Editing Help:Using the D'ni font

The [[D'ni language]] includes its own alphabet and character set which are distinctly different from ours. In order to display text in the D'ni alphabet, you can use the <pre><nowiki><dni></dni></nowiki></pre> tag. For example:

{| class="wikitable"
! You type
! You get
|-
|<nowiki><dni>Sora</dni></nowiki>
|<dni>Sora</dni>
|}

The Archive makes use of a web-font version of Cyan's D'ni font. It is supported by all modern browsers on both desktop and mobile devices, and doesn't require you to install anything on your computer in order for it to work.

==A note on spelling==
==="Old Transliteration Standard" spelling===
It is important to note that the D'ni language has a variety of specific vowel symbols that go beyond our own "a, e, i, o, u, y" set. To represent these phonetically in the Latin alphabet, multiple letters have traditionally been used, such as "ee" for "<dni>E</dni>". This has the benefit of making it easy to read and get phonetically-accurate representations of words, but the use of multiple letters for vowels is often inconsistent if doing so would disrupt the "look" or legibility of the word. For example, "Ahlsendar" actually has two "ah" (or "<dni>a</dni>") sounds in it, but the second is represented only by an "a", not an "ah".

When writing text out in the D'ni font, using this "old" transliteration process will often result in incorrect D'ni spellings of words. The correct D'ni spelling of "shorah", for instance, only has four letters (as depicted in the earlier example), but literally transliterating the Latin equivalent back into D'ni would have it spelled with six.

===Font spelling===
Since each D'ni letter has to have a single character associated with it in order to map it to a font, a variety of capital letters or possibly-confusing single-character transliterations are used to make it possible to spell words in the D'ni alphabet. Below is a list of the D'ni letters, their "classic" transliteration values, and the keyboard character used to create them using the D'ni font.

{| class="wikitable"
! D'ni letter
! Sound
! "Old Standard"<br />Latin depiction
! D'ni Font character
|-
| <dni>v</dni>
| <u>v</u>ibe
| v
| v
|-
| <dni>b</dni>
| <u>b</u>it
| b
| b
|-
| <dni>t</dni>
| <u>t</u>on
| t
| t
|-
| <dni>s</dni>
|<u>s</u>ea
| s
| s
|-
| <dni>S</dni>
| <u>sh</u>ip
| sh
| S
|-
| <dni>j</dni>
| <u>j</u>u<u>dg</u>e
| j
| j
|-
| <dni>g</dni>
| <u>g</u>as
| g
| g
|-
| <dni>y</dni>
| <u>y</u>es
| y
| y
|-
| <dni>k</dni>
| lo<u>ch</u>
| kh
| k
|-
| <dni>K</dni>
| <u>k</u>i<u>ck</u>
| k
| K
|-
| <dni>a</dni>
| f<u>a</u>ther
| ah
| a
|-
| <dni>I</dni>
| p<u>ie</u>
| ie or I
| I (capital i)
|-
| <dni>f</dni>
| <u>f</u>ire
| f
| f
|-
| <dni>p</dni>
| <u>p</u>o<u>p</u>
| p
| p
|-
| <dni>i</dni>
| p<u>i</u>t
| i or ih
| i
|-
| <dni>E</dni>
| s<u>ee</u>
| ee
| E
|-
| <dni>e</dni>
| p<u>e</u>t
| eh
| e
|-
| <dni>A</dni>
| b<u>ai</u>t
| ai
| A
|-
| <dni>r</dni>
| <u>r</u>oa<u>r</u>
| r
| r
|-
| <dni>m</dni>
| <u>m</u>o<u>m</u>
| m
| m
|-
| <dni>T</dni>
| <u>th</u>ing
| th
| T
|-
| <dni>d</dni>
| <u>th</u>is
| dh
| d
|-
| <dni>D</dni>
| <u>d</u>ee<u>d</u>
| d
| D
|-
| <dni>h</dni>
| <u>h</u>at
| h
| h
|-
| <dni>o</dni>
| b<u>oa</u>t
| o
| o
|-
| <dni>O</dni>
| b<u>oy</u>
| oy
| O
|-
| <dni>c</dni>
| <u>ch</u>ild
| ch
| c
|-
| <dni>w</dni>
| <u>w</u>ind
| w
| w
|-
| <dni>u</dni>
| b<u>u</u>n
| uh
| u
|-
| <dni>U</dni>
| p<u>oo</u>l
| oo
| U
|-
| <dni>x</dni>
| <u>ts</u>ade
| ts
| x
|-
| <dni>l</dni>
| <u>l</u>et
| l
| l
|-
| <dni>å</dni>
| b<u>a</u>g
| a
| å<br />ALT+0229 (Win)<br />Opt+A (Mac)
|-
| <dni>z</dni>
| <u>z</u>oo
| z
| z
|-
| <dni>n</dni>
| <u>n</u>ight
| n
| n
|-
| <dni>'</dni>
| apostrophe
| '
| '
|-
| <dni>.</dni>
| period
| .
| .
|-
| <dni>-</dni>
| hyphen
| -
| -
|-
|}

==Acknowledgements==
* The D'ni Web Font was created by [http://uru.orangehairedboy.com/font/ OHB] from Cyan's original D'ni font (Dnifont.ttf). 
* The <pre><dni></pre> tag is based on [https://code.google.com/p/mystlore/ code developed for MYSTlore] by Chucker. 
* The pronunciation/spelling chart is based on [http://www.mystembassy.net/downloads/dnifontchart.pdf this PDF] produced by Blade Lakem for the D'ni Embassy.