Michael Everson wrote:

>
> At 09:27 -0400 2005-08-31, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > > I helped to encode Cherokee, by the way, as well as
> > > Canadian Syllabics, and now Vai.
> >
> >Yet you insist that they access these softwares via English.
> >
> >How can you not see the contradiction?
>
> What hardware keyboards do you expect them to have access to?
>
> What computer software do you expect them to have access to?

Is there are reason that these more limited syllabaries can't use the
standard 47-key keyboard with NO ROMAN LETTERS ON IT WHATSOEVER, with
keyboard drivers that produce the right characters on screen, WITHOUT
GOING THROUGH A TRANSLITERATION-TO-ROMAN STEP?

Vai, obviously, can't use a 47-key keyboard.

> Would you like to assist the Vai and help to
> design a non-QWERTY-based keyboard layout that
> can access all the characters required?

Looks like both Richard and Suzanne are interested in doing that.

> > > >Doesn't the memory of the Gaeltacht come creeping up on you?
> > >
> > > Is dócha nach bhfuil mórán eolais agatsa faoi sin.
> >
> >My, my, aren't you clever.
>
> Yes, despite what people say.

Some people say you're not clever? All I say is that you are a cultural
imperialist.

> >Arabic-Vai computing would be more useful than English-Vai computing.
> >See the table you again deleted.
>
> I saw it.

But you deleted it so that it would not be available for reference.

> >Bidirectional text processing already exists, so
> >it doesn't matter how "complex" it is, and
> >knowing to push some button to switch between
> >Arabic and Vai doesn't seem any more complex
> >than knowing to push some button to switch
> >between English and Vai.
>
> Actually doing text-processing mixing RTL and LTR
> scripts is a pain in the ass, is what I was
> trying to say. English-language-based computers
> and software will likely be easier for most Vais.

Never tried Nisus, have you?

> In any case, in making a Vai keyboard for Arabic
> hardware, one would map the alphabetic deadkeys
> to the engraved Arabic keyboard, then. It's still
> an alphabetic approach.

And thus is no better than the English-based one, but accessible to a
larger fraction of the Vai population.

> > > > > 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 taught to type t + a for ta and t + i for ti.
> > > >
> >> >You really are a cultural imperialist.
> >>
> >> That'd be laughable, given my work record, except
> >> that it's just another pointless little jab, so I
> >> guess it's not very funny.
> >
> >None is so blind as he who will not see.
>
> Truer words were never spoken.
>
> You know what? I know some actual Vai people. And
> they are happy with my work. Ain't that something.

At a guess, they belong to the Western-oriented, educated elite. Which
sides did they take in the Liberian civil war? If Idi Amin or Baby-Doc
Duvalier, from their comfortable exiles on the French Riviera,
commissioned work from you, would you suppose it was for the benefit of
the people of Uganda or Haiti?
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...