On Tue, 08 Jun 2004 01:27:34 -0400, Young-Key Kim-Renaud
<kimrenau@...> wrote:

> Dear Suzanne et others,
>
> Han'gul, in fact, can be written linearly. There have been various

[...]

> Korean keyboards are arranged logically and ergonomically--a lot easier
> to learn than the English--because all the consonants are on the left
> side and the vowels are on the right.

The Dvorak letter layout (strictly, A.S.K.) is much better than "qwerty"
for English. The middle row is
A O E U I D H T N S, a true home row.

There was some work done to define an optimal letter layout for one of the
Scandinavian languages, iirc Swedish.

There's also a Turkish ("F-type") layout that differs considerably:

+ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 / -

F G Ğ I O D R N H P Q W

U İ E A Ü T K M L Y Ş X

X J Ö V C Ç Z S B : ;

* ! " ̂ $ % & ' ( ) = ? _ (Shifted numeral row)
(Small letters are in the same places.)
Unshifted (:) and (;) become (.) and (,).

[Created in SC Unipad from Sharmahd Computing, using one of its built-in
keyboard maps.)

> The Korean alphabet is really easy to learn. It is worth investing half
> a day of your life to learning it, especially if you are interested in
> the typology of writing systems.

Easy, indeed, and very likely easier that the Japanese kanas.
I'm so glad that someone as articulate and well-informed as you calls it
an alphabet; I'll feel free to do so, from here on! (Don't worry: I do
understand, basically, how Han'gul is formed.)
Your clear and interesting messages have been very welcome; they're much
appreciated.

--
Nicholas Bodley /*|*\ Waltham, Mass.
Opera 7.5 (3778), using M2