Re: Bopomofo keyboards in Taiwan

At 10:38 -0400 2005-08-31, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

>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?

No one manufactures keyboards without letters engraved on them.

I have already said (several times) that in
addition to QWERTY-based transliteration-deadkey
keyboard drivers for Cherokee and Inuktitut, I
have also developed non-Latin-alphabet keyboard
drivers for them.

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

I can type all 340 characters in my Vai +
extended punctuation set, on a 47-key keyboard,
just fine.

> > > > >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.

I wonder, idly, what you think you mean by that
phrase, but it really doesn't matter to me. It's
just an insult. I am a realist who works,
successfully, to provide technical solutions for
people who use minority languages worldwide, and
my experience is that they are a lot more
gracious about those solutions than you in your
ivory tower are.

> > 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?

I have, and I have used other software, and
mixing LTR and RTL scripts is inconvenient at
best.

> > 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.

And only useful if Arabic hardware is more
readily available in Liberia than English
hardware, which is unlikely.

> > 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?

This insinuation is contemptible. You have
insulted me, and you have insulted the good Vai
experts with whom we worked to encode this
marvellous writing system.
--
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com