Hello Don, everyone,
I am new to this list (and not an expert on writing
systems) but from what I've read here and on the
provided links so far, it doesn't seem outlandish to
contemplate including Mandombe, particularly if it
being used by a sizable group in everyday life.
I would be interested in knowing if there is any
discernible sign of local influence in the script. I
ask because although some African writing systems are
'new' and the result of outside stimulus, they very
much appear to have their roots in the indigenous.
The Vai syllabary, Adinkra, Nsibidi, Bamum, Bambara
etc. (some newer than others) resemble each other,
seeming to derive from a regional (West & Central
African) ideographic style that is old enough to have
made its way early to the New World during the
trans-atlantic slave trade.
See the link below for some samples:
http://www.ziva.org.zw/afrikan.htm
Thanks,
Uchenna
--- Don Osborn <
dzo@...> wrote:
> Hello Suzanne, all,
>
> 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://www.bisharat.net/wikidoc/pmwiki.php/PanAfrLoc/Mandombe
> ,
> 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/921
> >
> > I could not believe my eyes but you then repeated
> it here.
> >
> >
>
http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/Unicode-Afrique/message/929
> >
> > 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."
> >
> >
>
http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/Unicode-Afrique/message/931
> >
> > What does it matter how this script *seems* to you
> -
=== message truncated ===
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