--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "suzmccarth" <suzmccarth@...> wrote:

> The problem here is that the precomposed characters, the syllabics
> plus diacritic, do not represent a widespread indigenous use.

There

> was once a Cree elder known for using diacritics phonemically.

This

> skill was recognized as a skill particular to his family, his
> specialty. It was remarked on as unusual. One family!

Isn't this akin to the Cyrillic yo-letter U+0401/U+0451 (like Roman
ë) in Russian? This letter is used chiefly for foreign learners.
There is also the less significant use of accents in English, both
foreign (e.g. fiancée) and native, especially poetical,
e.g. 'hornèd' and 'learnèd'. I could be more brutal and say that it
sounds from your account as though most Cree can't spell. I could
compare it to my name being misspelt <r><i><ch><a:><silent d><r> in
Thai, where the 'diacritic' pattern of <i>..<silent> is right, but
unmarkedly silent <r> has been put in its commonest place. It may
be common, but it's still WRONG.

As to the charts, if someone were transcribing my English
handwriting, I hope they wouldn't look at the Unicode Latin charts
and carefully work out which letters I had dotted and record the
result this. If I write <undotted i><n overdot> when writing
English, I mean <i><n>. Recording it as <undotted i><n overdot>
would be gratuitously confusing.

I may have misunderstood the brief accounts I've seen, but doesn't
Nynorsk result in multiple spelling for a great many words?

Richard.