Improving Lao Braille: Word Endings

Duxbury now has a new list of vowel/consonant rules for Lao. We thank Kongkeo Tounalom and his co-workers at the Lao Association of the Blind for their hard work.

The Problem of Word or Syllable Endings

Inkprint files of Lao (and Thai) text do not usually indicate the spaces between words. In the process of producing braille, the user ends up with the braille characters, but no idea where the word divisions are. Furthermore, the braille output divides the lines at the wrong places. Duxbury DBT needs to know where to find the division points between words in these two languages.

In search for a way to insert word endings into Lao text, we came across software named LaoScript8. It is basically an add-on for Microsoft Word (or Open Office) to improve functionality for Lao, distributed by Tavultesoft, a company located in Tasmania, Australia. Tavultesoft CEO, Marc Durdin, may be producing similar software that can assist with Thai braille production as well. There are three purchase levels of LaoScript8, one free and two at low cost:

• Free Edition - only provides fonts and a keyboard mapping. It does not offer any improvement handling Lao or Thai Word files.
• Standard Edition ($20) - can be used to add word endings for Lao in Microsoft Office or Open Office.
• Gold Edition ($30) - can be used to add word endings for Lao or Thai in Microsoft Office or Open Office.

As you use Microsoft Word (after obtaining, installing and licensing the LaoScript8 software), you find a menu choice LaoScript8 inside of Word.

When you are finished with a document (and are ready to produce braille), click on the LaoScript8 menu. This displays a ribbon in Word. There are two choices of interest: Wrap and Join. Wrap inserts special markers in the file to show where words divide (useful for output to DBT). Join does the opposite. It takes out these markers (perhaps useful when sharing Word files with others).

Technical Note: LaoScript8 inserts the Unicode zero-width space character, U+200B, as the end of word marker. Usually, this character has such effects as allowing the inkprint rendering to divide text lines at these positions. Duxbury DBT uses the zero-width spaces to divide braille words at the ends of lines.