At 13:38 -0400 2005-08-22, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> > 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.

Working to encode an unencoded script (that you didn't think there
was any need to use on computers anyway) and working to make a
keyboard layout that is practical and useful is in no way cultural
imperialism.

> > Nor is it obvious as to what a non-QWERTY Vai keyboard might look like.
>
>Maybe like what Suzanne would like to have available for her Tamil and
>Chinese (and Cree!) children.

Take a piece of paper. Draw your 48 keys. Assume you can use 4
shift/option states and deadkeys. Then come back to us with your
beautiful keyboard and we'll see how many of the 284 Vai characters +
digits + ASCII and typographic punctuation you can allow your users
to type.

>As I said, I've seen a kana keyboard, with 50 + 10 + a few keys; a
>Vai keyboard might need 200 or whatever keys, or there might be some
>principle for doubling up.

Specifying a Vai hardware keyboard with 200 keys will guaratee that
the 105,000 Vai speakers will never, ever, get to be able to use
their language on computers.

When I have finished making my Vai keyboard specification, I shall
show it to Vais, of course. Of course.
--
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com