--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
wrote:

> John Cowan wrote:
> >
> > Peter T. Daniels scripsit:
> >
> > > Hunh? They have something other than QWERTY? Substituting £

for $ is an

> > > isomorphism.
> >
> > The letters and digits are in the same place; the remaining

characters are not.

> >
> > If you don't like that example, take the hexagonal French AZERTY

keyboard

> > vs. the Canadian French QWERTY one.
>
> And the relevance of this to the Indian problem is that if the nine
> scripts (BTW does that figure include Urdu and/or roman?) already

have

> standardized and widely used typewriter keyboard layouts, then they
> ought to be emulated by the software.

Mr. Daniels, sir, if I may say so, buy yourself a new computer,
install the complex script support, download the Aksharamala
software and type away. Download and install anything you want - it
all exists. (Try it in email sites without downloading.) I
regularly use Inscript (this is the India standard keyvboard),
ITRANS, typewriter, romanized, tamilnet99 phonetic, different coding
sometimes, just for the feel of it. TSCII, ISCII, Unicode whatever.
There are 15 major keyboards for Tamil that have been put into 3
different cagtegories. Then you can try the ISCII keyboards. You
can type into and out of any language you want. I have only two
Indic languages by memory and it really does transfer. But don't
forget the difference in phonology between Tamil and Punjabi. Try
the same keyboard for both languages starting with Tamil first and
tell me how it feels. A little odd actually. A bilingual would get
it but not a monolingual native speaker. The trick is to find what
works in an intuitive sense without transliteration.

Watch native speakers keyboard that is even better. Ask them what
feels right. We have our expectations they have theirs.

Suzanne

> --
> Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...