Re: Reduced Vai Repertoire

At 20:57 -0400 2005-08-22, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> > 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.
>
>Making them think in roman alphabet is.

Yeah, right. Chinese users who prefer pinyin input aren't m

> > 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.
>
>Why are you unable to imagine a keyboard with other than 48 (or 47)
>keys?

That's not my brief. My brief is not to devise a virtual keyboard
layout for use on a hardware keyboard that doesn't exist. It's to
devise a virtual keyboard layout for use on real computers. I have
begun with a QWERTY-based layout which works. I do not see how the
repertoire as specified above could easily be implemented with other
layout principles.

> > When I have finished making my Vai keyboard specification, I shall
>> show it to Vais, of course. Of course.
>
>You do know that Liberia has been in the throes of a civil war,
>under complete anarchy, for quite a while now? With child soldiers?
>Whose hands are cut off as a warning to others?

Yes, of course I am. The 92nd Infantry Battalion of the Irish Defence
Forces was deployed in Liberia in December 2004 as U.N.
peace-keepers. A week or so ago there were some programmes on Irish
TV about them. See http://www.military.ie/overseas/africa.htm

I know Vais with computers who are outside Liberia at present; it is
these people with whom we worked on the encoding.
--
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com