"I really have no problem with anyone who wants to learn Burmese
script and quote Burmese sources in it. But I hope you realize that
rather few non-Burmese will be able to use your work."

1. The beauty of modern technology is that script changes should be
instantaneous and automatic.

2. I would not assume that historically script was always irrelevant.

Burmese Kamavacca ordination manuscripts in gold lettering go very far
back and are even referred to in Ssu Ma Chien's history.

Calligraphy may have religious significance or it might just be an
impediment as when lots of spelling errors or variants are made
writing down what has been memorized orally (See Veidlinger, 2006,
Spreading the Dharma, page 122).

3. It's pretty clear that historically there have been several
"Theravadan" monastic and textual lineages each of passing their texts
on with their own script.

I have even been told by a prominent Pali scholar that "Theravadan" is
a misnomer. It's only legitimate to speak of lineages.

For example, the Burmese chronicle claims that the Burmese inherited
the Mon textual lineage and then it may have been replaced by the
Burmese later. In 1910 at Pak Lat a Mon script Tipitaka was printed
but the text itself was the standard Bangkok Thai version, effectively
a replacement of the Mon textual lineage in Thailand. Going back to
Tibetan, Sanskrit, or Chinese translations as some scholars of
Buddhism have done may be necessary to recover these lineages.

4. Availability of Pali texts in Burmese script is important for
Burmese to read them.

5. Burmese Pali script, as well as other local variants (Lanka, Khom,
Yuan, Lao, etc) may be also reflect local pronunciation and therefore
important in the way these texts are memorised.

6. It makes no sense to transliterate Nissaya, an important
understudied Pali-Burmese literary genre. An example from the first
page of U Kala's Mahayzawingyi:

http://jonfernquest.googlepages.com/ukalanissaya.jpg

7. I have been working with Burmese texts with Pali for 15 years and
have published several papers. And the one thing that stands out in
mind is that respect for local culture entails respect for their
writing system also. It has long been m intention to act on this

With metta,
Jon Fernquest