Re: REPLY: Foriegn lang. credit for braille / FW: Braille...

From: peter_constable@sil.org
Date: Wed Sep 22 1999 - 11:44:32 EDT


       Subject:
       Re: REPLY: Foriegn lang. credit for braille / FW: Braille (was
       M
       ---------------------------------
       
       
>And the message by Jim Angerbrod on UNICODE list (that is
       quoted hereafter) seems an aswer to the current topic on the
       BRAILLE list: not only Braille is not a language per se, but it
       is not even correct to say that it is a different way of
       writing English. Braille is actually a different way of writing
       any language - potentially any language.

       It seems to me that the best way to think of Braille is as a
       script that can be used as the basis for orthographies of many
       different languages, just as Latin, Arabic or any other script
       could be used as the basis for the orthographies of many
       different languages. It just happens that there is a very
       simple mapping between Latin-for-English and
       Braille-for-English, but (apparently) the mapping between
       Han-for-Chinese and Braille-for-Chinese is at all simple
       (indeed, not algorithmic).

       Here's a follow up question of interest: Scripts such as Latin,
       Arabic, Han work well as the basis for orthographies of some
       languages, but not necessarily for other languages. (E.g.
       Arabic script was not that well suited for writing Turkish.)

       Q: Is Braille better suited for writing some languages than for
       others?

       Metrics would be things such as
       - ease of learning
       - ease of remembering spellings or of recognising new words
       - reading fluency
       - writing fluency

       But this question gets us a bit off topic.

       Peter



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