Switching between Arabic and French

[Edward Cherlin]

On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Walter Bender <walter at laptop.org> wrote:
> you can switch the keyboard on the fly, using the language key. you
>  can switch the language of the interface per session, using the
>  sugar-control-panel. most activities can accommodate Latin and Arabic
>  scripts concurrently.
>
>  -walter

There is another related issue. Hindi and Urdu are the same language
written in Devanagari and Arabic scripts, respectively. Hausa, spoken
mainly in Nigeria, was formerly written in Arabic alphabet, and more
recently in Arabic. Mongolian was written in Cyrillic in the period of
Soviet domination, and the Mongols would like to go back to their
traditional alphabet. It used to be normal for people in India to
speak three or four languages written in different alphabets, and
often more. The Hope Flowers School in Israel teaches in English,
Hebrew, and Arabic.

>  On 3/18/08, Ralph A. Mack <ralph at macksoft.com> wrote:
>  > Hello,
>  >
>  >  I have a question.
>  >
>  >  Schools in at least some countries in the Middle East and the Maghrib
>  >  typically teach in Arabic first and then a European language, typically
>  >  French or English. Therefore, I can envision students having to do two
>  >  written assignments, one in Arabic and another in French, for different
>  >  teachers in the same week. (I can imagine this issue would arise in
>  >  other areas as well.)
>  >
>  >  Short of switching the operating language of the device and restarting
>  >  it, is there a way to switch between entering Arabic language text and
>  >  French or English language text from activity to activity in the current
>  >  emulation images? If not, is this considered a desirable feature? Would
>  >  it be considered confusing? Has anybody suggested an alternative
>  >  approach for bilingual students? Has there been any feedback from folks
>  >  focusing on education in the Middle East or other affected areas about
>  >  this? Do they consider it important?
>  >
>  >  [Here's what puts the question squarely on the devel list....] Assuming
>  >  that some feature with the needed effect is in the cards, who is working
>  >  on it? Is it complete? If not, how can I help? While it would affect
>  >  many areas, I suspect it would be felt most sharply in Write (as might a
>  >  number of bi-di issues, at least in the last image I tried).
>  >
>  >  Lupestro
>  >
>  >
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>  >
>
>
>  --
>  Walter Bender
>  One Laptop per Child
>  http://laptop.org
>
>
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-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay