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

> It's a little, but expensive, Penguin.

Thank you. I appreciate this although it has little to do with
writing systems.

I must say that I am thoroughly enjoying your book but sincerely
regret that when it stimulates my interest in how the script is
keyboarded you find that inapropriate.

No. I have not found another list for the discussion of keyboarding
different writing systems. This spring I was busy trying out the
Tamil syllabic editor for Tamil students and Q9 glyph-based input
for Chinese students and I am happy to report that they loved it.

This is what I find interesting about the Vai syllabary. There is a
significant difference between the set used by 'script users' and
the set created by linguists. The original set must have
underdifferentiated. The Vai conference took place in 1962. Think
about what Havelock said about syllabaries in the 1960's. I don't
have the quote with me(I am out of town). Then Scribner and Cole
discussed Havelock's opinion on syllabaries but discounted it.

This is one of the unresolved problems in writing system theory.

The information in your book solidly corroborates that Vai and Cree
are written with significant underrepresentation by the native
speakers and that linguists have suplemented these writing systems
with additional characters to make them fully phonemic.

The Tamil syllabary was likewise altered by the Jesuits and two more
vowel columns were added, as well as a shift in symbol shape, when
Tamil typography was first developed several centuries ago. Once
again this is part of writing system history.

Among some groups of Cree, where the script had, in fact, fallen out
of use, the orthography was made more phonemic when linguists
encoded dictionaries and all their Cree text in Roman orthography
and then transliterated it back into syllabics. I saw this happen -
it is part of the history of this script.

Among other groups where there was continuous use of Cree, linguists
did not have the same influence and the Cree themselves continue to
write without the pointings and simply keyboard the syllables.

However, I suggest that it was the influence of computers that
caused the group which has standardized full pointings to do this.
It is because they keyboard from a roman alphabet and watch the
computer transliterate the script as they type. I would suggest that
the manner in which a script is keyboarded is part of how the script
functions.

Sorry to be so longwinded but I believe that your own work has
contributed significantly to how scripts are encoded and keyboarded
and think that you should be happy to be involved in the development
of new technology for scripts.

This spring I was busy trying out the Tamil syllabic editor for
Tamil students and glyph-based input for Chinese students and I am
happy to report that they loved it.

Suzanne