The Gballi Browser: Designing for the Dagbanli Alphabet

2 months ago by cm0002 to c/typography

In Northern Ghana, a gballi is a fence woven from dry grass that encloses and protects a home. For the Dagbanli Dictionary, the Gballi browser is that same fence for the language itself. This post …
merde 1 point 2 months ago

In Dagbanli, the word gballi /gbal:i/ describes something familiar to anyone who has spent time in the hinterlands of Northern Ghana. A gballi is a roofing material or a fence, woven tightly from dry elephant grass or guinea corn stalks. It may be used to encircle a compound, a barn on a farm, or even a private washroom. It is a simple but essential structure. It does not dominate the landscape, but it defines it. It creates a boundary that says: what is inside here belongs together, and it is protected.

reminds me of Noren

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lvxferre 1 point 2 months ago

Spanish has the same problem with digraphs to be taken as individual letters for collation purposes, such as ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨ll⟩. At least ⟨nn⟩ got merged into ⟨ñ⟩ some centuries ago, yay.

From the title I was expecting a web browser reskinned to use the language, but after reading the text it's more like a full-fledged dictionary. I like the idea; it could be used with other languages, too.

...also lemme get this out my throat, the orthography looks like the stuff chair addicted linguists made, with no regards to usability by the native speakers. I mean, they're even using a plethora of IPA letters. IPA is great when you want to accurately transcribe something, but awful for practical everyday usage. But at this rate the speakers are already used to it, so I guess the mess was already done.

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