Re: Bopomofo keyboards in Taiwan

Michael Everson wrote:

>
> At 20:44 +0000 2005-08-30, suzmccarth wrote:
>
> >I believe that you are ignoring research to the contrary.
>
> Suzanne, the standard Ethiopic keyboards are alphabetic. Bugger the
> research. The facts are that some people (lots of them) who use a
> syllabic script are able to type using alphabetic input.

Are you aware that Ethiopia's biggest language, Oromo, is written with
roman script? (As is its close relative Somali.)

> >On other points, have you read Scribner and Cole, The Psychology of
> >Literacy, 1981.
>
> Yes.
>
> >Few Vai are biliterate in English and Vai. Fewer still can read Vai
> >in the English alphabet. However, the Vai literates have little
> >access to electricity so they won't be likely to use a computer for
> >Vai at all. Then who will write Vai - one supposes English literates
> >who have learned to use the English alphabet for Vai and can now
> >input Vai roman orthography and have it appear as Vai script.
>
> Well, Suzanne, I have challenged you or anyone else to offer design
> principles for a non-alphabetic Vai keyboard.
>
> >The greater number are monoliterate, in descending frequency from
> >Vai script to Arabic to English; close to one-third are literate in
> >two scripts;
> >and a few individuals have achieved mastery of all three writing
> >systems. Biliterates overwhelmingly represent the combination of Vai
> >syllabary-Arabic learning. Considering all Vai script literates,
> >better than 40% know Arabic as well; or, considering all Arabic
> >literates,nearly one-half, (49%) also know Vai script. In contrast,
> >co-occurence of either Vai script or Arabic with English is rare.
> >Going to an English school seems to represent a cutting point, an
> >educational choice that turns the individual away from participation
> >in learning either of the two traditional scripts. Exclusivity of
> >English and Arabic is understandable, since both literacies require
> >extended daily study during roughly the same age period. The rupture
> >between English and Vai script rests on less apparent factors. Vai
> >script does not require an extended periond of study and is
> >customarily learned in adulthood. Our conjecture is that youth who
> >attain English literacy in school are drawn to pursue opportunities
> >in the cash economy, thus cutting themselves off from available Vai
> >script tutors as well as the cultural supports fostering interest in
> >the script."
>
> So what?

Why don't you visit the Cherokee communities in Oklahoma -- or virtually
every other Native American community -- and ask them "So what?" with
respect to what the government schools and the Catholic schools did to
their children between about 1900 and 1950? Two to three generations of
having their native languages beaten out of them has managed to
extirpate almost every one of those languages.

Doesn't the memory of the Gaeltacht come creeping up on you?

> What does this mean with regard to teaching people to type t + a for
> ta and t + i for ti? It is impossible to imagine that a Vai using a
> computer will not know the Latin script. It is certainly impossible
> to imagine that a Vai will get very far using a computer without such
> knowledge.

Then you are condemning more than 70% of all literate Vai people to
having no access to computers:

Table 6.2 Script knowledge among Vai men. (N=290)

Total number of literates 191
Vai script only 53 27%
Arabic only 38 20%
English only 32 17%
Vai-Arabic 47 25%
Vai-Arabic-English 5 3%
Vai-English 6 3%
English-Arabic 6 3%
English-other (e.g. French) 4 2%

All Vai script 111 58%
All Arabic script 96 50%
All English script 53 28%

It doesn't even occur to you that Arabic computers would be almost twice
as effective in the Vai community?

> Assuming access to the basic alphabet (which EVERYONE in Liberia has,
> insofar as the road signs are written in Latin script), it is not
> outrageous to suggest that Vai people, who are as smart as anyone
> else, can be tought to type t + a for ta and t + i for ti.

You really are a cultural imperialist.

And you seem never to have so much as opened an anthropology text.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...