Word splitting & hyphenation conventions in roman transliteration

[U. Hayavadana]

At 13:17 18.02.99 -1000, Raja wrote:

>The literacy rate in India,
>which was about 19% when the
>British went away, rose to
>about 52% in 1990-91.[...]

>By either argument, it seems that
>the literacy rate will be over 90%
>30 years from now (at worst).
>Actually it may happen sooner,
>because some large states like
>M.P. and A.P. have targeted
>full literacy by 2020.

"at worst". why aim at the worst? south canara and udupi districts in
karnataka already have 100% literacy, right now. does that mean we
should all immediately switch over to kannada? i would say the high
literacy there is "in spite of" kannada script, and not "thanks to".
there are other factors for the high literacy there.

>So the real question is: will
>starting a brand new controversy
>in India (about switching to
>rOman skript) accelerate the
>spread of literacy?

why are you refusing to see the point?

we can do all sorts of things. for instance, we could decide that the
whole of india should learn chinese. with enough effort (manpower,
financing, training,...), we can make everyone learn that language, and
its script and everything and make everybody literate. we'll import all
the computer software that's needed for using chinese on all our
computers and stuff. sure it's possible. tell the poorest of our poor
that we'll guarantee him an annual income of rs. 100000 and a contessa
car, and he'll gladly learn chinese or anything else we ask him to.

but should we?

the one script that already is used by significant numbers of people
*all over india* is the roman script. anybody can see this plain fact.
roman script does not have 52 letters, as i've already proven after your
earlier complaint. this new complaint of yours doesn't get very far
either because it's beside the point. if you're just sentimentally
attached to our old scripts, that's okay. i like them too. but that
doesn't make them efficient. i already explained last time what i mean.

using roman is very simply the most efficient, also cost-efficient means
of spreading literacy. why don't you want that? use the script of your
own ancestors at home, in your private correspondence. but if we want to
give literacy to illiterates, who have no script at all now, let's give
them something efficient. if you want to give somebody an animal to ride
on, then give him a horse instead of a donkey, if you have both to give.

h




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