suzmccarth scripsit:

> Then when a teacher spells a word out loud to a child or provides a
> written model for the child to copy in that language the teacher has
> to know that the child cannot use a linear system to keyboard the
> letters.

I agree that copying letters in order will not work in Tamil, but I
doubt it would even if a typewriter-order input method were avialable
(which is not impossible). However, Unicode order is phonetic order,
so you can teach that "kii" is done by pushing "ka" followed by pushing
"ii". This is a very powerful technique which works actually better
in abugida-using languages where every letter is pronounceable, as
opposed to English where "k" never sounds like "kay" by itself.

--
After fixing the Y2K bug in an application: John Cowan
WELCOME TO <censored> jcowan@...
DATE: MONDAK, JANUARK 1, 1900 http://www.ccil.org/~cowan