...] code below), many of which do support various technical codes, such as for mathematics or computer notation, or which support “unified” treatment of technical notation as well as literary text in the base language associated with the table.
The following DBT translation codes are available when using the Kurdish table. Any other translation codes used will be ignored, or indeed may cause unexpected results. If using an alternative translation table, i.e when switching to another base language table by means of the [lnb~...] code, please refer to the relevant topic and available codes for that table.
[/] may be embedded within letter-groups that would normally be contracted, to prevent the contraction.
[ab] is equivalent to [g2]
[caplvN]
N = 1 means no capitals in literary
N = 3 means capitals are indicated in literary
[fte~b]
[fte~i]
[fte~u]
[fts~b]
[fts~i]
[fts~u]
[cz]
[g1] switches to "grade 1" (uncontracted) braille. This does not affect the Kurdish text, which is uncontracted anyway, but does affect any embedded English text.
[g2] switches to "grade 2" (contracted) braille. This is the normal mode, but actually applies only to any embedded English text as the Kurdish text is always uncontracted.
[in] is equivalent to [g1]
[lnb]
[lnb~...] (for switching to another base [primary] language table)
[lng~bg] switches to Bulgarian language.
[lng~en] switches to English language.
[lng~fr] switches to French language.
[lng~kk] switches to Kazakh language.
[lng~ru] switches to Russian language.
[lng~uk] or [lng] switches to Kurdish language.
[tx] resumes normal translation, ending "direct braille."
[vrn] cancels [vrn~spc], restoring the normal suppression of spaces after commas and semicolons.
[vrn~spc]preserves the spaces following commas and semicolons, which by default are removed in Kurdish braille.
The table is designed to work with the following groups of characters:
All ASCII printable characters
Accented characters and punctuation marks typical of French, German, Italian, and Spanish
British pound sign (£)
Cyrillic unaccented characters as needed for the supported languages.
The above is a general guide only (see "General Notes" section at the beginning of this document).
A basic table based on a comparison of Kurdish alphabets from Wikipedia, plus an Arabic table from Erfan Dizayee (an employee of Baum, Germany who has been answering our questions about Kurdish braille).
(Documentation reviewed June 2010)