Re: Bopomofo keyboards in Taiwan

At 05:05 +0000 2005-08-31, suzmccarth wrote:

> > I never said anything about academic qualifications.
>
>I have heard you say that you "know the structure of the world's
>writing systems."

Which I do. That doesn't mean I felt the need to have a set of
letters after my name to "prove" it. The list of technical documents
at http://www.evertype.com/formal.html is a corpus of work which has
involved the analysis of many writing systems for encoding, so that
they can be used in the context of the Universal Character Set.

>These people may disagree in terms of which labels to use when but
>they all agree that segmenting the syllable is a script specific
>task. Yet, you have not refered to any research which supports your
>position other than your own 'reality'.

I have been talking about practical implementation of input methods.
I note that Vais, as a minority, are unlikely to encounter hardware
keyboards with Vai characters engraved on them, and they are unlikely
to encounter software localized into Vai for a good long time. Do you
dispute that? I note that a QWERTY-based input method is a way of
accessing lots of characters, indeed the whole set of Vai characters
to be encoded in the UCS.

>Cognitive psychologists in the western world have two basic theories
>on reading acquisition. One is that children recognize chunks of
>visual information, and the other is that they learn to segment the
>syllable and become aware of discrete phonemes.

I learned my letters with an alphabet song, and I learned spelling by
what was called "phonics".

>However, producing materials and instruction on how to *teach*
>phonemic awareness is a multimillion dollar industry right now.

Gosh, and people have been learning to read for centuries before we
discovered phonemes, too.

>According to you, people can keyboard without either any visual
>information relating to their script being present,

I said no such thing. Most people learn to type with some sort of
chart next to their desk. I did say that it was unlikely that Vais
will fine anyone manufacturing keyboards with Vai characters engraved
on them.

>and without being taught how to segment the syllable, (which would
>be of dubious success to those who became literate in the
>traditional way.)

I bet you $10 dollars that a Vai-speaking person with a QWERTY-based
keyboard driver who wanted to type Vai would be able to learn how to
do so without his cognitive psychology unravelling.
--
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com