Hi Peter. Good point. However the context of this particular document
is handwriting and "natives," not typing or typesetting. I won't
reproduce the text here, but if you want, take a look at the document.

Don

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...> wrote:
>
> In 1930, most "printing" was done with a typewriter. Most
typewriters did not have dead keys (French typewriters had a dedicated
key for each accented letter.) Diacritics were thoroughly impractical.
Nothing "racist" about it.
>
> Masica *The Indo-Aryan Languages* notes that Konkani uses a hyphen
in the middle of a geminate because a doubled letter marks retroflex:
<mallo> = /ma:l.o/, <mal-lo> = /ma:llo/ (1991: 153).
> --
> Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Don Osborn <dzo@...>
> To: qalam@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2007 9:17:42 AM
> Subject: Re: "FaYe" - a proposed new script for Yoruba
>
> Hi Peter, all,
>
> Re diacritics, what is the prevailing opinion (if any) among experts
> in writing systems? Obviously they are common in many languages for
> different purposes and it's just a question of learning them.
>
> The 1930 edition of Practical Orthography of African Languages has
> this statement about diacritics:
> "For practical purposes in everyday life diacritic marks constitute a
> difficulty and a danger."
>
> However that is couched in what reads like a thoroughly colonialist
> (read racist) evaluation of capacities of "natives." (See
> http://www.bisharat .net/Documents/ poal30.htm and search
"diaccritic" )
>
...