Re: functional classification of writing systems

Multilingual Systems in Madras, India has developped a system
for syllable-level representation. Unfortunately it is not unicode.
They have been recognized in India for their work with the
disadvantaged.

www.acharya.iitm.ac.in

> Additionally, calling Korean Hangul a syllabary is at odds with

the

> perception of most Koreans, who see Hangul as an alphabet

whose letters

> just happen to be grouped into syllable blocks.

I agree, they have less need for syllable - level representation
than Tamil.

>
> > While the analytic nature of the syllabaries may be useful for
> > technical encoding, these systems are still learned by some

native

> > speakers as syllabaries. Some members of these language

communities

> > will have reduced access to digital literacy if the syllabic

nature

> > of their system is not reflected at some level in the input

method.

>
> Even if Koreans read Hangul syllable blocks one block at a

time, that

> does not make the writing system a syllabary. Peter Daniels

and others

> have pointed out that fluent readers of English, and other

languages

> written with alphabets, read clusters of letters at a time.

Yes, this is known. Shall I take the Tamil syllabary off my
bulletin board and initiate a course in phonemic awareness and
improved short-term memory retention. The child understands
the alphabet, he understands the syllabary but going from
inputting a visual and sound sequenced string in English to a
non-visual sequenced string in Tamil without the benefit of
syllable-level representation is very difficult for the beginner
reader and writer.

> Character encodings and input methods do not have to be

designed

> together. Keyboards can be built to bridge any gaps between

the

> character encoding, the way native speakers view their script,

and the

> practical limits on number of keys.

I have decided that the transliteration systems built into tamil
email are wroth a try.

>
> -Doug Ewell
> Fullerton, California
> http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/