How do I enter Venda characters on a computer? Start by installing the South African keyboard and read on to understand what these characters are and why, very often, you can't see or type them.

Venda is the only language in the world that makes use of some special characters. These characters are n, d, l and t with a circumflex below.  And n with a dot above.

 

Many people complain that they cannot see these characters, they only see a box or worse a question mark. The keyboard user's guide gives a good overview of why this happens. But we'll give a quick explanation here.

 

Your computer thinks in terms of numbers. When you think 'A' your computer thinks '64'.  Your fonts contain drawing instructions for many characters. So when your computer asks for 64, the font returns the drawing instructions for the letter 'A'.  If your font does not know how to draw an 'A' then it will often simply return a square box. So if you see a square box you do not have a Venda capable font.

 

To type Venda characters you need a keyboard layout that knows that when you type a key to give you the correct Venda character.

 

Once again, try out the South African keyboard and solve all these problems for Venda, Afrikaans, Northern Sotho and Tswana.