New Cherokee typing software ==> CJ shorthand?

[David Robertson]

Hi,

This news might bear on the desired creation of a font or software for 
writing Chinuk Wawa shorthand.  I wonder if they'd consider taking on such 
a project?

Dave R.
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Begin forwarded message:


From: "Tweed Courtney" <tcourtney at ohaitech.com>
Date: Tue Nov 8, 2005 4:26:16 PM America/Vancouver
To: "Tweed Courtney" <tcourtney at ohaitech.com>
Subject: PRESS RELEASE: OHAI Creates Cherokee Software
Reply-To: <tcourtney at ohaitech.com>

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

 

OHAI Creates Cherokee Software  


 


 

Houston, Texas, November 8, 2005 – It is now easy to type Cherokee, thanks 
to OHAI Technologies and the Rice University Linguistics Department.

 

Georgia, 1809: A Cherokee silversmith named Sequoyah began creating 
the “Talking Leaves” – a writing system for the Cherokee language. In 1821, 
12 years from the original idea, the Cherokee nation adopted Sequoyah's 
alphabet and within months thousands of Cherokee were literate.

 

Fast-forward 184 years to Houston’s Rice University Linguistics Department 
where a graduate student and a visiting scholar from a software company 
create a way to type the Cherokee writing system easily!

 

The graduate student - Chris Koops - has conducted linguistic research on 
the Cherokee language for the past 2½ years. In October, Chris attended a 
colloquium given by Daniel Mailman, visiting scholar in the department and 
CEO of OHAI Technologies – a Houston-based software company.

 

The colloquium was about “Software Technologies that Make Typing Foreign 
Languages Easier”. After the colloquium, Chris showed Daniel the 
difficulties of typing the “Talking Leaves”. That conversation led to Chris 
and Daniel collaborating to create oCherokee – software that actually makes 
it easy to type the written Cherokee language.

 

According to Chris: “The basic challenge with typing the Cherokee syllabary 
is that the characters represent syllables – and not sounds, as in the 
English alphabet. That means that there are a lot more characters than our 
26 letters. Previous input systems were difficult to use and time-consuming 
to learn, as they required the user to memorize the position of over 80 
keys. OHAI makes it possible to write the Cherokee syllabary without any 
memorization at all.” 

 

Daniel says: “This was an extremely fun project that shows how fast and 
easy it is for scholars and software developers to make typing systems for 
any language. oCherokee isn’t a commercial language product like oChinese, 
oVietnamese, and our other language products. Nevertheless, we feel that 
there is social merit to the project, and that it is very much in keeping 
our commitment to “21st Century Literacy”.

 

OHAI plans to make oCherokee freely available to linguists, scholars, and 
students of Cherokee.

ABOUT OHAI TECHNOLOGIES: 

OHAI’s input tools make it easy to type foreign languages. OHAI’s products 
close the productivity gap for many languages including Chinese, 
Vietnamese, Spanish, and many other European languages. Our products enable 
our customers to use their computers in their language their way – quickly, 
easily and accurately! 


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For more information, please contact:
 Tweed Courtney

Communications Director

OHAI Technologies

Voice:    713.521.1340

Fax:      713.520.0793

Email:    TCourtney at OHAItech.com 

Web:     www.OHAItech.com
 



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