Michael Everson wrote:

>
> At 16:30 -0400 2005-08-22, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > > >Do you really not see that you're requiring the
> >> >billions of non-roman-users in the world to
> >> >change their lifelong habits -- and their
> >> >centuries or millennia of cultural tradition --
> >> >for your convenience?
> >>
> >> I didn't invent Pinyin, or Pinyin-romanized input
> >
> >For the umpteenth time, pinyin isn't used by anyone after third or
> >fourth grade. It's for foreigners.
>
> Nevertheless I did not invent it and I am not requiring them to use it.

I am getting very tired of this. You make excuses for things being as
they are.

You do not seem to realize that I am saying things could be much, much
better.

> > > for Chinese. I didn't invent Roma-ji input for
> >> Japanese. The Japanese did that. I didn't devise
> >
> >Japan had romaji before it had roman-input computers.
>
> Nevertheless some Japanese use Latin-input on
> their computers, and are not forced to do so by
> me or any other Latin conspiracy trying to crush
> their cultural tradition for reasons of
> convenience.

Then what _is_ the reason?

> > > the QWERTY-based keyboards for Devanagari or
> >> Arabic or Hebrew. Apple did that.
> >
> >Hebrew is irrelevant; aside from its direction it presents no special
> >challenges to the typist. (Israelis react almost violently to the
> >inclusion even of the sin/shin dot in Modern Hebrew typesetting.)
>
> Nevertheless, Apple ships both QWERTY-based as
> well as non-QWERTY-based keyboard drivers for
> Hebrew.
>
> >The Arabic keyboard bears no relation to QWERTY, but Apple's WorldScript
> >I took care of all the contextual forms automatically as well as the
> >most common ligatures. (It left out several characters needed for fully
> >pointed text, however, such as dagger alif and hamzatu l-wasl.)
>
> Nevertheless, Apple ships both QWERTY-based as
> well as non-QWERTY-based keyboard drivers for
> Arabic.
>
> > > I did devise QWERTY-based keyboards for Inuktitut
> >> and Cherokee, alongside other keyboards. Both
> >> have their uses.
> >>
> >> I have devised a QWERTY-based Vai keyboard which
> >> seems to work very well. A non-QWERTY-based Vai
> >
> >Seems to whom? How many Vai people with computers have checked it out?
>
> It seems to me to work very well, in that with
> it, I am able to type Vai text accurately with it
> without much effort or difficult. I am developing
> this software, and Vai isn't formally encoded
> yet, and so no one else has "checked it out" yet.

So you haven't asked a single Vai-writer whether they would prefer a
keyboard with 294 keys to one with 48 (scil. 47 -- where do they stick
the extra one?).

> > > keyboard would be hard pressed to give users
> >> access to 294 characters plus digits and ASCII
> >> punctuation without deadkeys (since 48 x 4 =
> >> 192). Moreover, Vai speakers (who number 105,000)
> >> live in a country whose official language is
> >> English, so it's not as though the Latin script
> >> is unknown to them. A QWERTY-based keyboard for
> >> Vai would hardly be a curse upon them.
> >
> >It would hardly be optimal.
>
> Oh come on, Peter. Follow the argument.

There is no "argument."

> I say that a QWERTY-based keyboard for syllabic
> input (where s + a = sa) will enable Vai users to
> type all 294 Vai characters plus all the digits
> plus all the ASCII punctuation (needed for URLs
> and internet access) plus typographic punctuation
> (like smart quotes) on the hardware which they
> *will* be using, that is, US/UK QWERTY-engraved
> 47- or 48-key keyboards. Into the bargain, the

And I say that new hardware would be far, far preferable.

> Vais live in an English-speaking country, and any
> Vai who uses a computer will already be literate
> in English, or will have to become so if he or
> she wishes to use any software in the foreseeable
> future. (One would like to see basic software
> like Firefox localized into Vai, but it would be
> unrealistic to hope that much more will ever be
> localized and maintained for this market.)

Ethnologue lists 69,000 English-speakers (1993) out of 3.4 million
(1989), or 2%, and literacy of 25% for the country.

> Would you like to suggest another configuration
> in which 340 characters can be squeezed into a
> keyboard layout based on another model, with 192
> positions available in 48 x 4? To get more, you
> will have to sacrifice some of those positions
> for dead keys. That's doable, but what will the
> layout principles be?
>
> >What is so offensive is your assumption that the Western way is the best
> >way -- and that you refuse to recognize that it isn't.
>
> I haven't said this. I have taken pains to point
> out to you that I devised *both* QWERTY and
> non-QWERTY keyboard layouts for both Cherokee and
> Inuktitut, and that I recognize that there are
> Cherokees and Inuit who have first learned to
> type English and by whom QWERTY is considered
> easier to learn than another layout.

You're still talking about "keyboard layouts" for the 47 (or 48)-key
keyboard, right?

> > > >Shift was devised for a particular quirk of
> >> >contemporary roman, cyrillic, and greek.
> >>
> >> Shift was long used in other traditions. For
> >
> >You have a curiously short notion of "long."
>
> These things are relative.
>
> > > Arabic shaping fragments, for instance. The 1962
> >> Standard Hindi Typewriter used shift states to
> >> access half-forms in some instances (MA, M-) and
> >> different letters in others (U, TTA; DA, DDA).
> >
> >This is not 1962. In 2005, computers can be expected to do all the
> >automatic shape-changes automatically.
>
> What I was pointing out was that the shift state
> was used in India long ago, by Indians, and was
> not a quirk imposed upon India.

Right. Shift was independently invented in India. For scripts that have
nothing like the case-relation of the European alphabets.

> > > >Option isn't used for any ordinary English
> > > >characters, and Shift-Option is an immense
> > > >imposition on the typist.
> >>
> >> Façade, naïve, résumé. All English words
> >> correctly spelled with diacritical marks. In
> >> Ireland we use option for áéíóú and shift-option
> >> for ÁÉÍÓÚ and this causes no particular hardship.
> >> (I say this as one who typesets books in Irish
> >> regularly.)
> >
> >All those words are correctly spelled without the diacritics.
>
> Not in good typography, they aren't. Consult
> Bringhurst or any other work on good typography.

Orthography is not determined by typographers; it is registered by
lexicographers.

> And Irish typists do not feel imposed upon by
> having to type Shift-Option for ÁÉÍÓÚ. (I repeat
> this because it refuted your point that
> "Shift-Option is an immense imposition on the
> typist".)

Show me drills for typing "Shift-Option-A" in typing manuals.

What does Option-e Shift-A produce with that keyboard? S-O-Vowel gives Å
´ ˆ Ø ¨ on a standard Mac.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...