Scots on Smartphones

A’ve been fasht for a lang time at predictive keyboards wadna recognise Scots ava – ilka time ye uised a perfecklie normal wird, it wad get chynged tae a completelie different Inglis wird at juist happent tae leuk similar.

Sae A wis weel chuft whan ane o ma clients, Scottish Language Dictionaries, gat a email fae Julien Baley fae SwiftKey (a Lunnon-based companie awnt bi Microsoft) twa-three months syne anent addin Scots tae thair predictive keyboard for Android an iOS. A dae aw the data stuff for SLD, sae o coorse A wis chosen tae wirk wi Julien on this.

A extractit the relevant bits fae the new edition o the Concise Scots Dicionary an sent this tae Julien. Forby, A gied him a earlie version o a corpus (a collection o texts) o modren Scots. He separatelie contactit Andy Eagle and gat the heidwirds fae his Online Scots Dictionary.

Suin efter this, Julien sent me the first version o the keyboard. At this pynt, it daedna ken the Scots inflections, an it wis makkin some unco substitutions (e.g., a → A oweraw), sae A advised him on the grammar o Scots an on the substitutions. The final bit wis tae leuk at wirds he fund in the corpus at wisna in the dictionars, an the keyboard wis redd.

Ye can doonlaid SwiftKey on yer Android smartphone the day, but gin ye hae a iPhone, ye maun wait few mair days (technical issues pat it aff).

SwiftKey will lair fae the wey fowks uise it, sae it’ll get better and better.

A howp this will see monie mair fowks writin Scots wi confidence, an ultimatelie tae better support for Scots in programs an on wabsteids. Wad it no be great gin Scots wis supportit in yer spellchecker, in Google Translate, and as Facebook interface leid?

PS: A wis chuft tae sae stories aboot this in The National, The Herald an Bella Caledonia.