Telex is a convention for writing Vietnamese using ASCII characters commonly found on computer keyboard layouts. Because the Vietnamese alphabet uses a complex system of diacritical marks, Telex requires the user to type in a base letter, followed by one or two characters that represent the diacritical marks:
| Character | Keys pressed | Sample input | Sample output |
|---|---|---|---|
| ă | aw | trawng | trăng |
| â | aa | caan | cân |
| đ | dd | ddaau | đâu |
| ê | ee | ddeem | đêm |
| ô | oo | nhoo | nhô |
| ơ | ow | mow | mơ |
| ư | uw | tuw | tư |
To write the pair of keys as two distinct characters, the second character has to be repeated. For example, "beeer" becomes "beer".
| Tone | Keys added to syllable | Sample input | Sample output |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ngang (level) | z or nothing | ngang | ngang |
| Huyền (falling) | f | huyeenf | huyền |
| Sắc (rising) | s | sawcs | sắc |
| Hỏi (dipping-rising) | r | hoir | hỏi |
| Ngã (rising glottalized) | x | ngax | ngã |
| Nặng (falling glottalized) | j | nawngj | nặng |
If more than one tone marking key is pressed, the last one will be used. For example, typing "asz" will return "a". To write a tone marking key as a normal character, one has to press it twice: "herr" becomes "her". Unlike VISCII, Telex is not a character encoding; rather, it is a way to type out Vietnamese using plain ASCII text. The advantage of Telex over a character encoding like VISCII is that Telex does not need specialized software or hardware for input. However, as Unicode is becoming increasingly available on computers worldwide, it is usually desirable to use software that will convert Telex to Unicode as one types; thus, Telex would be used only as an input method.
See also
External links
- Guide to inputting Vietnamese text at the Vietnamese Wikipedia
