From: Uchenna
Message: 6264
Date: 2005-10-12
> Hello Suzanne, all,http://www.bisharat.net/wikidoc/pmwiki.php/PanAfrLoc/Mandombe
>
> There's a lot we don't know, or didn't know, about
> Mandombe (that is
> "we" outside of RDC & Congo, and with English as the
> main language of
> discourse). There is some more info at
>
> ,http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/Unicode-Afrique/message/921
> including some links.
>
> I won't defend Michael's statements on this issue,
> but I would put it
> into a larger context. On the one hand there is a
> very successful
> script of recent origin in the Mandephone areas of
> West Africa - N'ko
> - that shows the potential viability of new writing
> systems. I won't
> contend that it is better than others, but simply
> note that it has
> caught on, and local people are teaching it to their
> peers. As a
> script for a first language / lingua franca, and as
> a movement it
> seems to have a positive effect on literacy,
> education, and local
> initiative (and without outside donor assistance &
> agendae). Older
> invented scripts in the region, such as Vai and
> (Mende) Kikakui
> persist and have been valuable to people locally
> without a lot of
> attention from outside.
>
> On the other hand there are a number of new or
> would-be scripts
> proposed by individuals or small groups that dn't
> seem to have much
> chance at viability. On Unicode-Afrique it was noted
> earlier that a
> professor in Senegal was going to devise a new
> alphabet for all of
> Africa, and that a merchant in Gambia was going to
> act on a dream
> about a new writing system. In the case of Hausa
> there have been a at
> least three proposals other than the standard Boko
> (Latin-based) and
> traditional Ajami (Arabic-based) orthographies:
> http://www.bisharat.net/Demos/Hausa_alphabet.htm
> http://www.bisharat.net/Demos/Hausa_alpha_2.htm
> http://www.bisharat.net/Demos/Hausa_alpha_3.htm
>
> At a certain point, one starts to question the
> usefulness of such new
> propositions, however well intended and rationalized
> they may be.
> Invention of new alphabets is of course not limited
> to Africa, as
> members of this group would know, but because of the
> history of that
> continent, indigenous alphabets are for many a
> potential source of
> identity and authenticity that was compromised by
> colonial occupation
> etc. However, too many new alphabets would seem to
> be
> counterproductive to larger goals of education,
> communication, and
> regional unity.
>
> In the case of Mandombe, it does appear to one
> seeing it for the first
> time to be an impossibly complex maze. Understanding
> a little more
> about its tightly logical organization, it called to
> my mind something
> I read in passing some years ago (forget the
> reference, but it was a
> forgettable script) as a new writing system for the
> world. By that I
> mean that with many small changes on a base, you can
> have many
> different sounds, but the resulting similarity of
> everything meant you
> had to pay very rapt attention to each form in order
> to read text in
> it (or so it seemed to me; this was not like Chinese
> characters which
> have many unique forms and resulting combinations,
> but rather used
> positioning and number of dots and straight lines to
> make the
> distinctions, as I recall).
>
> However the proof is in the usage. Patrick raised a
> question about the
> script a while back, but at the time few people in
> cyberspace had
> answers and it was easy not to give much attention
> to the issue, and
> even to think it may be just another wishful attempt
> to introduce a
> new writing system. However he and Denis Jacquerye
> have researched it
> a little more to bring additional info to our
> attention. So, if this
> script is indeed actively used for one or more
> languages in central
> Africa, then it certainly can't and shouldn't be
> ignored in the
> Unicode process.
>
> This shouldn't imply that every script proposed
> should be in the
> standard, but I think we all agree on that.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Don Osborn
> Bisharat.net
>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "suzmccarth"
> <suzmccarth@...> wrote:
> >
> > --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Michael Everson
> <everson@...> wrote:
> > >
> > > At 21:09 +0000 2005-10-08, suzmccarth wrote:
> > >
> > > >Legacy standards? - or is there a difference
> because of the
> > > >difference in language families? That is why
> Tamil is so different
> > > >from other Indic scripts. It is from the same
> *script* family
> > > >historically but there are so many conceptual
> differences.
> > >
> > > It has no major structural differences, however,
> which is why it has
> > > been encoded like the rest of them.
> >
> > That is the point. The scripts are related, the
> languages are not. So
> > they may look the same but users of the script
> think of them
> > differently.
> >
> > However, I was just googling for Mandombe and came
> across your
> > exchange in the Unicode-Afrique list.
> >
> > You say,
> >
> > "Est-ce qu'il y a des utilisateurs de cette «
> > écriture » ? Des enfants qui l'apprennent dans
> > l'école ? Je connais ce matière, mais la question
> > reste... n'est-ce que le klingon soit plus « vrai
> > » comme candidat pour le codage dans l'ISO/CEI
> > 10646 ?"
> >
> >
>
> >http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/Unicode-Afrique/message/929
> > I could not believe my eyes but you then repeated
> it here.
> >
> >
>
> >http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/Unicode-Afrique/message/931
> > Let me get this straight. Mandombe, the script
> "For the Blacks" is
> > less real as a cnadidate for encoding than
> klingon? The Mandombe
> > script, used for the Kikongo language, spoken by
> several million
> > people, is less *real* than klingon, a mythical
> lexicon of insults,
> > written for the most part in the latin script.
> >
> > Do you ever intend to learn the difference between
> language and
> > script, between reality and fantasy, and add a
> little courtesy? I
> > notice Ogham is encoded and Shavian, etc etc. Is
> this how Unicode
> > works?
> >
> > But there is more. You then say,
> >
> > "Cet écriture, comme chose trop
> > compliqué, illisible, etc, me semble qu'un
> > candidat pour le PUA. Il faut montrer qu'une
> > écriture est vraiement utilisé."
> >
> >
>
> >=== message truncated ===
> > What does it matter how this script *seems* to you
> -