N’Ko Script Resources
More details about this document
- This version:
- https://www.w3.org/TR/2024/DNOTE-nkoo-lreq-20240920/
- Latest published version:
- https://www.w3.org/TR/nkoo-lreq/
- Latest editor's draft:
- https://w3c.github.io/afrlreq/nko/
- History:
- https://www.w3.org/standards/history/nkoo-lreq/
- Commit history
- Editor:
- Feedback:
- GitHub w3c/afrlreq (pull requests, new issue, open issues)
Copyright © 2018-2024 World Wide Web Consortium. W3C® liability, trademark and permissive document license rules apply.
Abstract
This document points to resources for the layout and presentation of text in languages that use the N’Ko script. The target audience includes developers of Web standards and technologies, such as HTML, CSS, Mobile Web, Digital Publications, and Unicode, as well as implementers of web browsers, ebook readers, and other applications that need to render N’Ko text.
Status of This Document
This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at https://www.w3.org/TR/.
This document points to resources for N’Ko script layout and text support on the Web and in eBooks. These requirements provide information for Web technologies such as CSS, HTML and digital publications about how to support languages written using the N’Ko script. The information here is developed in conjunction with a document that summarises gaps where the Web fails to adequately support the N’Ko script.
The editor's draft of this document is being developed in the GitHub repository African Language Enablement (afrlreq), with contributors from the W3C Internationalization Interest Group. It is published by the Internationalization Working Group. The end target for this document is a Working Group Note.
To make it easier to track comments, please raise separate issues or emails for each comment, and point to the section you are commenting on using a URL.
This document was published by the Internationalization Working Group as a Group Draft Note using the Note track.
Group Draft Notes are not endorsed by W3C nor its Members.
This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.
The W3C Patent Policy does not carry any licensing requirements or commitments on this document.
This document is governed by the 03 November 2023 W3C Process Document.
Some links on this page point to repositories or pages to which information will be added over time. Initially, the link may produce no results, but as issues, tests, etc. are created they will show up.
Links that have a gray color led to no content the last time this document was updated. They are still live, however, since relevant content could be added at any time. When the document is updated, links that now point to results will have their live colour restored.
The initial version of this document was prepared by Richard Ishida.
See also the GitHub contributors list for the African Language Enablement project, and the discussions related to N’Ko script.
This document points to resources for N’Ko script layout and text support on the Web and in eBooks. These resources provide information for developers of Web technologies such as CSS, HTML and digital publications, and for application developers, about how to support languages written using the N’Ko script. They include requirements, tests, GitHub discussions, type samples, and more,
The document focuses on typographic layout issues. For a deeper understanding of the N’Ko script and how it works see N’Ko Orthography Notes, which includes topics such as: Phonology, Vowels, Consonants, Encoding choices, and Numbers.
This document should be used alongside a separate document, N’Ko Gap Analysis, which describes gaps in language support for users of the N’Ko script, and prioritises and describes the impact of those gaps on the user.
Gap reports are brought to the attention of spec and browser implementers, and are tracked via the Gap Analysis Pipeline. (Filter for N’Ko script items)
The document Language enablement index points to this document and others, and provides a central location for developers and implementers to find information related to various scripts.
The W3C also has a repository with discussion threads related to the N’Ko script, including requests from developers to the user community for information about how scripts/languages work, and a notification system that tracks issues in W3C working groups related to the N’Ko script. See a list of unresolved questions for N’Ko experts. Each section below points to related discussions. See also the repository home page.
The N’Ko script is an alphabet. Both consonants and vowels are indicated by letters.
N’Ko text is written right-to-left in horizontal lines. Unlike other RTL scripts, such as Arabic and Hebrew, numbers are also written right-to-left.
Words are separated by spaces.
The script is normally cursive, but in certain circumstances a non-joining font style may be used.
N’Ko has 19 native consonant letters. Use of 3 different diacritics results in letters for 22 more sounds used in foreign and loan words (mostly French or Arabic). There is also a nasal syllabic, and 2 'abstract' characters
N’Ko doesn't have corresponding letters for g, ŋ, and z used in the Latin orthographies of Manding languages. Also, plurals that are written by appending a w to a word in Bamanan are generally written in N’Ko by adding a free-standing particle such as ߟߎ߬ lù or ߠߎ߬ nù.
An unusual feature is that if two adjacent consonants are followed by the same vowel, the vowel is omitted after the first consonant.
N’Ko has 7 vowel letters. A diacritic is used to create 3 more letters for foreign sounds.
Another diacritic produces nasalisation of the vowel sound.
N’Ko also has a letter to indicate the absence of a vowel, which is used regularly.
N’Ko has 7 combining tone marks and 2 tone letters. Several of these have more than one use, indicating vowel length in addition to tone.
N’Ko has it's own set of digits, which, unlike Arabic, are written right-to-left.
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Requirements
-
- Additional Requirements for Bidi in HTML
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Text direction
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
The orthography has no case distinction, and no special transforms are needed to convert between characters.
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Font styles
- Generic font families (unjoined)
- List of system fonts
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Context-based shaping & positioning
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Cursive shaping
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Letterform slopes, weights, & italics
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Vowels • Consonants
- Character usage
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
-
- W3C type samples
- r12a type samples: consonants • vowels
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Word boundaries • Graphemes
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Phrase & section boundaries
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
-
- W3C type samples
- r12a type samples: phrases
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Quotations & citations
- Wikipedia: Quotation mark
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Emphasis & highlighting
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Abbreviation, ellipsis & repetition
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- tbd
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Other inline features
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Line breaking & hyphenation
- Approaches to line-breaking
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Text alignment & justification
- Approaches to full justification
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Text spacing
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Baselines, line height, etc.
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Counters, lists, etc.
- Ready-made Counter Styles: N’Ko
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- tbd
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: General page layout & progression
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Requirements
-
- N’Ko Orthography Notes: Layout direction
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- LE Index
- Applied new template.
- Fixed various links.