Re: Labelling Vai Keyboards

At 11:18 -0400 2005-09-01, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> > 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.
>
>Yet you keep calling him "stupid."

I never once called him stupid. I have maintained throughout that he
is perfectly well able to learn the Latin alphabet, and to learn
about segmentation in order to input Vai text. (And I suggested that
it would be in his interests to do so given the nature of the
hardware and software available to him.)

> > 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.
>
>What use is a syllabary chart keyed with roman letters to someone
>without roman-letter (i.e. English) literacy?

Ask the people who print the syllabary charts and distribute them to
Vai children in schools.

But you dodged the point I was making. The doublets and triplets
which are similar in shape and rhyme but differ only by the initial
consonant is a form of segmentation.

> > 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.
>
>Now you've switched from "stupid" to "unobservant." You would look a lot
>less foolish if you would simply consult the psycholinguistic literature
>on syllable segmentation.

I did not call him unobservant. I said he would be unobservant if he
did not notice that is script has doublets and triplets which are
similar in shape and rhyme but differ only by the initial consonant.

>There is no pattern built into the script. Don't you recall arguing
>about that with Richard just last week?

Yes, and I argued that there are patterns in the script. I argued
that the clear patterns are within the rhyme columns, not between
them. Richard was trying to make connections between them, and that
did not convince.
--
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com