The Kurdish language is written in modified Arabic, Latin, or Cyrillic scripts, depending on the dialect. The dialects are mutually intelligible orally, but most Kurdish speakers know only one writing system. xkb currently has a keyboard layout for writing the Latin-based Kurmanji dialect spoken in Syria and Turkey (see Bug 6159). However, it needs a keyboard layout for the Sorani dialect of Kurdish, which is spoken in Iran and Iraq and uses a modified Arabic alphabet. The existing Arabic and Farsi xkb layouts are not appropriate for writing Sorani Kurdish. The most common Sorani Kurdish keyboard layout I have encountered can be seen at <http://store.aramedia.com/shopimages/products/normal/kbskurdishblue.jpg>. See also <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_alphabet> for a Unicode table of the Kurdish alphabet.
Another layout image is at <http://www.datacal.com/products/kurdish-layout.htm>, in case the one I referenced earlier disappears.
Tristan, would you be able please to have a look at existing Kurdish layout (symbols/tr) and provide a patch for Sorani variant? I think this would be the fastest way to get your layout into the package. I'm afraid I would not be able to recognize the alphabet on the images and convert visible glyphs to keysyms.
The Sorani and Kurmanji (Turkish) Kurdish layouts are so different that a patch wouldn't really make sense; the Sorani Kurdish layout would have to be written from scratch. I don't speak or write Kurdish myself; I'm filing this bug report on behalf of a Kurdish friend. However, I would be happy to try my hand at producing the layout myself. It might help if someone can point me to a manual or tutorial for the keyboard layout file format. (I can try learning by examining existing layouts, but it's always nice to have an explanation in plain English.)
Sure, the definite source of information any language is the code of its compiler/interpreter (joking:). But in case of XKB - really, the best you can do is look at existing layouts. If you want to look at plain English, I'd recommend looking at links here: http://community.livejournal.com/xkbconfig/profile and especially here: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software_2fXKeyboardConfig. HTH
I had written exactly the Keyboard that is being looked for here and sent it to the mailinglist. It probably is included by now, but I am not sure. I'll attach it here again.
Created attachment 8184 [details] Proposed keyboard for Kurdish Arabic and Latin
Yes, it's in the CVS and should show up under "Iran" and "Iraq". You can see the diff in the CVS here: http://webcvs.freedesktop.org/xkeyboard-config/xkeyboard-config/symbols/ir?r1=1.6&r2=1.7
Changing to FIXED, as it seems fixed to me.
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