Michael Everson wrote:

>
> 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.

Seems like it might be cheaper to manufacture lots of identical keycaps
than 80 or so different keycaps as on a standard keyboard.

> 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.

And you stubbornly refuse to believe that for people who are only
syllabic-literate, dividing those syllables into consonants and vowels
is a totally new intellectual skill that needs to be learned anew as
from First Grade.

> >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.

And you're going to "engrave" all 340 symbols on the keycaps?

> > > > > >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

I mean someone who thinks the way he does something is the best way for
everyone else to do that something.

Especially if he's a First World technocrat telling a Third World person
how to do that thing.

> 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.

If they are told that it's the only way, then they have nothing to
measure it against.

> > > 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.

Not for the Nisus user. You click the big arrow at the top, and you're
ready to type Hebrew or Arabic. I had to abandon it years ago because
their Tables tool was lousy, but for typing Hebrew and Arabic within an
English text, and vice versa, it was excellent.

> > > 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.

Why? Because Arab entrepreneurs haven't noticed the market yet? Or
because Arabic computing is controlled from the US or Europe?

> > > 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.

What's marvelous about it? Who _are_ your Vai contacts? If they're not
associated with the power elite, how did they get out of the country?
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...