EIGHTY LETTERS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 226, 16 October 1940, Page 7

EIGHTY LETTERS

TYPEWRITER FOR CEYLON "SPECIALLY BUILT IN BRITAIN' After long research, a British .firm-, at the request of the Ceylon Government authorities, has succeed ed in building. a typewriter reproducing the complicated symbols of Sinhalese, the language of Ceylon. Sinhalese has baffled craftsmen for many years because there are no fewer than 80 letters in its alphabet, and, in addition, a large number of combined symbols. Germany designed a typewriter which made n very fair attempt to reproduce the characters of Tamil which is spoken in South India and Ceylon, but it has been left to British craftsmen to evolve a machine for Sinhalese, where one character has, in effect, to be imposed on another to produce certain symbols. This central problem lias been solved by a typewriter so. designed as to permit, where necessary, a further character to be superimposed. In spite of this complicated work which it is called upon to perform, the new- machine has precisely the same number of keys as the English keyboard model. - Other intricate alphabets included in the range of which the Sinhalese is orie are Thai (Siamese) and Hebrew. Large shipments of British typewriters continue to maintain the volume of exports despite the reduction of European markets. They are going out not only to the British Dominions and Colonies but also for foreign countries including Portugal, China, Thailand, Netherlands East and West Indies, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Venezuela and Peru.