Keyman Baybayin Keyboard Released

I would like to introduce the new keyboard for typing Baybayin (Tagalog) script on Keyman. I created the keyboard based on the Unicode 13.0 standard. The keyboard layout in this initial version is meant to be used for typing on computer or laptop with Windows, Linux, and MacOS. The layout for the mobile version will be released in the near future.

Since there is no exact standard of the keyboard layout for the Baybayin script, so the layout of the Baybayin keyboard which I have created is one of the alternative. If there is any suggestion to adjust the key position of the character, please let me know and I’m very pleased to have a discussion about it. I also received suggestions from the Facebook group aminds of Writing Scripts in the Philippines for many basic aspects of the typing behavior.

There are several characters of Baybayin script that demanded to be included to the keyboard layout by the user community, but since they are not included in the Unicode Standard, we still have to wait for a while until they available on the Standard. There also some keyboard developers who borrowed the other script code point and tweaked the font to make additional characters appear on the operating system. But to me, following the available standard is more preferred at the moment.

The keys position on the keyboard followed the previous design I’ve created for the Linux system (read here) through m17n library. Here are the current baybayin keyboard layout on the Keyman.

This Baybayin keyboard can now be downloaded for free from the Keyman website https://keyman.com/keyboards/baybayin.