--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Michael Everson <everson@...> wrote:

>
> Oh, for heaven's sake. The road signs in Liberia are in Latin. Are
> you suggesting that the Vai people can't make heads or tails of

them?

> Vai people are multilingual as are most people in West Africa.
> Whether they speak the trade language Liberian English or whether
> they have learned standard English, it's just not credible to

suggest

> that a Vai who is going to use a computer would be disadvantaged

in

> any way by having the consonants and vowels of his language

related

> to the engraved Latin letters on his keyboard.
>
> I say again: Vai users will use QWERTY keyboard hardware. That's

just

> a fact. If they buy a laptop, it will never have Vai engraved on

it.

> A QWERTY-based keyboard layout *can* give Vai users access to 350
> characters, which is all of the Vai characters in the proposal,

plus

> needed punctuation and digits.
>
> That would be a keyboard layout where "s" + "A" = SA. "s" + "EE" =

SEE.

>
> If you think this is imperialistic

You never heard that word from me, Michael. I live in a world where
people are either courteous or they are not.

or impractical, please tell me how

> you would fulfil the brief: Allow a Vai user with a 48-key laptop

to

> access all 350 required characters.

I doubt they would know what to do with 350 characters. That is why
they only use 60 - 90.

And this is why we are talking about prototypes as virtual
applications.

I have sat beside Tamil teenagers who just backed off the computer
when they looked at Tamil MS input but relaxed and laughed with "I
can do this" when they tried the 'syllabic editor'. By the way, they
could speak and read some English by then.

However, these teenagers could produce powerpoint presentations
without being able to read *any* English instructions. It was the
*first* task they could do. So you don't have to be literate in
English to use a computer. Some kids just use trial and error and
memorize the icons. Why then should you have to be literate in
English to type in your own script.

Suzanne