Thanks Peter. You're probably right, but I generally give such
proposals some respect, even while being skeptical. The N'Ko movement
after all began half a century ago with Souleuman Kante (not a trained
linguist or typographer) deciding to develop an alphabet for Manding.
The relative success of that may be the exception and in any event the
space for new alphabet inventions is changing: It is both easier to
develop an alphabet idea and publicize it, and less likely that it
actually be widely adopted.

On the other hand, the two invented alphabets (of the several) in
Africa that seem to be having the most success are N'Ko and perhaps
Mandombe (which was created in the '70s in what is now D.R. Congo
mainly for Kongo language). Not sure what conclusions to draw except
that it may reflect more than people with too much time on their
hands: is there something with the Latin orthographies for African
languages that somehow just doesn't work for some of their speakers?

In any event, I'm sure that we have not seen the last new alphabet. I
just wish that new-alphabet proponents would look at existing African
alphabets & proposals before beginning their own.

My response to the creator of the FaYe alphabet, should it be of any
interest, is at http://www.quicktopic.com/15/H/KKgbRqJUAR8 (message 320)

Don

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...> wrote:
>
> Giving him the benefit of the doubt by supposing he only meant
"speech sounds," English has (under the usual analysis) 43 phonemes.
And that's hardly an excessively large number.
>
> The guy is simply a conlang hobbyist who has no more claim on our
attention than any other.
> --
> Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Don Osborn <dzo@...>
> To: qalam@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2007 9:37:45 AM
> Subject: Re: "FaYe" - a proposed new script for Yoruba
>
> Not sure what to make of that, Peter. It may be that some research in
> perception/cognitio n tells us something about individual human
> abilities to process and distinguish "unique sounds" (though that
> needs definig!).
>
> Such as for instance that research has found that humans can retain an
> oral string of about 7 digits plus or minus. It's a question of
> short-term memory. That fact says nothing about which digits (of
> course) nor does it imply anything about our capacity to memorize
> longer strings of digits.
>
> Similarly, the info about 34 sounds may relate to something but not
> have any implications for the number of phonemes we can distinguish,
> nor for that matter the optimal number of characters in a script.
>
> But I would be interested to know more if anyone can clarify.
>
> Don
>
> --- In qalam@... com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@ ..> wrote:
> >
> > Do you agree with the inventor that "humans can only delineate
> between about 34 unique sounds"?
> >
> > --
> > Peter T. Daniels grammatim@ .
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: Don Osborn <dzo@>
> > To: qalam@... com
> > Sent: Friday, September 14, 2007 10:56:47 PM
> > Subject: "FaYe" - a proposed new script for Yoruba
> >
> > I think I've written before that Africa is a continent of many new
> > alphabets. One I just recently learned of on the Yoruba language & ICT
> > board* is called FaYe, and was developed by Remi-Niyi Alaran.
> >
> > See: Ijebu Drums blog, Tuesday, September 04, 2007, "The Yoruba FaYe
> > writing system" http://ijebudrums. blogspot. com/
> >
> > Don
> >
> > * http://www.quicktop ic.com/15/ H/KKgbRqJUAR8 message 317
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>