Re: Labelling Vai Keyboards

Jonathon Blake wrote:

>
> Michael wrote:
>
> >It does not change the sociolinguistic nature of computing in the
> early 21st century, freeing users of (e.g. African) syllabic scripts
> from the burden of having to learn to read an alphabet.
> > It's unrealistic to pretend that they will not have to learn an alphabet.
>
> Explain why it is unrealistic for a person who uses a syllabic writing
> system to expect do data input in that writing system?
>
> Why do they have to go thru a writing system that uses an alphabet
> that they would not otherwise use?
>
> On a purely theoretical level, a thirty person L10N team can produce a
> desktop in a new language within a year. (Operating system, office
> suites --- including spell checker and grammar checkers, Internet
> suites, audio-visual tools ) Writing documentation will take another
> year -- and can be done by people whose only language is the target
> language.

Do all of the thirty need to know the language themselves?

***
What would a spellchecker be for a language that doesn't have a
standardized orthography?

You do realize that no one who can actually write English (i.e. passed
Freshman Comp, even though it used to be something mastered in high
school) uses a "grammar checker"? (I don't know how well described the
Vai language is, but even if it has a grammar of the quality of
Whitney's Sanskrit, Dixon's Dyirbal, or Keren Rice's Slave, it probably
isn't the case that a codified/able tradition of Vai prescription exists
for the "grammar checker" to check.)
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...