--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Michael Everson <everson@...> wrote:

> At 20:54 -0400 2005-08-22, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >
> >So you haven't asked a single Vai-writer whether they would

prefer a

> >keyboard with 294 keys to one with 48 (scil. 47 -- where do they

stick

> >the extra one?).
>
> No, I haven't. My work isn't blithely
> theoretical.

With all respect, Michael, I would never want a script to lack
QWERTY input. However, there are some aspects to literacy that
haven't been mentioned.

First, many people are visual learners. If they have learned their
own script but have never consciously learned a roman orthography
for their language, they are not necessarily able to work out in
their head the phonological equivalencies. Some, especially those
who are *fully literate* in an alphabetic literacy can do this and
are not aware of the difficulty this might pose to others. It is not
so simple as simply seeing the alphabet around on a few signs.

I have done extensive research on the difference in effect between
alphabetic literacy and syllabic literacy.

Chinese is a good example. Pinyin is great for many but others are
completely unable to do the phonological analysis to be successsful
at Pinyin. It is a serious handicap for them. My sister has lived
and worked in China for many years, is a respected educator and
writer in Chinese, also reviewing books. She assures me that many
highly educated Chinese are not successful at Pinyin, while others
are.

I could quote many other people on this but don't have the time to
access it all right now. I assure you also from my extensive
research on Cree syllabic literacy that this is not a trivial issue.

Phonological awareness divorced from visual script characteristics
is very problematic. I don't know where to start. How can I explain
that people become aware of how to discriminate, identify, label and
segment sounds in words *because* these sounds are representated
separately in the script. If this is not done, as it is not, in a
syllabic script, then these phonological skills are variable. Some
people learn them and others don't. Some people will never learn
them.

Reading is a process that puts together phonological and visual
elements in a certain way. You can't simply change that and say it
is no problem

I respect the desire that many people in India, China and Africa
have for QWERTY input. However, it is not universally accessible
and I do not believe it ever will be.

Suzanne