Developing a new glyph set for Indigenous language

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I’ve developed a new glyph set for an Indigenous language, Anishnaabemowin (Ojibwe). The problem I now have is how to access it with the computer keyboard. I would like to keep the regular keyboard strokes but use control keys to activate the glyphs but I don’t know how to do that. Is there some way to include it into the unicode on my computer? So far there are no codes assigned to the glyphs. Can someone point me in the right direction?

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Can you post a screenshot of your letters. That way it is easier to advise where to put them.

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Here is your toolkit for doing what you want to do:

  1. You need an app called Ukelele. Read its manual (it is not much, don’t worry, but you need to understand some basic concepts like what a ‘dead key’ is).
  2. You need to assign Unicode values, best in the Private Use Area. Read the Unicode tutorial.
  3. Download EditGlyphData and learn how to make your own glyph data and add it to Glyphs.
  4. If you like, you can also add a sidebar entry in Font View.

And a few tips:

  1. Do not add the characters as modifier keys. You want to keep Latin for your modifier keys, otherwise your command keystrokes won’t work.
  2. Rather, make a full-fledged keyboard appropriate for the language, and learn how to switch between keyboards. It’s easy.
  3. Upload your project on github.com, take my Olchiki repository as an example.
  4. Open (or engage in) the discussion on scriptsource.org.
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If the characters underlying your glyph set are in wide use in the community, but not encoded in the Unicode standard, you may want to propose them for encoding:
https://www.unicode.org/pending/proposals.html

You can contact Deborah Anderson at the Script Encoding Initiative for guidance:
https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/sei/