How to add the Chumash Sʰamala (Samala / Ineseño) language special characters to be easily accessed on a mobile phone/tablet keyboard: ( Long Post ! I don't want to assume anyone's familiarity with their phone settings on something culture-related. )
ALSO, this could be helpful for other indigenous languages!! If they have different accent letters than standard English-Latin characters, and if those accents don't show up under the normal letter menus and your language is not in the available keyboard language options, then consider the method I detail below. As long as you can copy the correct character from somewhere as visible text (not an empty box icon) you should be able to use it! (Wikipedia was useful for me to find the barred i and superscript h used in Sʰamala.) Just as a random example, you could also use this method to copy Egyptian hieroglyphs and map these to a shortcut 𓆉 - this is a quick way to access rare text characters. I did not find the upper limit on amount of shortcut entries I could add - I actually just went and added another unrelated alphabet to these shortcuts so now I have 64+ extra characters mapped and did not hit a limit. I may need to add that turtle hieroglyph though, my Chumash band's village name is Kalawašaq' which is a reference to the word for turtle, and turtles are on our tribal band's emblem.
Anyway, I'm using Samsung keyboard on an S22 phone, but there are probably similar ways to add these on other mobile keyboards by using the text shortcuts feature. This isn't a perfect fix and not as fast as I would like, but it's better than constantly hunting it down to Copy/Paste from saved Clipboard entries, or downloading a new keyboard. I couldn't even find any language option that uses these symbols on the two keyboard apps I tried. So, here we go!
1. Access the Text Shortcuts menu: with your keyboard open and ready to type, select the settings gear wheel icon on the keyboard (it may be hidden under the '...' option; if you have words suggested already, select the '<' in a square icon to cycle back to the icons), scroll down and select Text Shortcuts from the keyboard settings screen.
2. Select the + icon on the top right to add a shortcut. (See image below; my screen has different colours than yours.) On the first line that says Shortcut you enter the letter you want to use for the suggestion to appear under, so I chose to enter the closest sound ï (i with umlaut, lower case; to get this, long-press regular 'i' for this letter menu to appear and hold, keep holding and drag the selector to 'ï', then release to type it). Then, paste ɨ (i with bar, lower case; use the clipboard icon on the ticker menu) in the text for the shortcut on the next line where it says Expanded Phrase. Since you're doing this on mobile, copy the ɨ from the next linebreak (Tumblr will make you take the whole paragraph otherwise):
If you have trouble hunting it down online to copy it, here are the three letters that don't appear by default on the English Samsung Keyboard: Ɨ (i with bar, upper case), ɨ (i with bar, lower case), and ʰ (superscript h, lower case only needed). Use the + icon to make one more entry in uppercase for capital Ɨ with capital Ï as the Shortcut; and for the ʰ. I arbitrarily chose to put this shortcut under 'ĥ' because the accent is pointing up. ((The only other accent letters used in Sʰamala are Č, č, Š, and š - and all of those come up when you long-press C and S. Otherwise, make an entry for those too. This is also already on my keyboard, but I see Ê and ê may also be used, but I don't think it's as common? It doesn't even appear in the front of my dictionary pronunciations, I just happened to see it used for a few words while poking around.)) Here are the capital Ɨ and ʰ for easier copying on mobile:
Alternatively, you could just put these shortcuts under the regular letters 'i' and 'h' if you have issues with the long-press and drag motions. This shortcut method does not automatically replace so you won't lose access to the original characters, it only shows it as a clickable suggestion. (I don't know if these are compatable with the phone's Predictive/Auto-Fill settings.) 'ɨ' and 'i' are different letters/sounds, so don't use them interchangeably - use the umlaut ï if you have no other option while typing a Chumash word that uses the barred ɨ.
3. To access the character shortcut you just set, it shows up in the text suggestion ticker when you type the shortcut. (See next three images below.) Type ï, then select ɨ from the ticker (circled in red below, middle image) and it will replace the ï.
IMPORTANT: This is not perfect, so this suggestion will not appear while typing it in the middle of a word. You have to add a space to start a new word, do the shortcut replacement, then delete the extra space. ((I also have the setting on to add a space after I select a suggestion, so I also have to delete that too, but I use that function often, so that's okay with me.)) If you find you're using words with these characters often, you can add the whole words to your keyboard ticker memory by selecting the completed word from the ticker as you type it (rather than relying on only the Text Shortcuts) to further save time typing (long-press that same word in the ticker to bring up the option to remove it from learned words if you make a typo). Unfortunately for us Chumash, the ticker does not recognize the glottal stop apostrophe when it's at the beginning or end of a word, so make sure to proofread. I have no idea what the upper limit is on either the Text Shortcuts or Learned Words, but I tested the Shortcuts and was able to add 64+ entries without hitting that limit. If for any reason you can only use/free up one available Text Shortcut, I would prioritize the lower case ɨ. (Maybe even put all three on one entry and use it as a makeshift Paste shortcut).
Here's an example of how it looks as I type a word using the special characters in the middle without using the clipboard/pasting anything: (See also the video after these two pics.)
That's all! I do wish I were able to customize the expanded menus under each letter, because there certainly is room to do that and would probably be useful for a wide range of people who come from cultures with rarer languages. Regardless, I hope this is helpful to you! Or to anyone who wants access to a quick 𓆉 (šaq').
If I find a different/faster solution, I will add an edit to this post in the future, otherwise this is more than sufficient for the three extra characters I wanted quick access to. I just wanted the convenience of taking a few language notes on my phone, so I'm not stuck to my PC or carrying around the important dictionary packet I have.
