suzmccarth wrote:
>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
> wrote:
> > Michael Everson wrote:
> > >
> > > At 08:52 -0400 2005-08-22, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > >Peter Constable wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > From: qalam@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:qalam@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
> > > > > Of
> > > > > > Peter T. Daniels
> > > > >
> > > > > > But one of Unicode's principals says they have to do romanization.
> > > > >
> > > > > Wherever did you get that idea?
> > > >
> > > >From his postings to qalam.
> > >
> > > In any case, I didn't say that anyone "has to" do romanization. All
> > > Vai speakers will have had access to the Latin script, however, so
> > > it's not so bizarre to suggest that many of them might prefer a
> > > QWERTY-based keyboard.
> >
> > Yup, cultural imperialism.
>
> Not at all. I believe that English literacy is so desirable to
> members of minority language groups that they often *prefer* English
> digital literacy.

I'm not particularly talking about minority language groups. I'm talking
about a billion Indians, most of whom use some descendant of Brahmi.

> However, my argument is that not *all* members of minority language
> groups can be bilingual so there should be alternate input
> available. Sometimes it develops very naturally, as it has for
> Chinese, Cree and now to a certain extent with Tamil. However, there
> are often conceptual obstacles to be overcome and it is worth
> discussing, but in a dispassionate way - to contribute to lateral
> thinking and examine practise.
>
> > > Nor is it obvious as to what a non-QWERTY Vai keyboard might look like.
>
> I think some of us are enjoying deepening our knowledge of the Vai
> syllabary and realize that it poses unique keyboard challenges.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...