--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Michael Everson
<everson@...> wrote:
the Vai user who wants to go to

> http://www.vai.lr is, amazingly enough, going to have to figure

out

> how to type h and t and p.

No problem. Tracking the visual image is how it is done. It's how
most of us do it. You guys may all know how to say a URL or
email address out loud and communicate it with speech but
some of us neophytes just google something we already know
and hope for the best. Then when we recognize the URL in
google we go for it.

For email, I only answer email, (or don't) I am also capable of
copying an email address from one place to another. In fact, if I
can't find a person's email by some visual method then I don't
communicate with them.

I can even maintain the school website with my total lack of
ability to read instructions. What I do is open a previous page,
find the configuration I like, go to code, copy code, return to new
page, paste code - voila. I have no idea what the code means,
but life is short! Alphabetic literacy or 'computer literacy' does not
need to enter into it. (Believe me there was no contest for the
job. Everyone is grateful that I do my little bit. But I know nothing
about computer literacy except that 'think like a five year old'
works best for me.) So put me in with the illiterate if you like.
Maybe you won't feel that I look down on someone else who can't
read either.

Copying any string of English letters is no big deal. But going
from a syllabic symbol to the English letters is a different thing.
Unless you consult the chart, of course.

Suzanne

>
> How long would it take a Vai person to learn what the letter T

means?

> And the letter A? And that typing one after the other allows him

to

> type the Vai syllable TA? Years? Months? Hours? Minutes?
>
>
> --
> Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com