Oki unicadettes,
>> [... not as confident ... that ... every ethnic group with a written
>> language will be ... supported by ... computer systems ...]
> The sine qua non is to get them supported by the
> Universal Character Set first.
I've never encountered a language educator, American academic or tribal,
nor a tribal person working as the operator of, or acquisition agent of,
computer systems, who shared the sentiments offered in the rejoinder
shown in its entirity above.
I suggest to the list that it is an expensive distraction to attempt in
one list to periodically revisit what is unlikely to be reconciled, at
least while a human language remains in use and without a writing system
both reduced to a tractable number of conventions, preferably a single
standard, and those, preferably unique and unambiguous, elemental forms
modernly employed as "writing" are not yet "supported by the Universal
Character Set".
We can respect our diversity of fundamental views by division within the
community, or we can continue the ugly Unicode list tradition of watching
the periodic unsub-with-comment from people who joined this list in the
hope of finding, or forming, the mechanisms to recover, preserve or even
expand the computer-mediated use of some language only they, of all of
this list's subscribers, use.
I'd like the assistance of our always congenial and vigilant list owner
to privately compile a list of list-unsubbers to send an announcement of
a second Unicode mailing list -- one with a charter that isn't yet in
writing (revenge for the double entendre of the latinate tag of "sine
qua non"), and for the mechanics of establishment of this "writing first"
list.
I expect that two lists will work better than one, and only technical
material need be on both lists, and the non-technical, whether policy
reflecting fundamentals but of limited scope or applicability, or just
momentary reactivity and cultural bias, need not be on both lists.
I hope that the beneficiaries of this industry consortia are more than
just the shareholders of the member companies, who gain a better return
on investment in the area of market entry, but also those very language
educators and system operators, for who's language's requirements no
positive RoI is imaginable.
Kitakitamatsinopowaw,
Eric
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:20:53 EDT