Michael Everson wrote:

>
> At 22:48 -0400 2005-08-30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> >People who have not learned an _alphabet_ cannot divide a syllable
> >into anything smaller.
>
> I'm always amazed at estimations about what people "cannot" do.
> People can learn. That's how we survived the Ice Age.

Yes. Even adults can learn to read, since reading isn't an inborn human
ability like speaking.

But without _learning to read an alphabet_, people _cannot_ divide a
syllable into anything smaller.

> >I don't know what "the Ethiopic 'standard' keyboard" may be,
>
> It is not a formal Ethiopian National Standard specification (yet),
> but it is the most common computer keyboard configuration available
> on various platforms.

So there is no Ethiopic standard keyboard.

> >but the Amharic typewriter keyboard that was made by Olympia is not "consonant
> >followed by vowel," for the simple reason that the 182 basic Ge`ez
> >shapes, not to mention the labiovelars and the extra Amharic diacritics,
> >could only be fitted onto a standard typewriter by making lots of
> >ingenious dissections of the characters.
>
> Yes, those typewriter keyboards were ingenious, given the hardware
> technology. To my knowledge, no software emulates that layout,
> however.

--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...