At 09:02 -0400 2005-09-01, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> > >WHY ARE YOU INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING. The "Latin" approach to typing
>> >Vai is NOT a good (let alone ideal) solution -- because it would require
>> >an entire different level of education to get syllabically-writing
>> >people to grasp the concept of segmentation.
>>
>> You couldn't be more patronizing if you tried, I am sure.
>
>I'm beginning to think you really are stupid.

All that obtuseness must get in the way of your seeing more
correctly, then. You've done all you can not to read and understand
the intent of anything I've said, or of the very nice restatement of
that position which Marco presented. I suspect your agenda on this
forum is not to discuss and to learn and celebrate, but just to
pontificate. I don't really understand what the payoff you get for
that is...

>How many times do we have to tell you, it has nothing to do with "stupid."

You said: "The "Latin" approach to typing Vai is NOT a good (let
alone ideal) solution -- because it would require an entire different
level of education to get syllabically-writing people to grasp the
concept of segmentation."

Well my goodness. For a Vai to be able to use my keyboard layout he
would have to *learn* something new.

And that something *isn't* alien to him. Because syllabary charts he
has seen for his script are arranged in terms of segmentation.
Because his script has doublets and triplets all through it, like
PEE/BHE which are similar in shape and rhyme but differ only by the
initial consonant. Like KPEE/MGBEE/GBEE. Like CE/JE/NJE/YE. Like
FU/VU. Like FO/VO.

Indeed, a Vai would have to be pretty unobservant NOT to be able to
perceive the distinction that some glyphs represent sounds which are
different in consonant but the same in vowel.

>It has to do with some years of pre-preparation.

A person can learn how to use a computer with no years of
pre-preparation. A person can learn how to bake bread with no years
of pre-preparation. Vai people are not cursed to be incapable of
learning alphabetic input for their syllabic script.

>Do they also want to have to learn to read and write English -- which is
>a considerably different task from speaking Liberian English, even if
>some fraction of them do so?

A Vai person who does not learn some English will have a very tough
time using a computer indeed. The Vais I have met, who want to use
Vai on computers, speak English.

> > And you are wrong about Vai people being incapable of learning how to
>> segment syllables. Their syllabary charts are arranged with
>> consonants on one axis and vowels on another. In real books given to
> > real children.
>
>I did not say "incapable." I said that people who have not been
>educated in an alphabetic literacy cannot segment syllables.

"Cannot" is synonymous with "incapable". Though to be more precise,
what you said is that syllable segmentation would be a new skill they
would have to learn.

And the skill isn't that new, because their script has built into it
a pattern which indicates a certain segmentation, and because their
script is presented in syllabary charts. "Hm," says the learner,
"I've forgotten how to write TA. Heres' the T- row, and I follow it
over to the -A column....

Wow, that's just like T + A = TA.

>Once again, I am not going to waste my time downloading a 1 Mb
>document -- let alone looking through it to find what information
>you may or may not provide.

If you were really interested in learning about the world's writing
systems from others who have spent time and effort studying them and
analyzing them, you might have deigned to have downloaded the
document we have been discussing for the past month. As you have not
done so, it is clear that you're not really interested in Vai, but
rather in just picking a fight.

>Is it too much trouble for you to copy and paste one paragraph? (If,
>in fact, it includes such information.)

Frankly, I don't see much reason to reward your rudeness just now by
doing you any favours.
--
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com