bhengubv/circleone

▷◯◁ CircleOne — The keyboard that writes every language. Built from Africa. Belonging to everyone. # ▷◯◁ CircleOne **The keyboard that writes every language. Built from Africa. Belonging to everyone.** --- ## What is isiBheqe soHlamvu? isiBheqe soHlamvu (also known internationally as Ditema tsa Dinoko) is a **featural syllabary** designed for the siNtu (Bantu) languages of Southern Africa. Unlike the Latin alphabet imposed during colonisation, isiBheqe soHlamvu is built from the phonological structure of these languages themselves. Each symbol encodes articulatory features -- the shape of a character tells you *how* the sound is produced. Consonant strokes indicate place and manner of articulation, while vowel shapes represent tongue position and lip rounding. The result is a writing system where literacy in one siNtu language transfers directly to reading any other. The script was created by Mqondisi Bhebhe and draws on indigenous Southern African geometric traditions. It is not a decorative novelty -- it is a fully functional writing system with consistent rules, a compact character set, and a deep alignment with the phonology it represents. isiBheqe soHlamvu restores the act of writing to the linguistic logic of the people who speak these languages, rather than forcing their sounds through the constraints of a European alphabet. The script is currently progressing through the Unicode proposal process via the Script Encoding Initiative at UC Berkeley. --- ## How Input Works isiBheqe soHlamvu input follows a **vowel-first** paradigm. This is the opposite of Latin transliteration, where you typically type a consonant followed by a vowel (e.g., "ba", "zi", "nku"). In this keyboard: 1. **Type the vowel first** -- this selects the base syllable shape. 2. **Then type the consonant modifier(s)** -- these attach to the vowel to form the complete syllable. This mirrors how the script actually works: the vowel is the structural foundation of each syllable block, and consonant features are layered onto it. ``` Latin order: b + a = "ba …